Well, well. I'm on a racing team.

I was feeling very sorry for myself today. My knee has throbbed, clicked, caught, and hurt all day and I am worrying myself sick about my orthopedist appointment tomorrow. I'm equally worried that he'll say something is wrong or that he doesn't believe me and tells me nothing is wrong.

I depressed-ly got into bed with the mutts after work and was scrolling through Instagram when I remembered to check on the account for a new racing team I had applied for. Lo and behold, there was my name!!!!! My "congratulations" email had been diverted to my spam folder but my application has been accepted for 2018.

I'm a member of TBD Racing, officially meaning Tough By Design and The Best Damn racing team, but I also like TBD to mean to be determined, like your potential is still to be determined. =) This turned my whole evening around and I have spent the last hour following my teammates' (it feels weird to type that!) accounts and reading their intro stories.

This turned my whole evening around. I'm in a much better mood and now I REALLY have something to motivate me to figure out what's going on with my knee so I can fix it, rehab it, and get back to normal again.

Creaks, cricks, tightness, and pain in my knee

I’ve been too depressed to write anything about my non-existent training but the short answer is my knee still hurts and I’m not doing anything active until I get some answers.

I have been keeping a log of the random aches, pains, catching, clicking, inability to bear weight, etc. that has been happening since my last run Nov. 3 and the sudden onset pain Nov. 12. Every single day except for one, I have had at least mild discomfort. Most days I am in at least a little actual pain for at least a few minutes. I have been careful not to bend my knee too deeply, and I wear a wrap around my knee every day, and those two things help. But every day I am reminded that something is wrong.

Since I am still up and (mostly) walking I don’t think I tore a ligament. I am afraid it’s a torn meniscus. The potential for Things That Could Have Gone Wrong is huge – do I have a piece of bone floating around? Did I do serious damage to my kneecap or something else? Am I just a mutant and it finally caught up with me? I’m trying not to think about it. A torn meniscus is almost the best option, because at least that is (should be) fixable.

And no small part of my annoyance is the money I’m wasting by being injured. I got most of one registration back for a Black Friday race with a transfer, but was still out more than $50 for the registration I wasn’t able to transfer in time. I’m not using my Trainer Road subscription (although I just logged in and it seems pretty easy to suspend your membership). I have barre classes that will probably expire before I get the chance to use them. I ordered a new Garmin on Black Friday but I won’t be able to use it for running any time soon.

And and, I’m frustrated that this is happening NOW. The past 13 months or so was the year of getting my general health under control, and I was JUST starting to feel like myself again. Then, I do this and sideline myself again.

I’m discouraged, angry, frustrated, and sad. But I am also TRYING to be hopeful I’ll get some answers at my appointment Thursday and start moving toward recovery. Not being able to do anything is crapola and I hate it.

Update: Knee still hurts.

Hilarious image borrowed from The Tiny Terror

I have nothing to update, really. My knee still hurts occasionally and I'm not doing anything.

I got into the doctor right away last week and got a referral for an orthopedist next week, which is light speed in doctor referral time. I don't think it would be a good idea to do anything strenuous until I see him.

I went out of town starting last Thursday and got back yesterday (Tuesday) and walked around a lot, and my knee was mostly fine. I got the occasional pinch or twinge but nothing legitimately painful. I actually brought my old crutches with me, just in case, but was able to leave them in the car.

Once I forgot and tried to run across the street to beat a red light. My knee let me know immediately that THAT WAS NOT OK. Honestly, I'm afraid to try riding right now because won't that also put pressure directly on my knee? Should I cancel my Trainer Road subscription? Ugh.

Plus, I signed up for a very cool race Friday and now I can't do it. I was able to transfer my registration and get some money back but *I* wanted to run it. So I am annoyed about that, too.

Right now I am just laying low and trying to enjoy the holidays without any training. The silver lining is I am getting a LOT of crocheting done. I might try to get into the pool next week because what else am I doing? 

Honestly I'm pretty bummed that I can't do any running and am looking forward to hopefully getting some answers next week. In the meantime I am trying to rest and think positive thoughts but, not going to lie, it's hard.

At least tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

Nov. 6-12: I have nothing to review.

=(

My training is not in a good place right now. After a long run a few weeks ago my left knee was a bit tender underneath my kneecap, and it would hurt off and on. After a speedy run a week and a half ago the tenderness turned to pain, and “off and on” turned to on, all the time.

Yesterday I was in the kitchen, literally minding my own business, when suddenly I couldn't put weight on or extend my knee. Well, this isn't good. I rested it for a while, hobbled around some more, rested, hobbled, and went to bed. This morning it was fine, and then it wasn't, and then it was fine again.

