Prescription for a Faltering, Limping Walk

I'm battling a sinus infection. A first for me, a result of the real joy of spending a week with a family with young kids, one of them in daycare -- apparently the very well source of every sniffle generating germ ever spread by kid snot :)

With the infection riding along, on top of a history of recent and profound sloth that looked like about a year of doing nothing for physical fitness at all, I ran every step of the Pride Run yesterday. To say I ran it is a bit of a stretch, as it was more of a tentative, frightened shuffle really. I didn't want to have to stop for cardiovascular reasons (out of breath, burning, pounding chest), which was a very real possibility, given the deficit of activity and surplus of belly fat, couch lounging, and junk food slurping that have become my life. I also had some real worry about my knee, which had again kyboshed a growing excited expectation a few months ago that I was going to be able to run again -- I spent two months doing fake runs (on the treadmill at the gym) without any knee implications, only to run outside four evenings (and what a glorious four jogs they were -- like being reborn, really) and have my knee fall apart so that walking to work was difficult for three or four weeks.

Anyway, I ran 28:05.5. That's not much faster than how fast I can WALK 5 km -- really. I didn't quite frankly break much of a sweat. The photo (taken by Who Is Here Now) where I am runnin..., er, moving, shows, as it has captured my strike form, just exactly how slowly I'm moving.

I'm usually pretty conservative when starting an exercise regime, so the kind of stiffness I have today (so that a normal walking gait is impossible) is rare and quite amusing--it feels (and looks) like someone stole my quadriceps.

Ah, the joy of a once-a-year runner.