The Morning After

I knew that it was going to hurt.  The morning after my first run in years was bound to bring pain.  I was prepared for the pain and ready to push on through it.  Then, just before 4:30, I woke up.  I was a bit sore and stiff but not too bad...until I started stretching.  OUCH.  Why am I up at this ungodly hour about to inflict more pain upon myself?  Once I got through the stretching and started out on my run things loosened up nicely and the run was pretty good.  I was a little slower than yesterday but not much.  All of this being said, I am popping some advil with my vitamins this morning.
I know some people like to say some sort of mantra when they run and others will listen to music.  I just run and think.  Unfortunately I can not control what I think about at all.  Yesterday's run was great.  I have a notoriously horrible memory and, during yesterday's run, I remembered to do all kinds of stuff when I got back to the house.  It was pretty crazy because my wife usually has to do all of the remembering (and with full-time jobs and three kids and a house to run and a dog and blah blah blah, that is a lot of remembering.)  I was completely on the ball...a changed man.  Today, however, the powers of recall that I had been blessed with were gone.  I was no longer super human.  My thoughts today just ambled on and on.  Why are there people on my street still partying at 5 AM on a Thursday morning?  Why do people have to park their cars in their driveways so that they are blocking the sidewalk?  Why am I so misunderstood?  OK...I just made up the last question.
Well my second run of the new me is in the books.  I feel pretty fantastic and I am thinking about signing up for a 5k race that is coming up in a few weeks.  Life is good.