TI Chronicles: Cr@p

Crap.  It's finally come to this:  6 weeks off. 

Just as I'd started to gain some fitness and log some decent miles in hopes of a late season pairing of White River and Cascade Crest, the knee took a bad turn, and it was nasty about it.  It'd be fine one day.  Ornery the next.  Not only would it not let me get in the miles I needed but it also started to sap my love for running.  I stopped feeling that freedom and release that goes with time on the trail when more often than not I had to be thinking about the state of the knee.  "Is that stiffness?"  "Is that pain?"  "Will the pitch of this section of trail make it feel better or worse?"  "Can I run today?"  "Should I run today?"

Really, it all became too much.  Time to try something new.

Originally, I was scheduled to get a cortisone shot the middle of next week, but decided to cancel.  Even if the needle magically cured whatever is going on with the miasma of scar tissue and IT band where I struck my knee this fall, my time goals for the season would still be compromised. I've just missed too many months, and too many miles. So, despite being an advocate of western medicine and its related corticosteroid injections, I decided I might as well try one last non-medicalized approach to things.   Six weeks of largely inactive rest.  I'll swim a bit.  I'll go on some easy hikes.  I'll stretch and roll and ice.  But it'll all be pretty nominal, with the main goal simply being time to heal. 

If all goes as planned I'll be back to a slow build up at the end of June.  And even though it'll be one halting mile at a time, I'm already looking forward to those short runs on dusty trails.