STUPID KNEE

I was sooo excited to find Diadora Chili Women's MTB shoes that when my 2 pairs (on sale at a huge discount from the Performance catalog) came to my house, I could not wait to change out my cleats and try them out on the bike. In the middle of markng my shoes for the correct cleat position, CRACK! followed by the inability to straighten my leg and put my full weight on that knee, not to mention the gut wrenching pain. Oh Cr#@! This is not good...what have I done? (if you ask my husband, this part was a tad more dramatic than the way I've described it here)

Well after a trip to the Orthopaedic doctor the next day, a few manipulations of the knee by the doc,and lots of x-rays the verdict was in. A sprained LCL. (lateral collateral ligament) This connects your thigh bone to your shinbone along the outside of the leg. Well the good news is it was only a "mild" sprain..Grade 1 on a scale of 1 - 3. And it wasnt' the cartilage which I thought is was...(old injury, surgery 18 years ago to repair it, yada yada yada)

The bad news...no biking - at least for a little while. The physical therapy is coming along well. They've upped the weight on my exercises and increased the reps. I rode w/ Moe on Sunday. We did 21 miles down to Greenhill & back. I had a very minimal amount of discomfort. I can't hammer through hills just yet..but that will come. It just felt good to be back on the bike after almost 2 weeks of no riding/spinning at all.

This was certainly not the way I wanted to start out my season..but that's the way the cookie crumbles..(or my knee in this case).