Encouraging Progress

This morning I got up at a decent hour, threw my shoes on and forced myself out the door. That, in itself, is progress seeing that it's Saturday. I drove down to my walk's starting point in the grocery store parking lot, donned my dufus gloves and started walking.....fast. I kept the pace up and mixed a bit of running into the first mile and a half. I changed the route up a little bit on the way back and arrived back at my car three or four minutes past when I had planned to be there. I was already a little discouraged because I had started to question if the route I had taken was actually a whole 3 miles. I had to find out.

I jumped in my vehicle (I use that term loosely), reset the trip odometer, and retraced my path. It wasn't 3 miles..........................It was almost 3.5!!!! Yeah, baby! I can't tell you how much I needed to see that I was pushing forward. It just makes it so much more enjoyable when you know it's achieving it's purpose............getting me in better shape! This route, like all of them in this town, is quite hilly, and I try to make myself run most of the inclines. While I hate the hills now, I figure that having trained in a hilly region will really help me come marathon time. The course itself is quite flat, the only 'hills' being the border crossings of the Ambassador Bridge and the tunnel--which runs a mile under water. It should be easy going in but a real pain running out uphill the last half-mile.

I am so excited about this.