Congratulations. You are doing great. The thing that keeps me motivated is continuing to see improvements. Going out and running that same 4 mile loop faster than I did a month ago with less effort is encouraging. Patience is a key in distance running. I have been running consistently now for 4 years and (believe it or not) am beginning to finally feel like I'm getting in shape. You are very consistent with your running. You are probably at a level now where, instead of taking 2 days off between every run, try to run every other day. I wouldn't increase the length of any these runs for about 6-8 weeks and let your body adapt to this new stress before increasing the distance. After the 6-8 weeks of running every other day and you feel comfortable with that, take (1) of your 4 mile runs and turn it into a 6 miler. Then, if that goes ok, slowly add distance to that (1) run a week. Good luck, Tom

Hey, no fair. You bumped me back a spot by jumping in directly ahead of me (you're currently 171 to my 172)! Seriously, though, welcome to the group! We both have some catching up to do to chase down the bunny, but, your goals of adding a day and a long run will get you there though.

I'm a slow runner but I'm willing to put the miles.

You are welcome to join our little group over at Back of the Packers too if you'd like... Lorrie

Welcome to the club! Make sure you build up slowly so you don't get injured. A lot of what keeps me going is seeing the improvements that I make as others have said. I started low heart rate training in February and have made some pretty significant improvements in this short amount of time. I run the same course, same distance every week to gauge myself. I've taken about a minute and a half off of my overall pace in that time (you can see it in my Saturday 3 milers in my log). It's amazing what we can do!!!!