its been a while ...

Well I just spent sometime writing my first blog in a while and when I tried to publish it, it has disappeared.  So I am going to go through this again and hopefully it will work.  Its been rough since I last posted following the Lincoln marathon disaster.  My knee was in pretty intense pain for the first couple of weeks following the marathon and the worst is that it just felt incredibly weak.

I ended up going to the Dr. about the knee and after looking at the xrays he said structurally (bone) everything appeared ok.  When he started palpating my knee he hit these bumps on the inside of my knee and I almost jumped off the table.  It turns out that those lumps are plica and in a small part of the population they get folded over and inflamed, called Plica Syndrome, from over use.  I was told to stop running, cycling, etc for several weeks and hopefully it would become less inflamed.  In addition I am/was suppose to ice the area several times a day and take a very healthy dose of ibuprofen. If it still bothers me after a month then he would do a corisone injection.  If that does not work they can go in an snip the area.

It has been surprising to me how much and how quickly I missed running.  Over the past year, I have really begun to identify myself as a "runner."  Not only do I truly love the physical aspects of training and pushing my endurance but I love the mental aspects of running.  That mental struggle of pushing through the wall, whether thats when I am having a crappy run and I am only at 7 miles or whether its at 23 miles, is something I like.  Without running I felt like I lost that mental reset button that I need on a daily (or close to daily) basis.

Well, today I decided to go and give my knee a test run around Como Lake.  The lake is relatively short and I knew if I needed to stop it would be easy to get back to my car.  Also, the doctor had warned me against doing any sort of I ended up doing two laps and my knee held together fairly well.  I could definitely feel that my knee was It was obvious that I had not run in a long time as my lungs felt like they were full of cobwebs.  I am feeling good right now (icing the knee) and I hope I can keep up with these short runs.

Well it has also been a while since I shared another honky tonk gem with you.  Here is Tennessee Ernie Ford backed up by Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West.  Enjoy!