finally, after a long hiatus, i went running today. with temperature at 40+ degrees, i had no more excuses left. i got dressed, slipped in an old pair of contacts, and put on my running shoes. that first step out the door is the most traumatic during the wintertime because i'm normally underdressed since i'll warm up when i'm actually running. but that cold blast of air just makes me want to turn right around and go back inside. i got as far as 4 blocks before slowly down to a walk. baby steps. it went like this the rest of the way, spurts of running punctuated by stretches of walking. i didn't cramp up nor did i have any leg pains. i was worried about my foot because of the motorcycle accident and 2 weekends ago i slipped on some ice bending one of my knees at an awkward angle but the legs were fine. i slowed down because my lungs felt like they were tearing apart. my mp3 player decided to misbehave and started playing one song over and over again (doris day, how did you get there?); i switched to radio tuned to the oldies station. i only saw a handful (3) of people running, all out of shape like myself.

i was happy when i got home, to have finally taken that first step getting back into running again. a few hours later i could already feel parts of legs starting to ache. i'm sure i'll be in a world of hurt tomorrow. but it's all worth it. exercising is one of those things i do that feels horrible but i'm always glad i did it. if i don't hurt too much tomorrow i may try running again. normally i'd only run every other day (to let my body recuperate), but the kind of low impact running i do (3 miles at a slow pace) probably means i don't need that much recovery time. besides, i really need the exercise.

i realized i wasn't receiving some of my e-mails. this all started because i ordered a wii fit from meijer.com last night ($90 in stock with just $6 for shipping) but never received the confirmation e-mail. there wasn't anything in my mail app inbox nor in the junk folder. so this morning i became curious and went online into the admin tool of my mail server. sure enough, i found the confirmation e-mail filtered into an archival junk folder, as well as a few other non-junk e-mails. if i didn't get so much junk mail sent to my e-mail address, i wouldn't need all this e-mail filtering. it just makes me more aware that every once in a while i need to go online and poke around my mail server to make sure essential messages aren't being trashed.

in the late morning i went with my father to the supermarket to pick up some groceries. he also gave me some chinese meatballs with rice which i ate for both lunch and dinner. i finally finished god of war. i still have grand theft auto to work on but i find that game too hard. there's something about free-roaming sandbox games i don't like, and there's no way to set the difficulty level so all the missions feel too challenging. i think i may take a break from gaming (until the wii fit arrives).