These past couple weeks have seen some wonderful highs and couple incredible lows for me. Some moments have been stunningly terrible, full of enough pain that I just curled into a ball to cry until I couldn't move. These moments happen in most people's lives, even if we, as a society, don't talk about them.

The older I get, the more I'm aware how fleeting the moments of joy are. The flip side of that fleeting joy is the knowledge that these times of pain will also be short-lived in the grand scheme of the universe, even if they remain a lifetime for the individual.

While curled in my ball, I wondered which would be worse, spending a lifetime being frail versus just growing old. Think about it: if you live a life where you aren't strong, don't take your health for granted, are always cautious, and know every pain in your body, then perhaps growing old isn't as scary as being vibrant, healthy, carefree, and oblivious until, well, you aren't. If you have good health and lose it, is that worse than never having it at all? We know about love and better to have loved and all, but what about never missing what you never had? If you didn't have it (and I don't mean didn't try to have it, just never had it), would that really be better than having it and losing it?

We, as a species, hate losing things more than we love gaining things. So, really, would it be better to spend a lifetime being frail and never having the strength?

Unsure.

I went for a morning walk this morning, as I do most mornings. Today's walk felt great, as my legs were sore from yesterday's run in the delicious, "I exercised beyond my normal bounds" sort of ache. I love that feeling of muscle soreness. I believe I'm odd in that delight.

During the walk, I noticed an odd noise I couldn't place coming through my earphones. I took them out and listened. After a few moments, I realized, I could hear screaming. In particular, I could hear an adult male screaming words, children crying "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" and an adult woman yelling incoherently.

I started walking towards the sounds, curious if I would be able to both figure out which house and understand the words being said. As I approached the sounds, the yelling and screaming stopped. I couldn't figure out which house the sounds were coming from, despite narrowing it down to four houses, two on the street I was on, and two on the next street over.

And then the yelling started back up again.

So, there's this idea that people can figure things out for themselves, that calling in an authority figure is the wrong thing to do. Yet, how do you know that the people who are unable to defend themselves have help? I stood on the street as the sounds grew louder, debating calling the cops, thinking they could resolve their issues this is a family matter, until I couldn't stand the anger coming forth, until I realized that no one in the house was going to ask for help, that the children's cries were hard to bear, and that, well, I wanted to help.

I called 9-1-1.

Domestic disturbance.

I didn't wait for the outcome. I saw the officer approach the house as I rounded the corner a block down, but I didn't alter my path or change my pace. I kept walking on my walk.

I don't know the outcome. I don't know if I made a difference. I don't know if I helped, or if I changed that man's anger to rage. I hope I helped. I don't know.

I ran a 5k today.

While I've been walking 10k steps pretty much every day for the last I don't know how long, I haven't been doing any aerobic exercise to speak of. The occasional five sets of 200 jumprope jumps in a row, while intense, aren't really consistent enough to "count" as aerobic. Hard, yes. Aerobic, yes. Long enough timewise to matter? I'm unsure.

And the deconstructed burpees? Yeah, those are all slow paced.

So, inspired by Ben's 5k run this weekend, I went out today to run a 5k-ish. I don't have the exact distance marked out, but it appears to be 3.1 miles on the gmap pedometer site, if I start a few houses (read, "three") down. Which I did. After much fussing. Been so long since I went for a "long" run, do I Strava? Do I Zombies, Run, but without zombie chases? Do I go find my computer, see if I can figure out some music that I haven't sync'ed in years and try to put that on my phone? After hemming for about a minute, I turned on airplane mode, turned on the timer, shoved the phone into my bra and started running.

Even though I wasn't running for time, my expectation was 36 minutes. I managed 2km before the cramps hit me like a truck. Those cramps drive me nuts. They aren't menstrual cramps, but, man, they are in the same place. I had to walk a couple hundred meters before starting back up.

Still, even with the walking, managed a 31:05 5k.

Sooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooooooow.

Still.

First step back to ultimate shape, base fitness.