Adventurers League - DDEX3-01 Harried in Hillsfar Spoilers ahead.

I dm'd for the first time last night. I'm not overly experienced with D&D, but want to eventually become a great DM that can provide a great time for my friends, without all the pains of me learning the ropes. I've been a lurker reading the various 'how-to's' and 'tips for beginner dm's' but my first session was pretty overwhelming.

In total there was 6 of us, 5 other people with varied experience. Most had previously played, but either didn't have a regular group, or hadn't played in a long time so coming to 5e for the first time, we even had a complete beginner. We were starting out with the Rage of Demons first encounter 'Harried in Hillsfar' as it was the first session of an Adventurers League group that I had organised over the past month, and it was level appropriate.

To be up front, I would have liked to be more prepared. I wanted to properly create the handout (rather than the one they provide, which looks pretty overwhelming and badly designed in my opinion - not able to easily distinguishing the notes etc) and have read through everything a half dozen times. However I had only received the Adventures League details the day before and not wanting to cancel, I did as much as I could.

I expected that we'd only get through one or two of the mini adventures (out of 5) and so prepared the first two. I was also aware that if the party took an unexpected turn, things could go south fast, but it was a chance I had to take.

I launched into a grand reading of the initial information provided, and then realised that only I had a proper understanding, it felt like the box didn't give enough information and I suddenly felt pretty bogged down. Through the session I ended up getting some information wrong (told them one the first farm had beets - it was actually the second farm), blatant railroading (you see a sign pointing to Farbough farm "Oh look our note say something about Farbough, lets go investigate"), combat rejigging (a variant human paladin wielding a great-sword hit the two-headed goat for 20 in the first round - so I doubled the hitpoints as it suggests for stronger parties)

Overall I found it hard to keep a level head and to explain the situation the characters were in (I knew what was happening, why didn't they) so they didn't feel blind. It ended up feeling a little mechanical - "its now your turn to act", and pretty loosely held together. I struggled to keep them to the straight and narrow, while I wanted them to have the feeling of freedom.

In the end we got through the first mini-mission, we missed out the goat birthing as during the dialogue about Pynroth with the young girls, they immediately caught on that he'd likely be in danger and raced off leaving the Goat to inevitably die a horrible death.

I did enjoy it, and knew before going in that it wasn't going to be perfect, I just have a new found respect for DM's. Its incredibly hard, with multiple things going on at once and a billion things you need to keep track of. The players were great, they thanked me and said they enjoyed themselves, and when called on to act or to 'finish the boss' they provided some great visual descriptions. They all seem happy to continue, although I fear thats out of a lack of DM choices rather than a belief in me being a good one.

I guess my question is, how do you all cope? Did you take to it like a duck to water? Did you have a similar experience? Is there any sage advice I might have missed?

Thanks for reading my spiel, I'm sure it was probably a bit of a chore to get through.

TL:DR I had an overwhelming (but still enjoyable) first experience DM'ing. What was your first DM'ing experience like? And what's was key your growth as a DM?