Welcome Back

Made my return to running earlier today with a nice three mile loop from my house. I picked a great day to get re-started from a weather standpoint. Even though I waited until mid-day to head out, it was still only 24 degrees with a VERY nasty wind that probably brought the chill values down into the single digits. I was feeling sorry for myself until I read Jason Pyles' blog post a little bit ago talking about how he ran in 8 degree temps this morning with wind chills well below zero and then still had a second run to knock out this evening. Nice! Welcome to winter training.

In any event, today's run went well, actually better than expected. Aside from the weather and a little rustiness, I felt pretty good. My hamstrings were a touch tight as were my shins, but neither was anything bad, and the best part was my hips felt fine. Now the real test is how I feel tomorrow and what happens as I build some consistency and mileage. I'm gonna stay on the core work and get back in to see Dr. Gilbert early next week and hope for the best. That's all I can do.

I can't believe there's only two more days until Christmas. I always like Christmas, but for whatever reason, I've enjoyed it even more this year. Maybe it's having Kaitlyn around. I'm really looking forward to all the festivities Wednesday night and throughout the day on Thursday, but I can't help but wish I had a little more time to take everything in. Leslie and I love to ride around looking at decorated houses (the wilder the better!), and we've gotten out a couple times but not as much as I wish we could have. It's been extra fun this year hearing Kaitlyn exclaim "Wow!" when she sees a particularly bright house. Anyway, the next couple days are sure to go by in a flash but I know they're going to be a blast. I just hope I don't put on too many pounds eating all the good stuff everybody is cooking up. My current line of thinking (as warped as it might be) is that it's only a few days and afterwards I hope to really get back to training, so the motto is "don't hold back!" Could be dangerous - ha, ha.

I'll conclude with this piece of good news, the reason I look forward to this day every year as soon as daylight savings time ends. Today is the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight. From here on out, we'll get a couple more minutes of light every day. It'll take a few weeks to notice it, but my mid-January it'll be obvious and then before you know it no more runs in the dark. Let the countdown to spring begin!