Back to the 70s

Windy but warm today, a far cry from this time last week. Temperature was in the mid 70s and I wore shorts and a t. Good strong run, with less walking over the 5 miles. I also cut my hair today for the first time since Labor Day and am now back in summer form. Maybe that's why the run went well - my head was streamlined.

Cold Snap

 The past couple of weeks since my last run have been crazy. About this time last week we were in the midst of a cold spell that lasted until yesterday, including a couple of rounds of snow that combined probably a foot or so. The worst thing was that Texas is not built for weather like that, and so we lost power for several days. The natural gas was also limited, not that it mattered since we had no electricity. We were supposed to have rolling blackouts, but being on for two hours out of 26 isn't exactly "rolling." Power finally came back on Wednesday, which was great after waking up several days to temperatures in the house in the low 40s. We were very blessed since none of our pipes burst. As of today everything seems back to normal, at least for the time being.

I sat out in the sun in the backyard for a bit this afternoon, dozing a little. Then I got going for a run since I desperately need the exercise and outdoor time. I took it slow and easy and went 4 miles, with walks every mile. It's odd to see that our temperature right now is 70 degrees, and just a few days ago we were at 0. I was actually overdressed today with short, a long-sleeved technical, and a regular t-shirt over it. It was good to sweat. Looks like the cold weather is behind us and hoping we can back to our regular Texas mild winter.

Punctuated by Walking

Maybe I should have had two big mugs of coffee today since it worked last time. I held off from running yesterday because of cold and mist, and then this morning was cold and windy. After lunch the sun came out and the temperature went up about 10 degrees, so I went out. For some reason I felt pretty lethargic and I only went 4 miles, punctuated with several walks. Maybe it was a bad night of sleep since I woke up with an allergy attack about 3 a.m. I was going to run more but decided this would be my intro to the running week and a warm-up rather than the long run from the previous week. It's supposed to stay cold through next weekend, and hopefully the wind and precipitation will cooperate so I can keep running.

Good 5

After Tuesday's short trial outing my knee felt just fine. Today was windy but sunny, and I can describe how I felt today as strong, with fresh legs from not running a lot the past ten days or so. I went the usual 5 miles on the usual path. I enjoyed it the whole way, which was nice because let's be honest, not every run is enjoyable. Sometimes it's a slog, other times you feel really good. Today was one of the latter.

Knee Tightness

After my run last Tuesday I was sitting in the living room. I got up and my left knee was stiff and I all but limped to the kitchen. Over the next several days the stiffness decreased but a little bit of pain lingered. This weekend was very windy and I could have pushed it with my knee but decided a little bit of rest was better.

Today I tested it and right away felt a tightness on the left side. It was very localized and now I'm wondering if I'm leaning against something that is causing pain, kind of like I experienced with the other knee and resting it on the edge of the mattress all night, every night. Regardless, I went a mile and then walked a half, and then alternated on the way back for a total of 3 miles. Right now it feels all right. We'll see about tomorrow. And I'm also going to be very alert to anything I'm doing that could be causing chronic pain.