Slow down, take it easy

Oooh, I left this off in a bit of a dark place, didn't I! I drifted off into that eerie space where you either pick yourself up and go run, or become someone who 'used to'.
Since my last post, a lot of things have changed....I got a payrise (wahoo), and things have been going very well at home (lots of love) but I have to say that the most wonderful thing is that after almost nine months of running, I've finally gone and become a runner!
I had a few very dark weeks of really poor, disappointing efforts, and of having to drag myself out the door, and yeah, just horrid.
I skipped the middle race of the SIS series, and was kind of looking for ways to slack off and duck out of the third, but I'd paid for it, and well....I decided worst case scenario it'd be a nice walk. My preparation was poor-I stayed up late, though admittedly it was a lovely night, and I did at least manage to eat my traditional pre-race meal (pizzaa!).
I didn't have the nerves I usually do, because I wasn't expecting anything. Plus, I was alone, so I think I felt less pressure. I was early enough to do a nice slow warmup, jogging gentle laps around the grassy area near the start, hopping back in the queue at the start line, then hopping out to run a few more laps when I felt jittery.
My wave left and I decided to maybe just jog slowly...after awhile I fell in behind a couple doing a really slow pace (much slower than what I'd usually do-but cannot sustain). They were trim and neat in matching white 2xu hats, so I dubbed them the 2xu twins.
And behind them I stayed. And stayed. Slowly puttering along behind them. At the 3.5 mark the lady stopped to walk but the man kept jogging (yes, they were going that slow) so I passed them, carefully reining in my stride to avoid burning out. I ran up a hill, growling out loud, refusing to be one of the chubby girls walking up. I ran through fed square and over the bridge. I ran down the line and I finished. My throat went all tight and I thought I'd cry because I'd finally actually RUN a race, instead of running half a race.
It was a slow time, but I don't care. Because I ran all the way. And I haven't stopped since.
I realise that a play by play of a newbie's race is probably incredibly dull, but I have gained so much from this race, when I went in expecting nothing. I learned the most important thing I've learnt since I started running-to slow the hell down! I passed a lot of girls doing what I used to do- running along quickly before flagging to a walk, red faced and exhausted.
Since then I've undertaken a REAL training plan, and I can now run for about 40minutes nonstop, covering almost 6 kilometres. Baby steps to many, but my baby steps are getting bigger all the time.