"I get knocked down, but I get up again, and then got knocked down again." Day 11.

I have been busy and therefore not updating this blog. It's also been a rough few days. I've been active, but have fought through some adversity. For example, I tried swimming Thursday morning at the Erie Community Center. When switching lanes to one that had now become unoccupied, I had to clear a low-hanging water slide to get over there. However, I was not being very observant. When I cleared the slide, I stood up but had missed seeing a metal beam that is used to support the slide that was in my way. The impact was quick, painful, and produced a loud bell ringing sound that caught the attention of the life guards. At the time, it wasn't clear how serious the injury was. But low-grade nausea set in a tad later and lingered a bit. The pain at the impact sight was substantial, and I've had some dizziness for two days now. I am confident it was a low-grade concussion. Otherwise, the event was in no doubt in the category of slap stick comedy. The lifeguards checked on me with great concern, but I told them I was ok, which turned out to be a bit untrue. The lifeguards mentioned others have banged their head there as well, and later attached a pool noodle to cover the beam to prevent future catastrophe. If I helped prevent other head injuries, good will have come from this event!

The other piece of adversity was aggravating my IT band on my ill-fitted bike on Wednesday, whereby swimming just made it worse on Thursday. Overall, I've had some patella aching issues as well. Apparently, the cumulation of multiple days of getting miles on my feet may be producing some stress and indicating that my injury recovery has some time to go. Nonetheless, I will try 8-9 miles of low-impact snow-shoeing tomorrow morning up by Brainard Lake, and another short jog or hike/jog on Sunday.

Interestingly, my chiropractor today (who I'll probably not see in the near future if all goes well) mentioned the importance of the soleus muscle in impacting my knee injury. I hadn't really thought deeply about it. There is the strong likelihood that a hip misalignment (no longer an issue) and tight quad muscles were the primary culprits for my condition, but he mentioned a tight calf appeared to also be pulling at my knee ligaments, creating a tension that may have been contributing to my injury. He worked on loosening that tension, and I will see if addressing that tightness will further improve my condition. It is, to me, quite intriguing to see all of the subtle things that can impact functionality of joints, and how interconnected the running chain is. I suppose it's not profound, but definitely a complex issue.

Since my last update, I had the following workout routines:

Wednesday: A successful, pain-free 2-mile trail run at Teller Farm trails peaking at 7:30 pace in the second mile, but then the 10-mile bike ride seemed to be a bad idea for my knee(s).
Thursday: 400-500 yards of ill-fated swimming, 2 miles of walking north of Boulder in some open space (photo from walk shown here)
Friday: Lifting, mostly upper body.


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