A conversation with Mr. Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL) Injury

Me: “When are you leaving me Mr. Injury? I have two ultras that I would love to run and the first one is in two months.”

Mr. Injury:  “Relax, you just need to take care of me and I will promise to leave you in peace.”

After a heated conversation with Mr. LCL Injury, I decided to abide by his rules; Rest, Ice, compress (massage), and elevate. I hoped that he would be gone in three days. After three days, I check on Mr. Injury by running 4 miles. But what was I expecting? Since when does an injury heal after 3 days? As a result, Mr Injury was indignant with me. He woke up and yelled at me. I clearly heard him as I limped with an excruciating pain in my knee. I felt like Mr. Injury was playing guitar with all my knee ligaments. I had no one to blame but me. At some point I laughed at myself, "So you thought you were wolverine, you heal in three days." I limped back to the house and licked my invisible wounds.

It had been three days and I had not heard from Mr. Injury. This is great, let me just jog 1 mile and see if he is going to respond. After a mile, I felt him turning. Damm, I almost woke him up. What was I doing? Do not be stupid SP. Just do squats, jump rope, and other knee strengthening  exercises and he will leave you alone. While trying to be calm and accept the reality in front of me, voices in my head were screaming, "This is hard!!! I want him to go go nowwwww!! ahhh!" And then the calm one said, "Let me plan, I will ride in the morning for 2 hrs or 30 miles and cross train three times a week. When walking the dogs, I will jog for about 20m and stop." The calm voice has been able to override all the other voices. I patted myself at the back for finally being wise. It has been 3 days and Mr. injury has been sleeping for a while know and I hope he will overeat on all the cross training I am giving him and die for ever!

Even though it sounds like I have everything under control I actually don't. Sometimes I want to scream at him. But I know that won't help. Everyday is war between testing the knee and biking only. It's hard, but I just believe it will be over soon. It's like that stage in an ultra when you want to quit but you just say, “No Nope, not now, and not today... one step at a time.”  I am waiting for the moment I will start saying, "one mile at a time."

With this injury I have resorted to feeding off the energy from all the runners and cyclist I see on the trails. They keep me going strong. Thank you ABQ morning runners and cyclists for the positive energy you give me. You encourage me to not let Mr. Injury win.

Tranquility Sunset

While contemplating about fraction multiplication, division and how we use Math in our everyday life, nature distracted me.  I had to capture it.

Just Look at that

Love the way the sun says good night

"I will paint the sky for you", the universe.

Going down in style. See you in the morning!