Time to get back into running

During the holidays, I had a lot of activities that made it difficult to do some running. Now, it's time to get back into running. The air is bad today, so my wife and I went to the local Rec center, and I ran/walked a mile. Next week, I'll run/walk up to 2 miles, although New Years is on Tuesday, and my children and their families will be visiting us. My goal is to get back to 3 miles and then work up to 5 or 6 miles, but I need to do all of this in small increments of time/distance. The running literature says that you can be off running for up to a week and not hurt your performance much. It's been almost two weeks since I last ran, and I can tell my ability to run longer than a mile has decreased. In addition, my age makes it even more important that I get back into running via small increments of time/distance.