Progress!

I ran my usual 3-mile route this morning: down a big almost 1-mile hill, across a shorter way, up a big almost 1-mile hill and then across again. It's the course for a local 5K race so I know that the whole thing is actually 3.1 miles. I've been running this course since I started training and each time I've run it in 38 minutes and some seconds. While I can usually run a 5K in less than 38 minutes, I'll admit that, when it's time to go uphill, I take breaks and will run to a road sign and then stop and walk to someone's mailbox and then run again to someone's driveway, etc. It's not pretty but at least I'm doing it.

Well, today, I don't know what came over me but I ran down the hill, ran all the way across and then ran almost halfway up the big hill before I stopped. I only took one break and then I started running again and ran all the way up the rest of the hill (in the steepest parts!) and kept running until the end of the course. I didn't run up the hill quickly (a casual observer might have thought I was standing still but my feet really were shuffling along) but I kept going and I finished the course in 36 minutes and 47 seconds. I'm getting faster! I really do feel encouraged.

And I saw the biggest frog I've ever seen in person in the middle of the road. It must have been about 8-inches long, smooth and shiny green. I didn't even know we had frogs like that around here. Sadly, it was a victim of traffic but seeing this frog and the snakes and the other things I never seem to see on later morning or afternoon walks makes getting up to run at daybreak all the more rewarding.