Zen and the Art of Speedskating

The Orthopedist extended and turned my leg, flexing and prodding my knee joint slowly, deliberately, like a jeweler turning each fact of a diamond to the light. Of course, in my case, he was looking for pain. He went through a long series of movements, extending and contracting, gently and firmly, nothing, no discomfort.

Then with the tip of his index finger he put gentle pressure on the side of my kneecap, pushing it inward, and the diamond flashed with light, ooouucch! Ok! Yes that hurt!

I think this Doc has a pretty good idea (from the mechanical perspective) of what I did to my knee, or at least, he has it narrowed down to a couple of possibilities, mostly involving some soft tissues deep in the knee that skaters tend to hurt (this doctor actually skated short track some years ago, & used to work out regularly on a slideboard, so he knows athletes & skating, I’m lucky). I will have an MRI done later this week, and then we will have answers about severity/time till I can hammer again.

Thanks for all of my friends who, upon reading this blog, sent me emails & advice & encouragement. I really appreciate it. My brother did tell me strongly that I violated a blog rule of not updating more frequently when important things like knee injuries are happening!! so my apologies….

Till answers come, my coach wants me riding my bike to keep the fitness gains I have made (cycling is ok & does not hurt). Great! So I dug around my box of jerseys, and pulled out one of my father’s early 1980’s wool jerseys. It is very clearly “not of this decade” in a wonderful way. I wore it for a reason, because I want to dwell in the positive! I have to. This knee problem could be merely a delay, or it could be bad, so wearing this reminded me to be very thankful for what I can do. With almost 20,000 miles in his legs, My Dad has really not been able to ride since his heart attack in 1993, more than a decade of blood thinners & subsequent pacemaker instillation has gotten in the way since. My dad has “software” that controls his heartbeat, how’s that for a thought! Wearing one of his old jerseys reminded me to keep perspective.

It was 70 degrees today and with a blustering wind. In the spirit of thankfulness, I wanted some serious punishment to crumble my worries into dust, so I did a bunch of 5-minute intervals into the wind and big ringing it up the hills in my PowerCranks. I was pretty happy, I was able to sustain 190bpm for these intervals, and that nice big old flagon of lactic acid was mentally purifying to drink from. The bike is an old friend, and its nice when old friends beat the crap out of you on days when you simply need it.

Whizzing homeward, & down the Ithaca hills, sweaty and satisfied. I passed the spot where my friend Peter Ozolins had his almost life ending meeting with a car. Thankful, bum knee and all, I am so thankful to be who & where I am right now.

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