TENDONS AND OTHER ANATOMICAL STRUCTURES

I haven’t been doing so well in the last week.

Er, wait a minute . . . that sounds pretty melodramatic. People whose houses are being foreclosed on or who are being held hostage in guerilla prisons in third world countries—well now, those folks aren’t doing so well.

So let me rephrase that: I have been doing fine. But my knee hasn’t been doing so well in the last week. After my personal life-changing 3-mile run a week ago, my knee started acting its age. “Hey, buddy,” I coaxed the achy-breaky joint, “61 is the new 51! Didn’t you get the memo?”

A mild, self-diagnosed case of tendonitis in my left knee has forced me to temporarily shelve the running and cut back on my walking to a tortoise-paced two miles a day. I’ve iced and elevated and rested the offending knee. I’ve even taken Aleve a couple of times.

It’s not a serious case; I can easily keep up with a 15-month-old toddler’s pace, so I can still fulfill my important grandmotherly obligations, thank goodness.

It’s just frustrating. I felt like I had finally broken down a mental barrier with that 3-mile run, and now this setback.

When I read up on tendonitis, the first thing my source said was that “middle-aged adult runners are very susceptible to tendonitis in the knees.” If middle-aged runners are susceptible, do the math and imagine how susceptible senior runners are. Guess I should have read the fine print before I decided to run a 5K.

Anyway, the knee is slowly getting better. At my age, everything occurs slowly. Why should knee healing be any different? I still plan to run in the 5K on May 15 but will need to be more careful about warming up, wearing the right shoes, and eating lots of chocolate (I just added the last one to see if you were paying attention).

This is not really my knee. But let’s just say this knee looks the way my knee FEELS!

And I don’t want to hear anyone saying, “See, this is proof that old ladies weren’t meant to run in races.” Seriously, don’t say that. Don’t even think that.

“Buzz . . . buzz . . .mumble . . . murmur . . . if God had intended old ladies to run in races . . . would have given them titanium knees to begin with . . . ” What did I just say??? I don’t want to hear it! Don’t even whisper it!

Even with the tendonitis, I would still much rather have my tombstone read, “Died while hobbling along in a 5K” than “Died on living room couch clutching a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos watching Real Housewives of Orange County.”

So seriously, no smug ‘I told you so’s.’ I am still convinced that this has been a very positive experience, and that in the end, I will earn the tee-shirt that comes with finishing the race. (In the final analysis, it’s pretty much all about the tee-shirt.)