Miracle, a couple of pounds, and advice...

So, Monday was a good day. I weighed in and lost 2 1/2 pounds!! Yay :)  Grand total so far... ready? 18 pounds! And the best part is that it hasn't been completely horrible. Or completely hard. God must be giving me some kind of miracle self-control, because I typically don't have that. I am so close to the cupcake I can almost taste it!! :) 1/2 pound to go (if I'm counting the extra pound to compensate for the cupcake damage).

I haven't done so great this week on exercising, until tonight. My usual schedule is Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays for running, and I was pretty busy Wednesday, so I skipped, with plans of doing it Thursday. Didn't happen. I was feeling all blah and just didn't have it in me. So today I felt like it was a must. If I can do it Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'll have all three days in this week.

So, today was beautiful. Sunshine, 60 degrees. I decided I had to try it again. Running outside. After the last outside run, I mean disaster, I was apprehensive about trying it again. But I received some very helpful tips from some great friends. Thanks again to everyone who gave me advice and ideas. I tried it. This afternoon, I told Noah I was going to run, and he decided to go with me. He made it for 17 minutes, which I think was fabulous. That was just enough time to make it back to our house. I kept going. I ran for the full 30 minutes of Day 1 of Week 9 of the Couch to 5K program!! I still can't believe it! After the pathetic attempt last time, only making it 3 minutes, I never thought I could do it, but I did!!

After we rested a few minutes, I drove around the neighborhood to see our running mileage. I don't know that this is a really authentic way of checking, but it made me happy, so I'm counting it :)  Noah ran for 1.2 miles in his 17 minutes, and in my 30, I ran 2.2 miles.

I know it had to look pretty slow to anyone who saw us. Noah even said we were running like old ladies. He said his grandmother could probably run faster than me, and he's probably right :)  But I did it. I didn't stop. I didn't walk. I kept going :)

So Sunday is my last day of the Couch to 5K program schedule. Almost completed 9 weeks! I need to spend this week trying to decide the next step. I don't know if I should add more time or try to go faster during that time to increase my distance. Any advice?

Thanks so much for reading!
Jen