Graduation day, baby

At 4:15 a.m., as I drove north on a pretty desolate Western Avenue toward Evanston, I noticed the outline of clouds against an already-lightening sky. 

When I steered into the condensed school parking lot at 4:30, the cars I recognize as quickly as my own were there -- the light teal Prius and the dark Honda CRV. It made me smile.

And there was the old crew -- Krista, Terri, Betsey and Kellie. I hadn't run with them since before my hip scope surgery last January. Another runner has joined the group, Kara. Sleepily, we introduced ourselves. 

OK, maybe I was just the sleepy one, after some wine with some wonderful colleagues last night and months of not getting up at 4 a.m. for runs.

We began running the still dark streets, the sky rapidly brightening as our feet quietly tapped along the pavement.

Sweet.

Earlier this week, I was finally and officially cleared to run, graduating from the "back to running" anti-gravity treadmill. 

After four months of no running and a ton of physical therapy, I had been running on a special treadmill for about four-ish weeks that encased my lower half in a bubble and did run/walks starting at 65% of my body weight. It also reminded me that I have back fat, which gets squished upward when you run on an anti-gravity treadmill. Fun!

Each session I increased by 5% and each time the amount of running increased and walking decreased. I learned that I would like running even more if I just weighed, oh, 120 pounds. Which I don't.

So today was the test... could I run my old morning default distance of 5 miles? Yes, yes I did. 

It's good to be back.