Leaves are falling

After a month off from running, I got out there yesterday. The day began full of sun and decent temps, but by the time I started running, the sky had clouded up. About halfway through my run, I felt a few raindrops that fortunately did not turn into an all-out rain. Not so bad when it is almost 50 degrees nearing the end of February. Worth noting is that a leaf hit me in the face during my run, which struck me as odd since it is February. Shouldn't all the leaves have fallen off by December at the latest?!

As I began the run, I felt pain somewhere, and I tried to make note of it for this post, but I forget where exactly, so that is probably a good thing. What is not so good is that my left knee has been bothering me since the run; it feels as if I twisted it. Weird, because it is usually my right knee that bothers me. My thighs also are a bit sore, but I blame that as much on swimming some laps at the pool an hour later as I do the run and subsequent five trips up and down the outside gym steps. Yeah, I definitely got in a good workout yesterday.

When I started running, since I had just gotten over my cold, I told myself to take it easy and not be worried about time. This is hard for (competitive) me, and when I looked at my stopwatch on my cell phone as I was nearing the top of the hill at the end of the first mile, I did try to push myself so I would not be too far over 10 minutes.

Mile one: 10:25
Mile two: 8:54

Even though that time is worse than what I did last month, which was against the wind (there was some wind yesterday), I am satisfied. I was sick last week and did almost no exercise. Plus I have to think my nearly gone cough had to affect my running. I know I was breathing hard during most of the run. But the important thing is I went out there and did it. And swam some laps after that. Oh, and I did Zumba yesterday and plan to do it again today.

Hopefully in another month or two, I can work on getting my time back down. But until then, I will try to focus on just getting exercise.