Escape from Alcatraz

Being injured is kind of like being in prison. If you've been really bad, they put you in isolation. If you've been good, they let you out in the yard to move around a bit and feel the sun warmth on your face. But no matter how you cut it, you're still in a bloody prison.

So every time I take a tentative step in my running shoes, I might enjoy the temporary rush of adrenaline, but there's always the knowledge at the back of my mind that I'm surrounded by walls. The sense of freedom that running used to give me, the sense that I could just put on my running clothes, pick a point of the compass and run in that direction, eludes me these days. If I run too far, I get shot down. Game over.

It sounds dramatic, but I miss those days where I could put kilometre after kilometre behind me without having to worry about my body failing me. I went to the library to return some books and found myself jogging afterwards, apprehensively, tensely, listening the whole time for the warning shot that I had gone too far. I walked up the hills, run on flat ground, hated my insoles that are supposed to help me but only feel like foot traps.

I covered maybe 2 km running. It's hard to tell. I had neither Garmin or my phone with me to take the time with. Not once did my knee complain, yet now it's not speaking to me. It doesn't hurt. It's just cranky. Kind of stiff. But it's not worse than yesterday. I developed a theory that some of the positions in yoga are not good for my knee. I did yoga two days in a row (I know! Yoga! Me! Who would have thought) and, because bending the knee the way these particular positions require it to causes me discomfort, I think that it irritates my knee.

It's been a good training day, knee-trouble notwithstanding. I cycled both to and from work (a measly total of 7 km, but still), then exercised my arse off for an hour and ten minutes going through my whole body: the plank (Tabata intervals on the balance board), toe lifts, knee bends, biceps, triceps, the lot. I'm taking a day off training tomorrow to see how my knee likes it.