What has my life recently centered around? My dumb knee. It's very frustrating. But Dr. Beck said it's getting better! His declaration last Friday was that he could feel the bone (meaning the swelling and inflammation has gone down)! I got permission to attempt the 5k race I had signed up for that evening, and wore a knee brace to try to help keep my knee tracking correctly. I was excited and hopeful.
It ended up being fantastic weather (only a bit windy at times) and that certainly helped my morale. I made myself start off really slow and told myself not to be annoyed when people passed me. For the most part, I kept that positivity and was just grateful I was out there. This is my 4th year running the "Crystal Run 5k Fridays", so I knew the course very well. However, this year there is some major construction going on, so they had to switch it up a bit. This meant that the normally mostly flat course had a bit of a hill thrown in. This slight change in terrain made my knee give out earlier than it should have, I think. I made it to 2.5 miles before I had to walk the rest of the way in. I was a bit upset, but remembered that the week before, I only made it slightly more than a mile before I had to walk, so I was able to go twice as far! Ha. Still. Walking across a finish line just really really sucks. And now that's twice I've had to do that.
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| Can you see me back there in the gray shirt and black knee brace? Taking it slow |
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| Inching up slowly |
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| My run-shuffle |
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| My official time; 39:37. 11mins 14secs slower than my PR I achieved just last year. |
I have 3 more Fridays to hopefully improve. I'm really holding on to this hope!!!
Sunday brought some more wonderful weather. Since I had to drop out of the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, my friend Travis and I decided to get out our road bikes that day and cycle in to the city to see the flowering trees. It was the first ride of the season for the both of us and we were just giddy with happiness to be out on our bikes and for the warm sunshine! The majority of the tree blossoms weren't out on display quite yet, but we found one tree that was beautiful.
Saw Dr. Beck again yesterday. He says my knee feels to him like it's getting better, but if I'm still experiencing pain while running, the next step is for me to see an orthopedist. I asked him what exercises I could to to help myself out. He showed me several, and suggested I do 20 of each. These are the ones he suggested:
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| Wall squats while squeezing ball |
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| lunges |
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| Reverse wall squats - these are hard! |
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| Toe taps; front, side, back |
I'm determined to do these every single day. They're supposed to strengthen my inner thighs and muscles around my knee so that my knee cap doesn't shift. I'm also picking back up with daily pushups and situps that I stopped when my rib was out of place. Time to get in shape for the Spring/Summer!
It hit 90 degrees today. A little warm for Spring, but it's not humid! So it's awesome. I worked from home today and took my lunch break to get back in to the city to see the cherry blossoms. It felt good to sweat in the sunshine as I road my bike around in a sea of white and pink puffs of beauty. Here are some of the pictures I took.
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| Look close along the water line and you can see all the trees in bloom |
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| Closer |
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| The Monument has scaffolding around it, as they're doing repairs on the earthquake damage from Aug 2011 |
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| I love this panarama |
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| Not really the greatest pic of me, but fine enough for a self-portrait |
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| Jefferson |
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| Washington Monument |
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| Jefferson |
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| Along Hains Point |
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| Hains Point |
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| Hains Point |
I just can't get enough. And of course seeing it in person is so much more grand than what my cell phone camera could capture! I love this time of year in the city. The weather and beauty do wonders for my soul. My well-being can take a big figurative sigh of contentment.
Happiness
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