Just call me Mr. Mature Self-Restraint.

My knee was giving me grief, so I stopped running, took things easy, and saw a masseuse on Saturday. I'd been training for the Lost Dutchman Halfathon since August (disclaimer: I'd been training for a halfathon since my last one, in August; I had originally aimed at the P.F. Change Rock'N'Roll in January, but shin splints interefered, so I backed off and retargeted for Lost Dutchman). I'd had good training, good volume and good intensity, and so I figured that the knee shouldn't impact it too much - I decided early on in the week to NOT decide to run the race, but to wait and see how I felt on race day.

Rode out to the race with my Daisy Mountain Running Club budreauxs, and did a warmup - didn't feel great, but it didn't hurt. So I took off at the startline with some confidence.

My second mile was slower than my first mile, and my third mile was slower than my second - it actually felt as though my right leg was doing all of the work, and that my left leg was just along for the ride. Hey - I've run a lot of half marathons; I don't need to finish one just to finish one. So, at three miles in, I turned around and jogged back to the start. Yep, that's me - Mr. Mature Self-Restraint.

After a bit of inactivity, the knee felt more stiff; after the hour-plus drive home, it felt TERRIBLY stiff. By nightfall, I was on crutches.

Now I'm at home with my crutches and a knee brace - a little while ago I said "Hey, Ethel - I can walk again!" but, immediately thereafter, I couldn't. So I'm going to play it safe. Tomorrow morning, I see an orthodoc and get an X-ray. I'm sure that it's soft-tissue stuff, but the orthodoc wants the x-ray anyway. They don't really appreciate it when I help them with their diagnosis :)

It was fun, watching my brain after the race - I sat back as an observer and watched my brain come up with

• REASONS why I was injured and had had a bad race,
• BLAME for all of the reasons,
• REMORSE at allowing it to happen, and
• PLANS for fixing it and making up for it and straightening it out.

...in addition, I found it amusing to watch skinny young folks finishing up around the 90 minute mark, all by themselves, and remembering all of the years that I never ran a halfathon that slowly. That really set off the remorse sirens and the blamethrowers : )

I was able (I believe) to stay disconnected from these mental meanderings; I just sort of sat back and said "That's interesting - now my brain is doing this...now it's doing that...now it's telling me that I should think this other thing..." and let it go, without ever agreeing with it or arguing with it.

And now my knee hurts. I'm sober, I'm abstinent, I'm fed, I'm housed, I'm comfortable, I'm employed, I'm married to whatsername - I've even got some new movies to watch. I just can't go for a run (or a walk, or not much of anything else vertical). I can go for a swim - I'm considering that, as a possible alternative to running, for as long as it's necessary for me to keep off of this leg in order to let it heal.

I fully expect the Buzzards of the Bedpost to catch me at unawares real soon now, at which time I will wail, weep and gnash my teeth over the whole affair. But right now I'm sort of thinking that I've got a lot of miles in the bank, and I didn't try to race this silly thing, so I might be able to try again once the leg straightens out, if it doesn't take too long. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, Ethel and her father have decided that the lights in the kitchen don't work, so they are adding new lights underneath the cabinets to shine directly down onto the counters. This is so that Ethel won't have to lean back and look at things using the 1200 watts if candlepower coming down from the ceiling. I can't help but think that a person could lean back and read a lot of labels for the amount of money and time that they are spending installing these "task lights", but what do I know? I'm sitting here with a brace on my knee : )