Second Knee Syndrome

People usually think one of three things when they hear the words "winter running."

The first camp immediately thinks of gently falling snow, eyelashes lightly coated with snowflakes, and long stretches of country road, with only the occasional cow for company.

Next up, those who would only run if chased by bloodthirsty zombies, and maybe not even then.  They think "winter running" is fraught with danger.  Dodging growling snowplows, ice lurking around every corner just waiting to take you out, aggressive drivers looking to knock you down for 10 points.

Last up, the folks who hear snow in the forecast and think, "treadmill."

Today's run was a little of all three.

Started out with three miles out and back down Lake Street, no cows present, but not much traffic and our eyelashes were nicely coated.  Kristin and I got back to my house and decided we should tack on another mile, we'd just continue on toward town for half a mile and then turn around, to make a total of four miles.  Good enough.

No aggressive drivers . . . no growling snowplows . . . no bloodthirsty zombies.

One camouflaged-by-snow, slick as glass, GIANT woman-eating icy sidewalk.  Running just so slightly downhill I hit the ice, slid a few feet forward, and BOOM.

I knew I was going down, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  I did shift a little bit so I landed just below my knee instead of directly on it.  (No repeat of last winter's month long hiatus after a direct knee fall!)  I must have looked a little like a Jack-in-the-box as I popped back up, dusting off my leg.  Mustn't lose face, after all.

Of course, that's when Kristin piped up with, "Oh dear, I meant to tell you about that . . . it was icy there when I was out running the other day."

Thanks for the heads up.

We finished up our last half mile, both discovering another ice slick on the way home, arms windmilling wildly as we fought to keep our footing.

When you get home from a run like that, hindsight says maybe it would have been smarter to hit the treadmill at the Y.  But I really do hate the dreadmill, so I'm willing to put up with the occasional treacherous road to avoid it.

Here's the result of today's fall . . . which bump is the real knee?!