I BLOODY DID IT - 38 minutes and 37 seconds.
I've been working towards getting a "3" in front of my parkrun result for a while. I'd given myself until the end of this year to run a sub-40 minute 5K but, apparently, I didn't need quite that long.
My friend Rowena (and her sidekick, Hatter) was running with me and, despite knowing exactly what my goal was, she had deliberately not told me what pace we were running. This was probably helped by the fact that her watch works in miles and mine works in kilometres so any mid-run discussion about pace would require mathematical ability that I definitely don't possess whilst trying to breathe.
She knew though. And, more importantly, she knew it was achievable.
I knew Blackpool was probably my best opportunity to have a proper crack at sub-40. It's a very flat course apart from the incline by the bandstand and I'd been getting closer over recent weeks.
I also knew I'd set off faster than usual and had managed to run for longer stretches.
The weather was changeable but actually a great temperature for running and I felt OK that morning. To be fair, I nearly always feel OK when I arrive at parkrun. There's something about the atmosphere that gives me a lift before we've even started.
It was also the Blackburn Road Runners parkrun Championship meet for September, so there were loads of clubmates there. I hadn't announced that I was going for sub-40, although some of them may have seen me banging on about it on Instagram or Facebook. This goal was just for my own benefit (and a few bragging rights).
I thought I was done. She disagreed. Rowena knows me well enough to recognise when I genuinely haven't got anything left and when my head has simply decided that my legs have had enough. Apparently this was the latter... so she kept pushing. Then another woman running just behind us realised what was happening and joined in, telling me that if I didn't go faster she was going to overtake me.
Well, obviously I couldn't be having that so there was even something vaguely resembling a sprint finish. I crossed the line, stopped my watch and looked down.
There wasn't a huge emotional finish-line reaction. I was a bit overwhelmed, definitely, but this was also our club Championship. There were other runners finishing around me who needed congratulating and people still out on the course who we wanted to cheer across the line.
And actually, the lack of some enormous reaction doesn't mean I was underwhelmed by what I'd done. This goal wasn't for anybody else - it was for me.
There are runners who will look at 38:37 and not think it's particularly fast and that's fine. Outside of my short-lived sprint career as a teenager, I've never been a fast runner. Even when I was running at my best, I never broke 30 minutes for a 5K. My all-time PB is 31:13 and, if I'm realistic, I don't know whether I'll ever see that number again.
For a long time I think that's made it very easy to judge what I'm capable of now against what I used to be able to do. I'm trying not to do that anymore - I'm simply starting again... again.
Running has been a massive part of my life before. I was a team leader with Blackburn GroupRun and helped hundreds of people through Couch to 5K. I've stood alongside people who were convinced they couldn't run and watched them discover that actually, yes, they bloody could. I've run 10Ks and half marathons and I've chased PBs. I've had periods where I've loved running and periods where I've completely fallen out with it.
Then I broke both ankles within the space of four years. Throw lockdown into the middle of that, followed by a gradual and significant weight gain, and running quite literally stopped in its tracks.
Last year my husband was diagnosed with heart failure and we both made the decision that things had to change and part of that was losing weight. But part of my own recovery was deciding that I wanted running - and particularly parkrun - back in my life. Not the running I used to do but the running I can do now.
One of the ways I made myself commit to parkrun again was by returning to the Run Director team at Witton. These days you'll find me there most weeks as Volunteer Coordinator, checking everyone in, handing out hi-vis jackets and walkie-talkies and generally making sure everybody is where they're supposed to be.
I try to run every week now but most importantly, I'm there and I've realised that this has become a major part of getting myself back. And slowly, the speed and stamina has started coming back too.
I've now lost six stone and I've run a sub-40 minute 5K.
Those were two goals that, at various points over the last few years, felt a very long way away. I've hit them both so what happens to the 31:13?
Nothing. It stays there. That's what I ran when I was a different version of myself and I'm bloody proud that she did it but I don't need to beat her and that's probably been the biggest change in how I'm approaching running this time around.
If I spend every Saturday measuring myself against my fastest-ever 5K, I'm setting myself up for failure because that is based on an age category, a body, a fitness level and a life that I had years ago.
So I'm setting smaller goals.
Get a 3 in front of my parkrun time. Done.
Lose six stone. Done.
So what next?
My recent Witton time is 42:57, so on paper there are only three minutes between where I am and where I want to be but, unfortunately, The Beast doesn't give a shit about what's written on paper yet my time at Blackpool has shown me that there is more in my legs than I sometimes think there is.
Rowena already knew that and now I do too.
Blackpool gave me my first 3 and now I want one at home.