In conclusion, swimming does not keep you in really good running shape.

After three months and about 20 days, I finally hit my usual, two-mile running route, thanks to school's being back in session.

Almost immediately, my right knee hurt. My feet (stupid new Asics) were not far behind. Fortunately, the pain mostly subsided after about a half mile. Unfortunately, I had some side stitches to deal with after that.

I am not going to lie (not that I ever do in this blog or in general, actually): it was a pretty tough run. It took a lot out of me, and not surprisingly my time was not great (but not awful, either). At least I did it.

Mile one: 10:15
Mile two: 8:45

Total run time: 19:00

Because I felt I should have done better with such a short run and because I had time to kill, I ran the 65 steps 10 times after that. I have to say, running those steps made the two-mile run seem easy. It took everything for me to finish, and during the last trip, I was pretty much walking. I did manage to finish in 9:30, which is pretty good considering it came on the heels of my run (with a 10-minute break in between). And those stupid shoes...

Since I am subbing Wednesday through Friday and there is no way I would put my 39.5-year-old body through two runs, two days in a row, I am going to have to call it a week at least as far as running goes.

All that said, based on today, I am thinking I won't be running in the Steelers 5k this coming Sunday, as I had recently hoped (even though I had done little in the way of running this summer). I am just not sure I can do it in under 30 minutes, which would greatly disappoint me. I am still planning to run in the Race for Pace again. We'll see.