Successes and side effects

I have been going to the gym as frequently as my (and Husband's) schedule has allowed, after papers each morning (which has been 106-109 a day for the past few days, and COLD....where is this spring?). I run for approximately 40-45 minutes, around the track. 23 laps jogging, 1 lap fast walking to essentially stop, since my body reaches a state of equilibrium where it thinks it should jog forever, whether I tell to to stop or not. I always run in lane 4. It's pretty much the absolute center. People who are walking are in lanes 1-3, lane 5 is a jogging lane also, and lane 6 is a running lane. There are days when even some of the walkers are faster than me jogging.....but at least these are the speed walkers, so I don't suck all THAT badly. Lane 4 is 220m long. That means I jog 5.06km a morning, which is good, as my 5Km fun run is in a mere 16 days.
I'm doing well. I plug myself into my iPod (which is an immense help by giving me a rousing, pulsing beat and also drowning out my breathing) and chug around the track, trying my best to ignore everybody else, and not feel too badly about the fact that everybody seems to be in so much better shape than I and for the most part are all faster than me. After all, the main point of this is to get healthier and also to achieve the execution of an actual 5KM run, which is something I have never even signed up for before, let alone actually DONE it.
And to a certain extent, I am reaching milestones and successes. It used to be that 3KM would take me an hour. The fact that I am doing 5km in 45 minutes is a major achievement. My strides are lengthening and starting to get out of the chug-chug-chug look and more into the I-can-run-like-a-normal-human look. I know because half of the days I go, the direction I have to jog has me running 1/4 of the track facing a huge wall of mirrors. The other half of the days, I am directed to run the other way, so that I am running AWAY from the mirrors and would have to make a conscious effort and turn my head sideways to look as I passed them.
I feel better, too. I don't finish feeling like I'm going to have an asthma attack, though I still sweat like a pig when I am done and changing. I am getting the runner's high during my run, too, where I feel like smiling during some laps. I get second winds and don't feel like I'm absolutely going to die if I push on through the wall. I don't get all stiff and sore anymore....any signs of that last only a few hours at most.
I like to think I look better, too. I actually looked at myself in the changeroom mirror today (no, nothing gross, AFTER I was changed, get your minds out of the gutter)....and thought "wow....I really look pretty today!" This, for me, if you know anything about my background, is huge.
Then came the side effects. I stepped on the scale for my weekly weigh-in. I gained 4 pounds. 6 pounds in the last 2 weeks combined. What the hey? I've been eating well, working hard on getting that cholesterol level down....this had better be muscle and water! What a let down THAT was!
The other side effect is that I am SURE I have lost some fat off my arms....they are a little more...uh...floppy. Not nice. And also because of the reduced fat content of my arms, I am discovering new lipomas. I really am becoming lumpy.....or have been lumpy but only now have been in a state where they were find-able. At least they are not visible to others, and are just lipomas, not cancerous. I've read up on my condition and apparently some people get hundreds. I am not at that stage, thankfully.
So on I press, in the hopes of good health, good looks, and the achievement of the 5KM run on May 25th. Oh yes, and in the relief of a good night's sleep that will come with my finally quitting papers after delivery on May 27. Yay.