There is this friend of mine – Garry be his name – he has this intriguing ritual. On his birthday, he goes to the gym and bench presses his body weight!! Inspired by that, I tried a 6.0 mile run on my 60th birthday. Of course, unlike him, I had the presence of mind to bring in a decimal point to my resolution.

Went for a 5 mile run in the trail I used to run in 10 years back. There were parts of the trail that was slippery with all the rainfall. In fact, one cyclist had a bad fall right in front of my eyes. Fortunately, he seemed to be unhurt. Also ran into Raji and their dog Mushu in the trail.

It was great weather and I had reached the starting spot by 6AM. Note to self: Wake up by 4:30AM everyday!

5K in bone-chilling cold. With the wind chill, it was 2°F (- 17°C). The cold, I eventually get used to. It is the sharp wind lashing on the face that I can do without.

These days, I don’t find myself running as much while on the road. Went out today in the cool, breezy but bright sunlit morning!

I started my run in cool, cloudy weather with long sleeves on. I was enjoying the wooden walkway so much that I decided to keep going a bit farther. When I hit the 2-mile mark and turned around, the sun was out and it suddenly felt really hot. I also noticed that running on concrete hurts my feet more than it used to, so now I try to stick to the wooden paths.

Lately, I have picked up my miles and have been paying for it with all sorts of pains in parts of legs that I did not know I had. Pounding on concrete cannot be great for the joints at my age. So, went to good old Big Creek Greenway this morning.

Loved it. Seeing so many runners on a Sunday morning brought back a lot of fond memories from the past. I need to probably start going back there …