A friend came from out of town to visit this weekend. He's been following the Couch to 5k program that I did several months ago. We decided to go for a run together. He's not all the way through the program yet, but he can run for at least 10 minutes at a time. I picked a route for us, just a short jaunt around the neighborhood

"Aw, this is going to be such a cute little run," I said to him as I gazed at the map of our route on my laptop screen.

And off we went. My house to the main street, right just past the church, around a little neighborhood road that loops back to the road we were already on, back up the main street, and then we're home. It took less than 15 minutes. It totally felt like a cute little run to me.

Wait a minute! This is shocking news! Or, at least, it would be to Joanna a year ago. "What? A run? Cute? Blergh. Running sucks," year-ago-Joanna would say.

What's more-- this run felt short! So short! I ran for a little under 15 minutes and wanted to keep going. Remember when I couldn't run for even 5 minutes at a time? Well, cool. There's progress for you.

This was also my first run with anyone else. I was worried about it beforehand. I was worried about matching our paces or being expected to talk more/less than I wanted to, etc. But no, it was perfectly pleasant. Maybe I could run with people sometimes.

I also baked cookies with this friend, and then I ate about a dozen of them in the past hour. I have a headache now. Bad decision, Joanna. (They were delicious. And now they are in my belly.)