Pounding pavement.

So I have discovered my new Saturday activity - running in Central Park (I know, I am clearly a true New Yorker to have discovered this secret gem. I should write a guide book!). I'd wanted to do it ever since I moved here, but the constant state of frigidness kind of ruled that out. However, yesterday it was a positively balmy 45 degrees and sunny, so my decision was clear. I started at the northwest corner of the park and took the road that weaves around the outer rim (Park Drive, I think it's called?). The entire path is a little over 6 miles, and I managed to make it a good 4.5 before walking the rest of the way (in my defense, I hadn't been running at all in about 3 months and it's surprisingly hilly in places, so I was feeling pretty good). It was a really nice route, so I'm excited to do it many more times.

Then last night, I got invited to a giant game of capture the flag on the streets of Harlem with a big group of people from my ward, and it was just as awesome as it sounds. The area of play was huge - about 15 blocks long and four avenues wide - so we would text our teammates with the locations of the flags (there were 3 per team) or text our captain and the refs (oh yes, we had refs) when we got one back to our base. Some sixteen-year-old kids from the neighborhood saw us splitting into teams and asked if they could join, which was awesome - Peter and Shaq were our teammates, and they completely rocked it. Sadly, our team fell just short of victory, with a final score of 4-5.

Anyway, it was really fun, but between running the park during the day and running around Harlem all night, I woke up this morning and my body felt like it weighed 9,000 pounds. I don't think I have ever been so sore in my LIFE. In hindsight, it probably wasn't the best way to ease back into a regular exercise routine, but it sure seemed like a good idea at the time.