Couch to 5K on the happy path!

I had no expectations. In fact, I had every reason to expect a poor run today. Let me list a few of the things. It's zero out, my last run was in the mid 20's. It's windy and probably going to rain or snow soon. My right knee squeaked at me a few times yesterday, starting during the SLOWEST SWIM IN YEARS. (It's amazing I wasn't harpooned and dragged out to be rendered down.) I had a massage yesterday which is lovely, but history says the next run is crap. I'm wearing long pants and a jacket. I'm still getting used to new shoes.

But I'd just seen a video of my buddy Julie explaining something using her cat and a crabapple tree as a prop. I didn't think of it much as I limbered up, dressed, limbered up some more, started walking, then started running. I figured I'd go do my run, ho hum, get on with whatever is next in my busy retired life.

Then I started channeling Julie again, as I turned a corner and started running into the wind. At first I was all, glad I wore a hat and gloves, but this kind of sucks. Then I thought of Julie, out running in the wind (not just the wind, but THE WIND!!!) down in Crows Nest Pass. Plus biking and swimming in it too, during her many years of training for her many Ironman races. (I seem to recall her trying to hire an excavator to modify the little river near her place so there was a channel 50 m long and swimming depth, but maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe there's fishery rules preventing such modification.)

Julie would sneer at such a breeze, if she even noticed it. So I stopped noticing it too, and got on with my run. One of the ways of noticing that it's a nice run is is that you don't notice it. Your body gets in the groove and away you go. I wasn't breathing hard, my legs felt good.

This has been my road to get back to running. Everything has to be at least not cranky to carry on. I don't run for a particular pace or distance. I run as long as my legs are happy and my lungs are keeping up. I'll usually finish that K if things start going crappy, just in case they get it back together again.

So today, other than noticing one shoe was a little looser than I liked, but not so much I wanted to fix it, I was thinking about my novels, and how two of my characters are going to continue to be frustrated. I was thinking about the two photo gigs I have tonight, and the planning to make sure I can do both. That second battery is almost charged.

About 3 K I noticed it all felt good, and thought briefly about my route, and the possibility of doing 5K. Then next thing I noticed my phone was telling me I'd done that 5K, in 35:18, or 7:03/K, nice and relaxed, not breathing hard, legs not bothering me at all, not even one squeak from my knee. Still, one of my rules is to stop before I have to stop, so I stopped, and had a nice walk back to the house.

It's been 5 months since my last nice run. Five months! And about a year since I was regularly having good runs. I'm happy to be back. Now that I've done it, the goal is to get regular doing it, 3x a week, feeling good about it.

Some cheerful happy dahlias to match my mood just now. Especially this one. It's such a cheerful yellow, and the sunshine makes it even more so, though the photo doesn't really do it justice.

These two are not the same dahlia. They were taken several weeks apart. Do you have a preference?

And no, these are not the last of the dahlia shots. Stay tuned!