It’s a beautiful day at Lake Fayetteville. I got up at 0430 this morning, trying to get back into the routine that I’ve known and that has worked for me before. So, I don’t know how far I’ll get today, but regardless, it’s a good step toward forming a new habit. Being able to get a workout in and get to work at an acceptable time. One of the reasons I do mornings is that it’s a little easier at the gym to get things done. Plenty of people are there at 5 am, don’t get me wrong. But there are less than usual. My gym has a packed parking lot. It was significantly less on Sunday. So maybe I’ll try Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday in the gym instead of Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday.

It’s in the 40s, according to my car, but I think it’s a few degrees colder out here. One of the reasons I haven’t been out is that we’ve had temperatures in the single digits here. Maybe in the past, I would have come out in temperatures like that. But I think it’s a little too dangerous to risk coming out on the trail and being outside for thirty or forty minutes in sub-freezing weather. For the last two or three weeks, we’ve had rain. Maybe that shouldn’t stop me. I need to get out my rain gear if I still have it. It’s been coming down rain, the ground is soaked everywhere. It’s been just above freezing, so it’s not too dangerous. It’s almost February in Northwest Arkansas.

New routine. I got up this morning at 0430. I’m ‘completely’ dressed now. I have three layers on top. I got the recorder and the hydration, got to the car, and realized it was pitch dark outside. I went and got my headlamp. It’s “new” but actually about two years old. I have yet to use it. It’s pretty fancy. It has a lot of options: high beams and low beams, red, etc. There’s a lot I need to remember about doing the early gig, but I’ll get back in the swing of it before long. I planned not getting to work at the usual time, half an hour later, so we’ll see how that goes. I did warm up. In any event, I don’t think I will be getting up earlier than 0430.

I will go out at least half a mile, then come back. It’s been at least a week since I’ve been out here. I had about three workouts in a row, and some things happened. It’s easy to get off track. Looking at the sign, I am at the 4.29 mile marker.

I feel good today. Back in the day, I took a lot of supplements. I had a BCAA supplement (BlockChain Amino Acids) this morning. I’m not doing a lot muscularly, but I’m in resistance. But I’ll probably get into some more supplements as I spend more time at the gym. Supplements can legally be anything as long as they are not harmful. They are considered food, not drugs. They don’t have to work; they just have to be safe. So it’s essential to shop around for the good stuff.

I’m at six-tenths of a mile. Not bad for the first time back after a couple of weeks. I’ll head back, and that will be 1.2 miles. So I had the BCAA drink, my hydration on the way down here. For the way back I have some Mio Sport, which is more of a recovery drink that replaces electrolytes. With my level of effort today, I don’t think I’ll suffer from depletion of potassium and sodium, etc. It’s pretty cold. It’s a relatively short workout, and I’m not sweating much, but it doesn’t hurt to keep good habits.

I’m dressed pretty well today. Halfway through the workout, it feels fine. I’m warmed up. I have a hat and gloves, blue gloves. They look like royal blue to me, but I have a touch of color blindness, so I’m not always accurate with that. I have a knit cap on, plus my hoodie with the hood up. Knit products, of course, come from Master Knitter Henrietta Davis. Then sweats, a couple of T-shirts.

Speaking of trails… When people say trail, I think of cutting through the forest, a very rough cut, barely passable path. The trails I’m using have eight-foot-wide concrete. It’s so wide that they have yellow lines down the center. But there is a new one being built right through the subdivision where I live. My mother lives close by, and it starts where she lives, goes through my area, then goes on, and I can’t see the end of it. So, I’m not sure where it goes. It may be part of what is called the Razorback Greenway. I want to go on that one. Maybe I’ll do it on a weekend day and get video. Whenever I go on a new trail, I like to do video, so if you’re interested in how the trail looks, you can see it.

Back during the COVID lockdown era, I had planned to do a show called <my address> trail. It was going to be about walking in my house. I was doing some of that since it was not advisable to go out too much. But now it’s almost happened as they put a trail right close to my house. Even closer than Lake Fayetteville, though perhaps not as scenic. However, this morning, I can’t see much with just my headlamp to light the way.

There’s nobody in the parking lot or on the trail. But I did see a jogger going down the street as I got here. And I heard her talking. So maybe she’s doing a podcast or talking to another early riser. Who knows?

It’s a pretty nice view here, even in the limited light. It reminds me of a picture I have of a road snaking through a dark wooded area at night. It’s beautiful. So when I look at that picture, I think of the wonderful time we spent together on a Monday morning. More mornings to come in the future. No doubt about that. We’ll see how it goes this morning and then adjust accordingly. And soon enough, we’ll be right in the habit of doing this three times a week.

If it was light, I’d be able to see the Running-a-Fever-mobile. Surprisingly, the parking lot is very poorly lighted. Just for safety purposes, it would be better to have more light there. Some trails I’ve been on have been lighted. I think it was the Skull Creek trail, which had lights on the trail, not just the parking lot.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode about my health journey and will come back for more. Until then, if you’ve got the fever, keep it. If you don’t, catch it. I will talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.