FitLifeSF

Seven months ago, I joined Athletic Endurance to have a consistent, solid training schedule, make new friends among runners, have a reason to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 AM on Saturday mornings.

One month ago, I stopped five miles into a ten-mile run with a gasp and a lightning bolt of pain.

Three weeks ago, I stopped a mile into a five-mile run and limped back to walk with friends.

Yesterday, I slept in.

My decision not to run yesterday came with great difficulty and not a few tears. After my initial injury–is it really an injury if it’s a syndrome?–I took a week off, iced, elevated, rested; after my second pained run, I went to see a doctor, who told me I should continue resting and icing, and that I’d be setting myself up for badness should I decide to move forward with the marathon. I think I could have made it, had it not been for another syndrome rearing its ugly kneecap.

After the initial runner’s knee diagnosis, I had a bit of a crying fit in the elevator, but I shook it off and figured I’d get better in time to at least try to run. My left knee improved a great deal in the next weeks; my right knee, however, developed familiar symptoms and pained me. After a week or so of asking advice from everyone–non-runners, ultramarathoners, fellow AE trainees–I called for an appointment with Don at Ace Physical Therapy. I asked if anything was available before the weekend–”Can you be here in fifteen minutes?”

I cabbed it over to the SF Tennis Club. The good news: Don gave a thoughtful evaluation, I got a full double-knee massage, plus electro-stim and icing. He’s not worried about the runner’s knee in my left knee, as it’s mostly healed and just requires a bit more IT band stretching and icing to make a full recovery.

The bad news: Since I was 15 or so, I’ve suffered from a nastily grindy knee. Due to a long-ago sprained ankle, scoliosis, and just being a girl, my right kneecap doesn’t track properly, so the underside scrapes against the surrounding bones, roughening the surface and creating a grinding sensation. Don gave it a name: chondromalacia. He described the underside of my kneecap as looking like “crabmeat.” Cringing yet? If not, check this out: there’s a procedure in which they scrape the rough parts off, thus lessening the grinding sensation.

Scrape. Kneecap. Grinding. Crabmeat. Anybody for lunch?

The runner’s knee, while not a serious injury, had created in me just enough imbalance, just enough compensation, that Rightie decided she was feeling left out and wanted to join the fun–not just that, but one-up this left-knee upstart. It’s basically inflamed as hell under there, and I have to bring the inflammation down to a point at which I don’t experience pain while, you know, typing a blog. So running the half-marathon would be a colossally bad idea. If it was a 5k or even a 10k, sure, he said; I could tape up my knee, correct the tracking problem, and try to power through. But not 13 miles.

I cried a little. I tried not to show it, but he saw it and I knew it. (The pain of not running was assuaged a bit by the subsequent double-knee massage, handled by Don and his assistant, who, in the grand tradition of physical therapists, look like they stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog.) I gloomed all day. My spirits lifted momentarily when I realized that not running the race meant I could go to New Wave City and perform with my go-go dance troupe.

Friday, I had a choice to make: do I or don’t I go to the race expo? It’s only a few blocks from my work, and I already paid for the SFM tech shirt, so I opted to go. It was a mistake. I’d forgotten that the SFM now allows you to get something written on your bib; when I picked up my bib number (18075), I saw my name written across the top and promptly put on giant sunglasses to hide the tears. I remember making that decision: to run as me, as my name, not as my screenname or some other persona. Just as me.

I worked seven months, and now I’m sidelined by a chronic condition that can be managed but not healed. Truly, I think the thing that had me most upset was my sneaking suspicion that I was confirming what I’ve know all along: I’m not a real runner. A real runner powers through the pain. A real runner would man up and run the first few miles, and limp off the course if necessary. A real runner wouldn’t be sidelined by a noisy knee.

Which is bullshit, of course. Every real runner knows the difference between good and bad pain. My feet hurt, my muscles ache, my toes feel numb, but keep going. Power through. Get to the end, because that’s terrific pain, the kind to whom that you stand up and give a big ol’ one-fingered salute, because you can push yourself to your limits and beyond.

Bad pain feels different–it feels like a stab, a bolt, an ache that doesn’t go away. It’s a warning light, and sometimes, a red alert. My grindy knee isn’t being coy. It’s saying no, and it means it.

Saturday night, as I was standing around in my white go-go boots, wondering what new injuries I was inflicting on myself right at that moment, a fellow Devil-Ette brought that into crystalline perspective.

“I’m proud of you for not running,” she said. “It’s hard to stop when you’ve worked so hard, and I’m really proud of you for making the right choice.” And this from a woman named The Assassin.