On running with a knee injury

Something is wrong with my knee.

I don't know what it is, and I don't even really remember how it started. It could have been this past October, the fall of my senior year of college, when I ran my first half marathon. Or it could have been 8 years ago in the spring of my freshman year of high school, during my first season of track and field, when I got a stress fracture. Somehow this was caused by uneven hips, or by cheap running shoes. Nevertheless, I ran on the same shoes, and the same hips, all four years.

Now, I change my running shoes every 7-9 months, maybe because I'm a shoe snob? Or maybe because the swelling in my knee and in my heart from running are growing stronger. I don't care about small shooting pains. I'm addicted to running.

When I'm having a bad knee day, I can usually sense it during the first mile. A small pain shoots under my knee cap, and a sigh and eye roll prepare themselves for the next one.

The worst of it is, after it gets unbearable and I have to stop and walk, it gets better. But the second I start to run again, I'm a collapsed mess on the ground in the fetal position. The little stinker strikes again, and I'm left to walk again. But I keep trying again every day, maybe because I'm an idiot? or because I'm addicted to running.

For the past eight years that I've been running for pleasure, I've really only actually enjoyed it for three of them. In high school, it was only bearable with other people by my side. Then freshman year of college rolled around and I thought I was invincible, and I didn't think I needed running. Whenever I tried, it only ended with me thinking to myself "okay, half mile, good to go."

Whenever I went far, though, I felt it the rest of the day. There's just no beating that feeling of your lungs opening with a joyful chorus, your smile forcing itself wider on your face and the sweat falling off your body making you feel 100 pounds lighter. It's an indescribable feeling of being emptied and purged, nothing negative remaining. But, you know, I was an ignorant freshman. What did I know about happiness?

Sophomore year brought the shedding of my freshman 15 and the secret love affair with 8 miles of road. Junior year my running buddy and I did crunches post-runs and talked about half marathons. Senior year brought me through the longest I've ever run, and the most unbearable and most wonderful I've ever felt. My legs were sore for a week and my heart was happy for a month.

Here I am, several months later, bearing the brunt of my obsession. Shifting from road to treadmill and back again is always the worst transition. This is when my knee tends to act up the most, when it's confused about the surface we're running on. Wait, there are contours in the path now? Oh, there are hills? We haven't trained for this. Get thee to a weight room and an elliptical, commands my knee after about a mile on the freshly melted snow on the road. Really, get over yourself. Outside is much better than inside, I say in return.

Once my knee and my lungs acclimate themselves to the outdoors again, who knows what's next for me. Full marathon? Triathlon? We'll see what my knee is up for. I can usually convince him.