Blood Sacrifice (AKA "ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES!!!")

This is a new route, but I had to cut it short due to a temporary lack of equilibrium.

Yup, I tripped and landed on my hands (red arrow on map), right elbow and right knee. Or more accurately: I landed on my hands and bounced off my right elbow and right knee. The gloves got shredded but my hands are intact. My right elbow is skinned and I have three tiny scratches on my right knee. My pride is what's probably hurting the most.

Of course, had this happened even four months ago I would have been typing this from an ER bed, so there's that. As to why I fell, I think that I tripped on a sidewalk seam.

The pace was great for being a new route and oh-so-goddamn cold (32 degrees Fahrenheit with windchill, and ultra super dry), almost broke under 11 minutes/mile during mile two.

First 5-mile run in 20 years

Sometime around August 2016, I got to the point that my knees couldn't stand my weight and I ended up spending about a week on crutches. Fast forward to 12/30 and I was 71 pounds lighter and managed to run 3 miles nonstop, on hilly terrain, in mid-30s Fahrenheit. This is the first time that I have run more than a mile straight since maybe 1996 when I was still in the US Army.

And today I ran 5 miles on the same hilly terrain, high 30s Fahrenheit, in a hair under 1:10 (it usually takes me 1:30-35 to walk that route). It's still too slow to pass an Army PT test for my age, but I feel like a million miles away from back in August when I was still on crutches.