And while the rest of the world was at the beautiful, open woods of the Michauex Rogaine, I was limping thru the thorns at Boone. At least I ran the whole course. I was feeling it on the uphills, tho. Three weeks off makes a difference. I ran 11 mim/k, and I was pretty happy about that, especially since I had spent 6 hours the day before at Hickory Run. 9.5/k on that terrain would have been a good race for me, so I'm down about 15%. I'm going to start training this week, and hope for the best.

I think it will be a fun event. The orienteering will be technical, since it is on a 1:15 O map rather than a rogaine map. The cost of losing contact will be high.

I was surprised to learn that others have had this injury. Smash your kneecap, and be out for a month. I wondered if anyone made kneepads for runners. No one in a running race would want kneepads, I imagine, but I did find where the paintball people have such equipment. I think I'll try these, because once you have this injury, it can become cronic. I wonder how much these will affect running speed ...

www.pbreview.com/600/1/0/

From everything I've read, when this occurs in "athletes", they recommend draining right away, so they can be up and on their way. If this happens in a hockey game, for example, sometimes they can drain it on the spot and the player can return to the game. Immediate draining is recommended in deep wound cases such as mine, to prevent infection. They didn't drain it in the ER in my case, and it got infected. I'm a little pissed, but that's life.

I think the frustrating thing is that they don't take me seriously as an "athlete". I just run and do a day job at a desk, I'm not a professional hockey player or anything. O championships aren't as important to society as the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I guess. I guess I should defer to expert judgement -- I guess the thinking is that there is no need for aggressive treatment until proven otherwise, but the frustrating thing is that a minor injury is causing me all this lost time. They were aggressive against the infection, and I don't think the tendon became infected. I should give them credit for that. I am going to try to go for a second opinion, tho, on the draining. I think that is reasonable.

I'm burnt out on writing and thinking about my injury. I think I'll carry out my threat to write about music. I'm going to recommend checking out a Canadian band called The Tea Party. They are absolutely obscure (in the USA) and absolutely fantastic. They've been compared to the Doors and Led Zeppelin, tho in my opinion, the comparison to Led Zeppelin is totally off-base. Led Zeppelin was a blues-based outfit, and Tea Party has an alternative metal/industrial sound, tho their sound is not ultra heavy (its not heavier than Bush, for example). I would place it closer to alternative hard rock, and I don't hear much of a blues influence, as is obvious all over Zeppelin. I'm not sure who to compare their sound to -- I think that is why I like them, it is unique and interesting, at least to me.

OTOH, singer/lyricist Jeff Martin is a dead ringer for Jim Morrison. And it is fantastic. I've never been much of a fan of the Doors lyrically, but Tea Party makes it work. Martin is a better Morrison than Morrison was.

Their early albums have a heavy middle eastern influence, including some Asian instruments in the arrangements, tho it clearly remains a rock arrangement. This is the material I like the best. I think this is were the Zep comparisons come from, as some people compare the sound to "Kashmir", and while they are both clearly Asian influenced, I don't feel the comparison is apt. Later, on the Transmission album, they migrated to a more industrial sound while keeping some of the vestiges of their early work. I don't care for industrial music as much (and don't think "pop industrial" like NIN), so I prefer their earlier work.

I listen to music in terms of albums, not songs, so I don't really have any song recommendations. The album I would recommend is "The Edges of Twilight". I guess some of the songs I remember from that album to get a taste of their sound would be "The Bazaar", "Sister Awake", and "Turn the Lamp Down Low".

So what I have to do is find a way to keep up a decent level of aerobic activity. I haven't done anything since the injury except a 3K brisk walk. I don't think that counts. They say I can do anything, so long as I can stand the pain, but I'm not going to do anything painful. I may be able to ride a stationary bike. We'll see. I'll try to walk a course this Sunday but I'm not driving all the way to Pine Grove on Saturday unless I have a remarkable breakthru. Micheaux rogaine is also out.

I'm a little worried. My goal will now have to be to get back to pre-injury form by the Canadian events.

I guess with me not racing for a while, this page will get even less interesting. Perhaps I'll start doing music reviews.

Unfortunately, I know the map pretty well, so for me it has become technique training at race speed. I wanted to tune up for the short champs. Instead, I ended up in the ER. I like to look at my stats every year, now I've got 2 ER trips in 4 years. I think I should take up badminton.

I tripped and slammed my knee into a rock. Nothing broken, and they say all the important parts are fine, which is good news. But I can't bend my knee very much. I can hardly walk now. They say it should be fine in 24 hours, but I don't believe it, at least the way it feels now. I'll be happy if I can walk normally by Wednesday.

I did manage to finish only because it happened near the second to last control. I limped in on the long leg to the GO control. Its weird because I could not navigate very well. I happened to know were the GO control was and just went there. I remember not being able to relate features to the map on the way. They say I was in shock. I guess it would be possible for someone to have an injury way out on the course and not be able to competently navigate to a safe place. Scary thought.

I hope I'll be 100% for the short champs in two weeks.