Even among my non-athlete friends I have found an average of one degree of separation between everyone and an injured-while-running person. Pick a random person and their (sister / dad / girlfriend / someone) (tore / fractured / pulled / something) his or her (knee / hip / ankle / somepart) while running.

This reminds me of the time Talley was going to teach me to snowboard. She went to take a quick run while I rented gear, but before I ever made it onto the mountain she was headed to the hospital with a broken wrist. For the next two weeks when I told this to everyone who asked about my snowboarding, they inevitably replied with a story about a friend or family member breaking some really important bone(s) while snowboarding. Two solid weeks of snowboard injury stories essentially vaporized my desire to learn to snowboard.

Several times now when I have explained my knee situation to someone with running-injury knowhow, he or she will reply, “Ah yes! RICE!” Which is some acronym for the things you are supposed to do with an injury, namely ibuprofen, coolness, elevation, and something that begins with the letter R. Reggae, perhaps? Riddles? Robots? I hope it's robots. But I don’t remember. In any case I’m not really doing the RICE thing so much as I’m stretching twice a day, doing leg lifts twice a day, and icing three times a day.

I am also supposed to be taking three to four ibuprofen three times a day (I was told to “Get the big bottle”) but I just can’t bring myself to do this. I half-heartedly pop two or three about twice a day, and even that feels like mild drug abuse. In normal life my habit is to take one ibuprofen, maybe, if I am having the sort of headache or the sort of cramps that are wholly and completely incapacitating. Otherwise I don’t take anything for any reason. I think it comes from this feeling that my body is doing what it needs to do – like raising its temperature to kill bad bacteria – and I shouldn’t mess with that. Which yes, I recognize is not the case with the knee. I do not claim that any logic is operating here. But I don’t like taking so many pills.

Regardless of the undermedication, my knee is feeling much better. It cracks more than it used to, including every time it goes from a locked position to bent, but I’m trying to ignore that. I’m eager to try it out again. Monday, maybe?