"I Come Bearing Bad Knees"

   I had my semi-yearly physical earlier on this week. My priority at the moment is to figure out exactly what is going with my bum right knee. I hurt it last April and, even though I've managed to do a ton of running and hiking in the interim, there is still a nagging pain that won't go away.
   As it happened, I didn't actually get to see my regular doctor because there was an intern (not the right word) who is currently assigned to my doctor's office. He seemed like a very bright young man, though, and I was happy with the visit. He did the usual check-up things and then we settled in to talking about my knee.

My bum right knee, in a better (albeit dirtier and bloodier) day!

   He went through a range of motion test, pressed it here and there and discovered the 2 or 3 sore spots. After all was said and done, he was of the opinion that arthritis was involved and gave me a Rx for an x-ray and physio. I could have seen a physio when I first got hurt but the knee always seemed to be on the mend and so I never ended going. This time, though, it's physio for sure.
   I am not sure about the arthritis thing. I'm certainly at the age when arthritis enters the conversation but, at the same time, I know my body pretty well and it's not that the knee is constantly sore, it's that the knee feels like it's gonna give out now and then. The x-ray, I guess, should at least be definitive on the whole arthritis thing. After that, we'll go from there. I did ask about the possibility of getting an MRI but this is complicated a little by an almost 65-year-old chunk of metal in my brain. No real desire to have metal fly out of my head and clamp on to an MRI machine!
   The worst part about all of this is that I've temporarily shut down any kind of a workout that affects the knees. I've actually been pretty good about getting to the gym regularly but I've necessarily avoided doing leg work because it just aggravates everything. Kind of pisses me off because I'd just joined Ontario Masters Athletics with a view to running some sprints and, right at the moment, I can't sprint!
   So, likely this coming Monday I'll get in for that x-ray and there happens to be a physio place in the same building so I may stop in there as well. Maybe even get some bloodwork done cuz they do that there, too!
   The joy of it all....

A Bit Of An Update And Something New!

   I haven't posted anything on Ragged Cap Runner now for about the last three weeks.
   Basically, this has been because there's been very little to post about---no running, no hiking. This has been due to a couple of things---Christmas and what seemed like a month-long chest cold. On top of everything else, winter descended with a vengeance and I was not quite prepared for it. 
   At some point, about a week ago, the lungs began to cope a little better and mentally I felt like I was ready to get back into a more athletic existence. Co-incidentally with the arrival of winter, I was given a wonderful opportunity to try out the new snowshoes my son, Ben, had given me for Christmas.
   I've never had the snowshoeing experience before so I decided just to head for the backyard and give it a go, no-one else around to watch me flounder. Although I didn't actually flounder, my inexperience with tightening the bindings properly led to one of the snowshoes falling off and me being unable to get it back on securely. Lesson learned. I then ended up spending a few days before another opportunity to try them again presented itself. 
   I headed to Springbank Park here in London, determined to give them another go. I'd thought long and hard about putting them on properly and finally was out there, snowshoeing about, for the first time. Unfortunately, in the meantime, we had had a bit of a thaw and the deep snow was mostly gone. After the thaw, it had gotten really cold again and so there was all this crunchy shallow snow to walk on. It was still fun, though, and I learned a lot in a short amount of time. Almost fell once or twice because one shoe was on top of the other as I was attempting to take a step but I imagined that this was the kind of thing all first-timers likely experience.
   The other thing I started doing once I felt better was return to the gym. Before Christmas, I had "re-activated" my extremely under-used Goodlife Fit4Less membership and had been  going somewhat regularly. This fell by the wayside for the same reasons the other things did. Feeling better now, though, and I'm right back at it, at least every other day. I'm now at the point where I really look forward to it so today I headed there even though I was just there yesterday! Unheard of!
   

Finally (and this is sort of big news), I've taken the step of joining the Ontario Masters Athletics (OMA). This is a provincial association which runs track and field events in Ontario for athletes who are over the age of thirty and all the way up to people in their nineties!
   Why I've done this is that one of these days I want to sign up for a short sprint, like, say, anywhere from fifty to a hundred meters. I've always wanted to do this (almost desperately) and joining OMA will give me this opportunity. As much as I enjoy distance-running, there is something about running real fast for a short distance that has always appealed to me. With this membership, the chance to do so will be right there. If I decide to take it. This has given me a little more impetus for getting in shape, hence part of the reason for hitting the gym more regularly.
   Now, having said all this, I have a bum knee. I injured it street-running back in April and I've been working on it ever since. I'm able to run through the forest pretty quickly and it feels quite structurally sound but I'm just not sure what might happen if I went full-out. We've had quite the thaw lately and today I stopped back in at Springbank to try and test it out. I was certainly able (after a warm-up) to run at about 75% but was afraid to go any faster. The legwork at the gym has been somewhat irritating it so I've at least momentarily eliminated that part of the training. I have a physical next week and will talk to my doctor about the whole process and see what he suggests.
   In the meantime, there is an OMA mini-meet coming up on Feb. 11 in Toronto which I would really like to enter, as they have a 60 meter sprint division. This would give me a bit of an idea where I'm at, sprint-wise, with all the other guys in their sixties and also tell me just how much more training I still need to do. As long as the knee holds out...

P.S. I wrote this post a couple of days ago and, after that little bit of running I did, things are now not well with my right knee. Positions I was once able to get it into comfortably are now no longer comfortable and entering athletic events any time in the near future is likely not too feasible. This has me understandably frustrated and depressed. However, I know people who are unable to walk and who would be extremely happy to be getting around with a sore knee like mine. I salute those people and know that my little knee problem is really nothing.  BB