Frustration

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I've been lucky - very few injuries over the course is my athletic life. Most likely because I pay close attention to the little niggles and take quick action. So right now, I'm a little frustrated with myself. I tweaked something in my right leg and it's being reflected into my knee. Sharp pain with moving from flexion into full extension and my entire right quad and IT band are tight and gummy feeling. I don't think the knee pain is actually coming from the knee. It's the process of figuring out where the pain is being reflected from and calming it down. At the same time, I need to figure out why it started in the first place. A lot of detective work without a lot of time to get it done. And it's frustrating because I should have paid better attention to the little things and this might not have flared up this bad. Bad enough that I considered taking the elevator to the 10th floor to teach my exercise class! 

Looking back, I can't remember exactly when the knee pain appeared. I know when we were in Gunnison pre-riding my back, especially the left paraspinals were super right. More the they been in the past. Did I take care of it then with stretching and rolling? No. I didn't really pay much attention to it. After all, I was more focused on the big (for me) gear I was riding on my Camber. I though that was the issue and things would calm down once I got back on my Fate and had the little ring. But when I did my two workouts, I could feel a twinge (more then a twinge, really) in my knee. Even then, instead of doing the little things - stretching and rolling, I ignored it. It was nothing. It would go away. But no, instead of going away, each day it got worse. Tighter in the quad and more tender on the patella. When I was spinning easy in my road bike last Friday, I knew something was wrong. Still did my long ride on Saturday, trying to stay in the easier gears so I wasn't stressing my knee. Fatigue in my legs made it even harder to muscle thru the technical stuff and every time we stopped, it hurt worse. A long ride wasn't smart, but the weather was perfect and I really wanted the hours on the bike. I was actually lucky - if the weather had been nice Sunday, I may have tried to push thru the pain for another long day on the bike. But we had snow and cold, so it was a short - and painful ride. With two weeks before my big race, it was time to stop. Time to be smart, which I haven't been up till now. 

And so starts the detective work. Is it my back? The bound up quad? The adhesions in the IT band? Or something else? Every thing hurts,but the pain is magnified right on my patella. And time is running out to solve the puzzle and get back to full form. 

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