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I want to join in the reassurances that you *did* manage to run 12 times in 4 weeks, and you *did* have 3 data points that you were hitting roughly your target pace and tbh I think getting lost and being responsible for a small child are more than enough explanation for doing worse.

(Also, small child has lots of other chances for a race, and the first one doesn't have to be definitive of the experience thereafter, and that's a good life lesson for all children to learn anyway. You haven't ruined her life experience of running races.)

I am pretty sure that whatever your current pace is, you're faster than me! And I refuse to feel like running isn't for me. Like you say, it has the two huge advantages that you can do it whenever you can put on trainers and find time, and that it actually improves your fitness in a rapid way. I've never done Parkrun and I've not done much organised running, but I got a hell of a lot out of running by myself, which is why I am so excited to be inching my way back to doing so again. I will never be a fast runner, and there's a certain freedom in accepting I'll always be one of the slowest in any given event, so there's just no point to getting competitive about it with anyone but myself. (And in fact, right now I'm being extra un-competitive, because I'm doing c25k with my child, and I don't want to spoil his enjoyment of it by making it a competitition rather than a thing we do together.)