I love those days were I can really see the progress

Today is one of those days where I can really see the progress I'm making. Sometimes it feels like I'm not really getting any better for weeks which can be kind of frustrating, but then there are those days like today where the difference to just a few weeks ago is just huge.
It's Saturday and you all know what that means - Long run day!
However, it's also recovery week (My training plan always has two 'build' weeks followed by one week recovery). That means, I did 'only' 10km today. Only seems a funny word in this context (unless you take into account that one of my flatmates ran 30km!!!!! this morning) but after doing 12km last Saturday it's 'only' 10 this week.
The point I'm trying to make here, is that I ran 10km and I felt great the whole time. It took me about 80 minutes of which I ran 48min & 30seconds! In comparison, when I did 10.5km 2 weeks ago I only ran 41minutes and it took me almost 90 minutes.
Besides that I felt really good and was able to run for over 4minutes even towards the end before I had to walk for a little.
I've generally been having a good week. As I mentioned before my sisters was staying with me for two weeks and we did some traveling around New Zealand which was just AWESOME. However, it meant that my exercise routines got a little messed up and so did my diet. But despite that I still lost some weight during these two weeks which is just really great. I'm happy to know that I can make little exceptions every now and then, as long as I keep up a minimum of physical activity.
Nevertheless, I've been really looking froward to this weekend to get some rest as the last two weeks have been pretty full on. And given that I already know I'll be working late everyday next week AND have my 14km race next Saturday it's probably good to the rest while I can.