All by myyyseeeelf...

That's what I was on Sunday's run...all by myself. David and Ashley were both out of commission with injured feet, so I went out to White Rock Lake to get in at least a few of the scheduled 19 miles.

Of course, since I'm one who never likes to be left out, I found myself in Dr. Rodriguez's office this afternoon with a running injury of my own.

Here's how it went down. Friday afternoon I went out for a typical run. I tried to slow myself down just a bit, but ended up averaging my 5 miles in an 8:40 minute mile, even though it was a relatively easy run. I felt great afterward. I walked into my house, started talking to David, when it hit me: ouch. My knee hurts. The pain persisted through the evening, but wasn't that bad the next day during our Crossfit workout. I assumed that when I woke up on Sunday with relatively no pain, I'd be fine to at least do the 9 mile loop around White Rock, then maybe even pick up an extra 4 on the Trail. But around 2 miles, my knee started to hurt. Around 4, it really started to hurt. By 5 my kneecap felt as though it were about to split in two. But, being already halfway around the lake, I had to finish the 9...which means today my knee has been on fire all day. I have a wicked limp worthy of a war veteran. So, I scheduled an appointment with the doc.

Although I figured it was a typical case of runner's knee, Dr. Rodriguez was either very unfamiliar with runner's knee, or it's something else. He poked and prodded and twisted my knee and eventually ordered an x-ray. The x-ray showed something strange around the place where my tibia meets my patella, so now he's ordered an MRI. He says it may just be some inflammation, but he wants to get it checked out. I'm hoping maybe it's nothing serious at all and it will just go away on its own in a week. If anything, this denial will get me through a week without one of my favorite things in the world: running. I'll try not to drown my feelings in chocolate. Either way, my knee needs to be at least functional by next weekend. I need it to successfully carry me through skydiving and a dance audition for Grease.