Little Guy is one month old.  And a couple of days ago, I made my first concerted effort at actual exercise since his birth.  There is a small fitness room at our apartment complex, which means both that I don't have to try to rush to the campus gym while Little Guy is sleeping and that I don't have to brave the heat/humidity for outdoor exercise.  I had only intended to walk on the treadmill for a while, but it was broken, so I went straight to the elliptical.  It was neither a very long nor a very rigorous workout, but it felt really good to get started again. 

I kept up some low-grade exercise through most of my pregnancy, but I've really been looking forward to working back up to some of my previous exercise habits.  In particular, I've really missed running.  Not that I am, by any stretch of the imagination, a serious runner.  But in the 6 or 7 months before I got pregnant, I started running, made it a normal part of my week, did a couple of short races, and discovered that, while I don't always love the act and experience of running, I really love the satisfaction of having done it.  During the first trimester of pregnancy, I barely had the energy to get out for a walk a few times a week, so I got out of the habit of running and was afraid to try to reinstate the habit once I had more energy but was also more pregnant. 

Sometimes I think perhaps it wasn't objectively such a big deal but was just what my pregnant brain decided to seize on, but I would often get really sad or jealous during pregnancy when I'd see other people running.  There's an annual marathon here in April; the route uses the bike path that we live right next to, so I heard/saw runners going by all morning.  And I felt really left out.  Which is a bit ridiculous, since I've never had any intention of participating in that particular race.  For one thing, I've never been in marathon shape (yet!), and for another, I do not envy those runners the race conditions that they had that day - 20+ mph winds and, eventually, a tornado warning.  But I still wanted to be out there. 

I expect it will still be a while before I'm really exercising consistently/normally, but all the same, I'm very happy to have the prospect of running back.