self concious about speed

Finding a running club is great advice, there will most likely be a selection of groups at the club with generally like minded people as well. It will help your running, you will have the ability to talk to people to help point you in the right direction with your training and if your guardian is concerned about your running it may provide them with some peace of mind too if they know for at least one of your 3 sessions you are supervised. Win win.

Ignore your mates... keep it up and have fun. Running is awesome

Abigail255 wrote (see)

 I'll try to ignore my friends, I guess I'm a bit over sensitive I've started looking into running clubs.

I don't think you're over sensitive at all - at least no more than the average. Surveys regularly show that something like 85-90% of all women avoid exercising outdoors because they're worried about how they look and what other people will think of them. And that's without their 'friends' taking the mickey!

You just have to work towards becoming one of the 10-15% of us who don't give a stuff what the general public think cause we're having too much fun running to care about whether we look a bit sweaty or not.

Great to hear you're looking for a club to join.

Just to back up RWD's original point. I watched Mo's 5000m in a TV room on a campsite. When they started off at their slow(!) pace cue lots of joking and comments about how people in the room could run faster than that. I was there thinking that I'd just done a track time trial of 5000m in 20:12, which was nearly 50% slower again than the pace they were "jogging", and I was pretty sure I could take down everyone in the room! People who don't run have no idea of pace. Actually, even most people who do run are pretty poor at it when they are just watching others.

I second everything about joining a club, you are more than ready running those distances and times!

I'm a teacher so I get no end of verbal when I'm running - most good-natured, some not. Just let it wash over you, after all, you are doing something positive for yourself, not for their entertainment.

How do they know you're a teacher?

Probably because it's his pupils that are shouting abuse