Knee-hab

Ten days ago I was climbing up a mountain trail near the Crowsnest Pass, a low peak along the continental divide on a sunny Sunday afternoon, looking at views like this:

I could feel the start of some bit of twinging in my right knee, but like anything else for a guy in his mid-40s, aches and pains are sometimes something to worry about … but usually just the biological squeaks of rusty joints and complaints of underused muscles.

That logical gamble didn’t pay off for me this time, and after a week of continued mumbling and grumbling noise from my knee joint, it finally stopped pulling punches and objected outright and fully to my continued lack of care to it’s needs.

I’d say it walked out on me, but walking is something that we do together and not as much for the last few days.

I seem to have developed a bit of a strain or a tear in my MCL, or medial collateral ligament, an important tendon on the inner side of the knee joint that is pretty important (I’ve found lately) for doing things like standing, walking up stairs, and (of course) running.

I’m on a break from running for at least a week or two.

Instead, I’ve grudgingly renewed my municipal fitness centre pass and paid up for a whole year of access to the weights, machines, and lap pool. I’ve been reintroducing myself over the last week to the joys of lane repeats. It’s a kind of cross-training, rehab, knee therapy that I hope will reduce my down time.

But in the heart of summer, despite the heat and humidity, I’m more than a little sad to be missing the sunny trails and green-lined river valley paths because of an injury I don’t even really know the origins of: suddenly it just started aching, and progressively got worse.

In the meantime, I may be able to use some of that down time to write a few more posts about hikes, runs, and my recent adventures in the mountains.

Maybe It’s Cold Outside?

It’s Sunday Runday, and I’m going to stay in and ride the stationary bike.

I woke up and looked at the temperature as I was letting the dog out at 6am. It was twenty degrees below zero with a brisk wind.

Also, it snowed. Snowed lightly covering up the layer of glassy ice covering a double-digit percentage of the sidewalks.

And… whimper, whine, whimper

The truth of it is I wouldn’t have run today anyhow. Injury happens. It happened to me. And even little blips, like when you slip and slide on the ice (but don’t fall) and crank a muscle in your lower back and no matter how much you stretch it and work it there is a angry little knot there that is going to take a solid week to go away before you can stand up one hundred percent straight again. Oh, and don’t muck with back injuries.

It’s Sunday Runday, and it’s my double-excuse day.

Too cold.

Too injured.

Too much of an opportunity to get on the bike and do some low impact cross-training instead of running outdoors in the ice and snow and wind and cold.