I went for a run today. I probably shouldn’t have. Couldn’t help myself. People say that running is hard, but for runners, not running is just as hard. My left knee needs a break, and I have been pretty good about letting it rest, but with some mild winter weather we’re having, I couldn’t help myself. It feels better, or maybe feels good enough to give a short run a try.
I chose my typical route to the forest preserve, and within the first quarter mile, I was already feeling some knee discomfort. I thought about shutting it down, but my previous experience with this injury told me that it would loosen up. Fortunately, it did; my pace picked up, and I carried on my merry way. The catchall “runner’s knee” type injury can mean several things, but this one seems to let me actually run. It’s just the post-run knee achiness that gives one pause.
Five hours post-run and my knee is feeling sore again. I’ve never been a running gizmo guy, but after trying and having some success with the knee straps I have been wearing (which I unfortunately forgot for today’s run), I saw an advertisement about red light therapy on Facebook. I swear, Facebook can read my mind, or is spying on me. I did a little googling into it and found some on the almighty e-tail website that everyone uses, with some good reviews, so I bought one to give it a go. I wrapped the dumb thing around my knee and hit the ON button, which brings it to life and starts to warm and massage my knee slightly, in addition to zapping me with whatever red light and near-infrared light thing it has. The jury is out on this gizmo, but I have only used it for two days now. We’ll see.
The coach-wife says I need to stretch more. She’s probably right. I stretched at work for a little bit today. I’ll try to remind myself every day to do that.
When runners who love to run can’t, they do a lot of crazy things to keep themselves going, everything that is except the thing they need to do – stop running. But running is life for me, and I can’t just stop doing it. I won’t stop doing it.
an amazing run 