Workin' at it Every Morning

For the past three years my sister and her kids have been coming over in the mornings to exercise. I miraculously ended up with a treadmill and Mindy was determined to put it to use. At first we would each slowly walk for a half hour and call it good. Mindy and I were both expecting at the time and didn't want to overdo it.
After time went on and babies were born, we ramped it up to a slow jog. 1 min, 5 min, 10 min and finally 30 whole minutes of slow jogging. After the 30 minutes of slow jogging got easier, the next milestone was to jog for three miles in thirty minutes. I remeber the first time I hit that mark and it wiped me out for the rest of the week. It is tough to jog fast enough to get in the three miles.
This past summer Mindy and I set the goal to run a 5k race. We did it and then the mileage tracker on the treadmill went out. We went back to running 30 minutes without knowing how fast or how far we were going.
After Christmas we both invested in the Garmin Forerunner that tracked more than just speed and distance. Being able to see the progess while I am running is a great motivation to go a little further or a little faster.
Running three miles became too easy so I'd add an extra mile on Friday's and run four. After running four miles a few times, why not add one more? So, one Friday, I ran five. Yipee! Mindy ran six right after me. Not wanting to be outdone by someone older, I ran seven miles the following Friday, with a total number of eighteen miles for the week. This last Friday I wanted to push it a little further and ran nine miles in 86 minutes, nonstop, for a total of 19 miles for the week. With only one mile away from 20, maybe I'll try ten miles this Friday!