I woke up this morning with a aching knee.  Actually, I woke up yesterday morning with an aching knee.  I’ve waken, woked, woken (just what exactly is the correct conjugation??)  up most mornings with some kind of aching going on.  Don’t go shopping for the pity party invitations just yet.  I’m not having one.  I do reserve the right to throw one in the future, though.  I am telling you this just for historical info, a reference point – justification for today’s title. 

I kinda ran through some hip and knee pain in 2010 that maybe I shouldn’t have run through.  In March,the pain started to really bother me and I went to the Orthopedist.  I got a diagnosis of bursitis in my hip and a referral to the physical therapist.  When I said this to a friend, her response was “Don’t old people get that?”  ugh…  Am I ‘old people’?  Yay. 

Fast forward two months and my hip pain is history but knee pain is lingering.  What have I learned?  Stretching is REALLY important.  Listening to my body is important.   My stretching routine used to consist of a couple of quick yanks on my leg or side bends…  usually ending with some groan like:  “This is taking to long…”  The root of most of my hip/knee issue was a tight iliotibial band muscle (IT Band).  Here’s some info about the IT Band:  http://www.itbs.info/.  It hurts to stretch a tight IT band, but after a few days, it starts to feel good.  And lo and behold, stretching feels good.  It DOES make a difference.  Why did I have to suffer an injury to believe this?  SMH (That means ‘shaking my head’ for you out of the loop, old fogies!)

Yesterday at physical therapy, the therapist thought he’d remind me of all of the things I’ve got going against me in my quest to run:  knock knees, over pronating feet, flat(ish) feet, woman’s (wide) hips and don’t forget my issue from yesterday 😉  Well – Thanks for the discouragement, but no thanks.  Maybe he wasn’t meaning to sound discouraging.  He’s British – maybe it’s a cultural thing.  Who knows.

What I DO know is that I DO have some knee issues to continue to work through.  BUT, I also have a supportive group of people around me.  I am going to finish a marathon.  I have no delusions that I’ll be the fastest or that it’ll be easy or that I’ll enjoy the training even.   I may not have  what some consider a good reason for doing this, but I KNOW THAT I CAN DO THIS! 

So, stumbling blocks are just that:  STUMBLING blocks.  I’ve stumbled (literally and figuratively) before and I’ve gotten up and kept going – and for those that have run with me, you know I’m telling the truth!

Until the next time…  I can to do this!