Phantom Injury
So Fridays I have to do 60 minutes of ‘cross-training’ which is, for me, an excuse to pedal a recumbent bike at the gym while I catch up on TV. It is practically an off day. Yet this past Friday, 45 minutes into ‘Dollhouse‘, my right knee does something funny. I try to pedal through it and manage to finish the 60 minutes, but something’s definitely not right.
A few hours later I walk over to the Seaport Hotel and discover … surprise! … that I can barely walk down the stairs. Lovely. As I medicate my way through two Bass Ales, I’m figuring that’s it, I’ve somehow managed to blow out my knee and will need surgery, and Christ there goes my NFL comeback. Ugh.
I hobble home, ice the offending knee, and wrap an Ace bandage on it. Saturday morning, it is definitely better but still not right, and I finally decide to NOT do the feared long run (17 miles!) for fear of making it worse. I elevate the knee, watch Olympics and movies and hope for the best.
Sunday, it feels fine, so I suit up and hit the road for the long run. The long run is developing a familiar pattern where with each one you feel surprisingly good for a longer and longer portion of the front end, and yet the last 4 miles are ALWAYS an ordeal. No change with that this week. And at the end of the run my left calf hurt, one of my toes was bleeding (clip those nails, people), and my quads are turning into mashed potatoes … but the knee feels fine.
This week, I also discovered a fun fact about running. In a case of Life Imitating Bugs Bunny, when you run a lot you become accustomed to seeing banana peels in the middle of the road. I could never understand why, and it always reminded me of a Blonde joke I learned when I was nine. Q: “What did the Blonde say when she saw the banana peel on the sidewalk in front of her? A: ‘Oh no, here we go again.’”
But now I know. Bananas turn out to be a great food for the long run. Easy to carry, and a lot easier to consume than those weird packets of super-energy paste. And when you fling the peels to the ground, you know that they are completely biodegradable. Even if they are a pratfall waiting to happen.
Posted: February 28th, 2010 under Running.
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