Today I ran 47 minutes, plus a 10 minute warm up/cool down walk. This is the longest I ever ran period, but it is remarkable to me not just because of how long I ran, but because I didn't let anything stop me.

I actually ran for exercise for the first time in 2006, but it was more of a chore and it wouldn't take much for me to put it off for later or never. I have made more progress in the last 9 weeks then in the last 7 years. I started C25K in week 3 and couldn't believe how quickly I was able to run longer and stronger. I graduated two weeks ago and decided to test my endurance, with 30 minutes being my minimum. I had challenges and at times became distracted or even discouraged, but today the little things that normally would have made me give up or walk didn't phase me.

First my IPod's battery was dead. I can't tell you how many days that would have been enough for me to say it wasn't meant to be. I have music on my Galaxy so I used that instead and started up the Mapmyrun app to check my distance. The app stopped measuring distance a half mile in. I could stop and fiddle with it or keep going. I kept going. Then I kept getting phone calls and texts and for whatever reason each call would stop my music player and a few times I had to slow to a walk to fix it. Now anytime I slowed down to a walk, even i usually give up, even if I hadn't met my goal for that day. That didn't happen this time. I kept going and I kept going. I pushed through. I kept running because I wanted to run, I love to run and that is what runners do. Next week I start the 10k app and I can't wait to see my progress in 6 weeks.