I am glad that January was over. For many, January is when they intensify their excercise activities as part of their New Year’s resolution of living a more healthy lifesytle. Not for me.

I was practically sick all January. I caught a bug that brought me down on my knees (see previous post) just after New Year’s Day. Then when I was recovering, I caught another virus that put me into another tail spin.

I lost my voice that made me talk in whispers. I am thankful that I did not totally lost my voice as I was still able to blog loudly and clearly. I was also coughing so hard that I think I pulled a muscle, or contused or even broke a rib. Coughing became a nightmare that made me double up in pain. I used a small pillow to push it against where my chest hurts whenever I cough. Breathing was literally painful.

But I am better now. I hope.

Besides me being sick, the weather here in Iowa last January was just plainly awful. Three days ago, our wind chill was – 40ºF. This they say was due to the Polar vortex. In that extreme cold, you can toss boiling water high into the air and it will turn into ice particles before it hit the ground.

However, today is different. Our outside temperature is 50ºF. That is almost a hundred degrees swing in temperature in a matter of few days! You barely need a jacket on.

So what did I do when I got the first chance to go outside? I ran!

Due to temperature way above freezing, all the snow that had accumulated in several weeks have melted and all that was left were a few patches.

The snow was rapidly melting that this created a small rushing spring from snowmelt at the side of this road here.

It was just not me enjoying this warm break. I saw a herd of deer roaming around in the distance. I don’t know where they take refuge when the weather is brutally cold. But no, I am not inviting them in inside my home.

Since it was my first run after about a month of inactivity, I chose to run in the gravel road which is a relatively flat terrain rather than the more challenging up and down hills in some part of my running route.

Yet the moment I stepped into the dirt road, I felt the ground to be soft and soggy from all the snow that have melted. In other words, it was muddy.

It probably was a mistake on my part to run on the dirt road, still I was determined to finish the loop back to my place. I literaly plowed through the mud. I just thought that it was one of the muddy obstacle courses in those Spartan races.

I finished a 2 mile loop albeit my pace was somewhat slow, perhaps due to my deconditioning. But I’m not admitting that, I am blaming the mud that caused me to run slow.

Perhaps I am a little crazy or mad, but I am also now a mud runner.

(*photos taken with an iPhone during my run)