Week 3.

I ran on Tuesday.  It was a solid, make-it-mine and throw-it-down kind of run in a cold fog that almost hid me.  It was in my old shoes and my old socks, well worn down and familiar, as alone as I needed to be.  It was pain free and fierce in a way that made me hang on to it a little longer than I normally would.  This was as fluid a run as I've had since this began placed down neatly into a storm of imperfection.  It had simply been that kind of a day with those kind of moments that ultimately turn into a tearful nighttime cry in the mirror, head down, white-knuckling the sides of a sink.

While Tuesday hurt more than just behind my right knee and at the burning inner edge of my left ankle, I ran through it all, held on for dear life a few times, leaned into the punch and got up the next morning - ready to do it all over again.

There is something to be said for what gets you out of bed on those cold mornings when your puffy eyes won't open up all of the way, the coffee isn't made and there's no milk in the house.  For me, that Wednesday, it was waking without pain where it should have been behind my right knee.  If I'm given a pain-free morning, I will take it and I will own it until the rest of the world rights itself.

Today I ran.  It was steady and slow, the way home should be, with a bitter wind that woke me up - down to my toes, rattled me out of Tuesday's fog and reminded me that simply putting left in front of right may be a triumph some days, but is consistently a blessing.

Today I realized I can breathe again;  I guess I'm getting my wind back.

PS - Dear Olive Green Coat & Yellow Lab:  Even though you had a black coat on today with an excessively fury hood, I hope you know that cold wave over my right shoulder as I passed you was not up at god or at the geese on the water, it was all yours, buddy.