Back on the bench

If you're looking for little miss sunshine, you're in the wrong blog. It's Monday today, and what better way to kick off the week than with a slap in the face?

I slept terribly last night. Strange dreams mixed with some stress over the amount of work I need to do this month kept me tossing and turning. I gave up around 5 and got up. My knee felt fine, so I thought I'd take it for a spin. Just a short jog to see how it reacts.

Almost as soon as I started running, it stiffened up. Most of the time, sensations like that go away once I'm properly warmed up, but this time they didn't. I ran up the hill towards the lake, and the sensation in my knee slowly got more and more intense. I picked a pine needle covered trail that cut through the woods instead of the harder gravel path, and the soft surface gave me some relief. But once I was back on tarmac, the feeling that my knee was inflamed was back. No pain, just inflammation.

Bending the knee is what seems to cause the problem, so I tried running with a slightly less bent knee. I had to get home somehow, and walking would mean freezing in the morning sub zero temperatures. Apart from the fact that it looks silly, running with one straight-ish leg is not very comfortable, but since it was now downhill, my knee didn't complain as much.

5 km later I was home. I showered my knee in ice cold water and I will apply some Diclofenac gel on it later. I've lost count of how many injuries I've had in just one year. Time to take up stamp collecting instead?