The first run back after months away from running — featuring tight shirts, falling shorts, and a Garmin watch that is deeply skeptical of the whole situation.

I went on a run the other day.

Which, in the end, is the whole reason I started this blog.

So…

Success?

---

The process started with digging out my running clothes.

This turned out to be difficult for two reasons. First I had to find them. Second, once I found them, I had to fit into them.

My shirt was extremely tight. Not in a sleek performance-fit way, but in a way that suggested the fabric had recently been reassigned to structural engineering.

The shorts technically fit.

But for most of the run I found myself periodically yanking them back up while simultaneously pulling my shirt down, trying to get the two garments to meet somewhere in the middle and conceal my stomach — not to mention the crack of my ass.

Something I often want to show to the world.

Just…

not right now.

I swear none of this used to be an issue.

The wardrobe situation did not inspire confidence. Or enthusiasm. Which is part of the reason I started later than intended — something that became relevant when I remembered I still had to pick up my daughter from preschool.

---

Physically the run went about how you’d expect.

Heavy legs. High heart rate. A few aches and pains popping up here and there. Nothing alarming, but enough to remind me that if I’m serious about rebuilding this habit, the dumbest possible way to start would be getting injured immediately.

I didn’t walk.

In hindsight, I maybe should have walked.

Toward the end what I was doing had drifted pretty far from anything that could confidently be described as running.

But we’re counting it.

---

Garmin had some thoughts.

Right near the beginning it informed me my performance condition was –5.

I’m not entirely sure what that means, but generally speaking you don’t want to be minus anything except maybe pounds or pants sizes.

Later it informed me I would need 58 hours of recovery.

Which felt a little like my watch asking me,

“Are you sure we should do this, man?”

---

Mentally the run mostly consisted of one looping thought:

Blog so that you’ll run.
Run so that you’ll blog.

A perfectly reasonable system.

---

Eventually the run ended, followed by a hurried cooldown walk home so I could grab my car and make it to preschool pickup on time.

I did not shower.

I did, however, smell very much like someone who had just gone for a run.

Getting back into the rhythm of things.

---

It’s been months since the last time I actually went out and ran.

There wasn’t one single reason I stopped. More like a slow accumulation of things.

I went back to school.
My wife got pregnant again, and this pregnancy has been harder than the first.
Mental health certainly played a role.
And the ever-evolving demands of parenthood.

None of it dramatic.

Just enough small things, over enough time, that running quietly disappeared from the routine.

---

So this wasn’t really about the run.

Not gracefully.

Not impressively.

But it’s a start.

Which, again, was the entire point of starting this blog — to rebuild a few things that had quietly fallen out of rhythm.

So…

Success.