Magically, I could get into the doctor this morning, and she confirmed something was going on. I didn't get X-rays since it's obviously a soft tissue thing, but I did get a referral to an orthopedist that I should make an appointment for now; I can always cancel later if it stops giving me trouble. I'm in a bandage now and getting around OK as long as I don't have to bend my knee too deeply.

As a result, my mental state isn’t in a good place, either. Between the not running, the knowing something is wrong, and the cold front that moved in last week I am the Queen of Crab. There has been a lot of lying around and moping. To be fair, there has also been a decent amount of cooking, errand-running, and crocheting Christmas presents, so not all is completely lost. But still – I am not happy.

I’m signed up to run a race next week and I have no idea where I will be running-wise tomorrow, let alone then. A silver lining is this race does allow transfers, so if I can’t run there is a good chance my money won’t be wasted. But *I* wanted to do this race.

So I don't know what will be going on for running and anything else in the future. I'm going out of town Thursday and I'm going to try to enjoy myself, even if I do have to hobble and limp around. Hopefully I'll have good news soon.

Week in review Oct. 30-Nov. 5: I “knee”d to evaluate

Nothing special this week.

Well, this is why I can’t have nice things.

I ran my first double-digit run in a while two weeks ago. Since it had been so long, it was a little tough, and I had some soreness afterward. But I didn’t think much of it, since it seemed to be typical post-long run stuff.

I noticed that my left knee, the one without any real cartilage, was still tender a few days later. Maybe I should have taken a few days off, but… I wanted to hit my running mileage goals of 1,000 for the year and 100 for the month. So I stuck to easy runs of no longer than an hour, and it felt OK. Maybe a bit sore the day after a run, but it was always fine by the second day.

Friday was going to be my last after-work run in daylight before Daylight Saving Time ended, and it was a perfect night for running. The air was crisp and cool, the sunlight was waning, the trees were still red and orange. I clicked off mile after mile, hitting about goal marathon pace minus 10-15 seconds (!!!) and every one felt easy (!!!!!!!!). I started to think that maybe I could pull off a spring marathon.

Then… bam. Knee pain. I’m not sure if I pushed off funny, or if 6 miles really is the threshold, or if I was just running too fast for my joint fitness, or what. I walked for a while and tried once or twice more, but I was done doing any real running.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

So, long story short, I didn’t do as much running as I would have liked. Saturday and Sunday ended up being filled with friend and family stuff so I just wrote them off as rest days.

Run: Four times, 3 on the treadmill and once on the road, for just longer than 22 miles in 3.5 hours. (This included a short run on the 31st to make 100 even for the month of October.)

Bike: Once on the trainer for an hour.

Total: Five workouts in 4.5 hours.

I'm frustrated, mad, and a little depressed that I am going to have to alter my goals for the rest of the month and year. I might get on the bike or in the pool later but right now I am just going to be grumpy that I have to take an enforced running break. Boo.

A look back at October (finally)

Ugh! It has been a busy week. My life has been work, squeeze an hour of something active, cook, shop, pay some attention to my husband and dogs, and go to bed way too late. It's been exhausting.

When I finally had a chance to add up my October totals, it was pretty obvious I haven't had as much time to train as I would like. This was my smallest volume month since March, when I took it easy running after a weekend of 30+ miles in late February. I really only made two of my goals, both running-related, and didn't accomplish much else.

Running was my priority for October, but I didn't do a whole lot else.

By the numbers, it was:

Run: 16 times, for 100 miles in a bit longer than 16 hours. 100 miles was a goal for me, so yay! This included a fun 5K as part of the Detroit Free Press Marathon weekend.

Bike: 4 trainer rides for 5 hours. I rode once early in the month and had a good last week of the month and that was it.

Weights: 2 heavy/body sessions for about 2.5 hours. Ugh. Not even a once per week average.

Yoga: 3 times for a bit less than an hour. Again: Ugh. Not even a once per week average.

Total: 25 sessions in about 24.5 hours. A solid month for running, but blah for everything else.

In addition to making my 100-mile running goal, I also surpassed 1,000 miles for the year later in the month. It's only the fourth time in my life I've done this, so I'm thrilled. 

But none of my other goals got accomplished. I didn't lift twice per week, I didn't start using a TrainerRoad program, I didn't even get into the pool once. Ugh.

I'm doing the best I can with my limited free time, and I'm still getting in a few solid workouts here and there, so I can't be too mad. Let's see if I can't make some improvements for November.