Sweet and Sour

A little bit of a setback this week as I try to recover from my ITB issues. I say "try" because it's not healed yet. It's not worse, it's not better, it's just different. As I perform all the rolling, exercises and stretches prescribed by Derrick, I find the pain moving around my knee. Is it the ITB, some obscure tendon or muscle, the patella maybe? It's sometimes hard to tell. Despite the constant burn, sometimes barely there, sometimes disturbingly sharp, I experienced some excellent running moments, so this week has been surprisingly good. The low mileage has left me feeling extremely strong for the time where I did run.

As a runner, one of my biggest fear is to not be able to run. Injuries are the Boogie Man. Every 5 minutes you feel the need to see if it still hurts by standing up or poking at it with your finger. Ultimately, this threatens your identity as a runner. You are reminded that this can be taken away from you at any time by the running gods. My brother in law, who is about my age, has Parkinson's. He's had it for a while, one of those rare cases that start early in life. He cannot run. At family function, such as yesterday's birthday dinner, I always feel awkward when the conversation turns to my running excesses. I doubt he knows that he's one of the reason I'm doing this. His life is the ultimate ultra. There's nothing easy about it. In the same way that we ultra runners try to find meaning in an activity that on the surface appears to be meaningless, I hope he can find meaning in his personal ultra. I feel I'm not articulating this very well, but it's the best I can do. I'm no poet.

So I'm not too worried about this injury. It is annoying, a bump on the road. There are worse things than a little pain on the side of the knee.