Warmth.
Serious warmth. It wasn't that stinging blow from the north shoving into my apartment and sending my boys running for the hills. No, this was genuine warmth. And I knew I had to run.
Indeed, I went to the fridge for a drink of water and noticed something I'd scrawled on the greaseboard: "Run today!!" Yep, this was the day, the first time in at least a month that I shook off the offseason slumber for a turn on the roads.
So I headed south across Kimberly, waiting three full minutes for traffic to clear and for the signal to be in my favor. And I jogged easily, wondering just what I'd been waiting for all these months. The breathing was natural, the stride slow, long, purposeful. And then I got to the Duck Creek Trail.
What wasn't covered by frigid snowmelt was covered by ice. And sometimes there was ice underneath a couple inches of water. At least my feet didn't hurt, in large part because they were too damned numb. But I spent more time with my arms out balancing myself to prevent a fall, thanks to the ice that covered roughly 20 percent of the trail. I went out and back, 53 minutes in all. I ended up at the corner of the path and Marquette, which in happier times takes me around 40 minutes round trip.
My breathing was labored by the time I returned but what else would anyone have expected? I'm really blowing off about four months' worth of dust, making my last serious bout of exercise September 17, 2007, when I ran the Quad-Cities Half Marathon. Better yet, I was sweating, something that hadn't happened since then. I was in shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt and I was sweating. You never know how good that feels until you spend a couple of months not exercising and eating crap, the better to slow down your metabolism and save money (odd logic, n'est-ce-pas?). The soreness and aching lungs feel way better than that. I'm in it for the long hall.
I'm starting from Ground One but you've got to start somewhere.
