run like a mother.

Today I ran for the first time in, I don't know, maybe a year. I had always planned to be the pregnant lady who kept running right until labor. But I never imagined I would spend most of my pregnancy in winter snow ice sidewalks. So we bought a cheap elliptical machine that creaked a whole lot, and I caught up on This American Life and several seasons of Grey's Anatomy.

When we finished winter in the southern hemisphere, we moved to northern hem's winter--its wettest winter in years. We walked the hills I used to run up, and I bragged lamented about how fast I used to be. We walked those hills up until the day before I went into labor. I'd even secretly hoped I would have a daytime labor, so we could keep walking those hills--you know to progress said labor. But that wasn't gonna happen, and you can read all about it here if you're interested.

Today S and R dropped me off, so I could run around a busy lake about a seven minutes drive from our apartment. It's a small lake with coots, mallards, baby mallards, and egrets salting a tree-filled island in the middle of the lake. And way too many Canada geese (and their green logs of poop), because people feed them popcorn and wonder bread. (I don't get it at all. Here?)

I ran for 19 minutes, with 2 one-minute-long walk breaks. That's how long it took me to circle the lake, and I wasn't feeling up to circling it again. It did feel great to be out in the morning and to be running again. It was also humbling. We should never compare ourselves to anything, not even ourselves on a different day. Though perhaps that's inevitable.

{i love this pillow and find it highly motivational}

I've been running since just after high school. I started out slow and eventually I was trail running several times a week for up to 90 minutes at a time. (I love trails more than anything, and would prefer to never run on pavement.) Before I had foot surgery several years ago, I was fast. I wasn't breaking any records. But, for me, I felt fast. And I guess I loved my speed. I liked overtaking fast, unsuspecting runners--especially up hill. (Um, competitive much?)

After my foot surgery, a friend asked if I would train for a marathon with her. Sure, why not? She introduced me to walk breaks, which I was a big snot about... because real runners don't walk! (Ugh, see what I mean? This is when competition can be unpretty.) I ran the marathon a bit below my capability, but I was doing it for fun. Then I had some incidents, which put a dent in my running for about a year, and I slowed down quite a bit.

Then I started traveling and didn't really start running again until I settled in one place for a while. (I was running in a more metaphorical sense.) A couple years ago I trained for another marathon with a friend in Patagonia. We'd planned on running the Maraton Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Argentina, reached 20 miles in our training (taking walk breaks, which I now highly recommend for long distances more than 19 minutes), and found out it was canceled. I think I broke my foot around about this time. But the end of the marathon took the steam out of my running again. I still ran and biked, but much more sporadically.

{i hope to work my way up to this}

Today I ran humbly for 19 minutes. And better-dressed runners passed me during my walk breaks. The sun made my shadow long. On the far side of the lake, I could see S wearing R in the carrier bouncing on the pier. I breathed in new air and remembered what I was missing. Maybe tomorrow I'll run for 20 minutes, maybe 30.

Do you have a favorite solo activity that takes your breath away?