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August 01, 2005
Bizarro World
My mom e-mailed me to ask for my knee exercises b/c her Patellae Femoral Syndrome (PFS) is acting up. She first got hurt a month or so ago on a biking vacation where the participants were unexpectedly biking 40+ miles a day (the brochure hadn't explained correctly and all of the participants were surprised). Anyway, she has PFS in both knees now. She took a few weeks off but now she is on vacation and started biking again and the knee pain is back. I called her and had a discussion about knee exercises, ankle weights, ibuprofen, and icing. She is also not training for anything so I suggested, hey, why don't you take some time off until you get better. She declined that suggestion. I REFRAINED (using every ounce of gumption) from saying, see, do you understand where i have been coming from these past couple of years??...My parents have asked me time and again what the big deal is about continuing to run...But it sounds like my mom is going through something similar to other athletes' often fanatical attachment to certain forms of exercise.
As i am very familiar with, tendinitis is a stubborn thing to shake (though my mom's pain is in a slightly different spot than mine). However, I am optimistic about her injury b/c knee exercises have helped me by day 2 of starting them. i told my mom the best exercise (over the phone) which doesn't need an ankle weight, and I am going to bring my ankle weight down to to the beach and show her the rest this weekend.
My run this morning was great. Running in the humidity is getting kind of old-but at the same time I was mourning summer's end b/c it was noticeably darker when I got up this morning at 6. I ran for 39 minutes-it was only 39 b/c i negative split my run! I drove to Iwo Jima this morning so I had to end by going up the hill the Marine Corps marathon ends at (it's a monster) but the "out" part of my run also included a fairly big hill so i think it evened out. Then I grabbed a towel and some water and stretched next to the monument. It was just getting sunny (partly due to clouds, not just the approach of fall) and it was an amazing way to start the morning.
Finally, Murderball was a great film. I don't want to give anything away but: I laughed, I cried, and I learned medical stuff. I highly recommend it. (My friend liked it too).
Posted by Audrey at August 1, 2005 02:31 PM