Too Cool for School

I am Very, Very Important.  Because not only am I Training For A Marathon, I also have an Injury.  And I am Participating In A Study about said Injury.  I think this actually might make me kind of cool. 

It's my pesky patella getting all inflamed about stuff.  I actually didn't injure it by running at all; it was due to moving, of course (why, oh why, do I not just stay in one place?  My mother would like to know the answer).  They tell you to lift with your legs and not with your back so I did and this is what happens.  It could also be because my shoes were worn out.  I think I intuitively knew that but I was too cheap to buy new ones (not cool).

Now it means a lot of icing (not buttercream, sadly) and days of rest.  Fortunately, I saw a poster on a bathroom wall and now I'm participating in a study at the university on Injury Prevention for Runners.  It's specifically for patella pain - can you believe my luck?  I actually signed up before the pain so now it's not so much about prevention as it is about some treatment.  My version of an Injury isn't that bad apparently.  My knee was groped by the cute professor and he declared it salvagable.  I'm not sure about my dignity, however.  I was wearing kneehighs and I hadn't shaved my legs in two weeks (not cool.).

The study theorizes that strong quads will keep your patella pain-free so I'm now on a regimen of exercises that I have to do every day.  It means that I can no longer say, pompously, that I don't watch TV because only reruns of "The Office" (cool) seem to make all these squats and leg lifts bearable.  My knee does feel better, I'm happy to report.  I've got three more weeks to go on the study; I'm hoping by the end of it that if my thighs are no smaller, at least some of the cellulite will be replaced by muscle.

I'm not used to my body betraying me like this.  I've never had an injury to speak of - likely because I didn't exercise.  My body was there to serve me so I never paid much attention to it.   Now it needs service and so it's one more thing to think about, another thing to fit into my days.  I suppose this is good preparation for aging, as one body part after another begins to fail.  I suppose with running the odds of those running parts - legs, hips, knees -  failing first are greater.  Another reason to exercise, then:  there's a greater cool factor in have a knee go than, say, your bladder.

I'm thinking I should get a brace or something; a visible sign of my coolness.  Limping alone isn't enough (that will only be cool at kilometre 40, unless I'm vomiting as well).  I should also learn how to pronounce the parts of me that are hurting.  I only remember one, 'miniscus', which I actually thought was a sport. 

I have some work to do in the cool area.