Today I visited my orthopedic surgeon who specializes in knees and I got the green light to run. I’ve had issues with both knees and decided to curtail the amount I run so as to avoid further injury. After his examination and some x-rays he said go for it.
He had 4 x-rays taken concentrating more on the left but 3 of the 4 actually showed the right knee as well. The right knee has been clicking and he attributed that to cartilage behind the kneecap. It doesn’t hurt and he recommended I don’t do anything about it. My left knee has some arthritis and aches in a non specific way. He said it doesn’t look bad and to take Aleve. It was interesting but he said running would not really damage it more. So I choose to believe him :) He’s a sports doctor for most of the Seattle professional teams so I think he knows his stuff.
So I’m out of excuses, time to put in some miles. I did run my regular training route Sunday and had some discomfort but the main thing was I got winded. Well that makes sense, I’ve run very little for about 6 weeks. I’m far behind where I was at this time last year. The sad part is that I came into the start of the year in better shape than last year so I have a lot of work to do.
The weather is slowly turning better so I’m going to go for it. Starting tomorrow I’ll try to get into my training routine. Perhaps in a few weeks I can extend it to my long runs where I drop into Edmonds.