Of Knee Cysts and other sad stories...

In a parallel world I might have been writing about how I ran my longest and my first 20 miler but sadly in this world, I just had to pipe down and sit out the Chennai Marathon because of my sad, injured knees. :(

Yes there will be more such events and yes, I could be running them stronger and faster... yet, there is a mopey voice in my head that says "but you weren't running today". (Trying very hard to ignore that voice)

I gave my running 5 weeks of a time-out to see if the discomfort in my knees would ease out. But it just seemed to linger on. Of course, in that time I did read up a lot and all the running related knee injuries that I came across just didn't seem to apply to the discomfort that I was feeling in my knees. And I say discomfort and not pain because there was no major pain at all. Just that in certain positions (like a wide-legged stance or a lunge) I could feel something moving inside (like as though something was readjusting itself) and felt a sense of instability in the joint. From time to time, I would even feel a dull ache on the inside and back of the knee (quite randomly) Regular movement & functioning seemed unaffected. I could walk, climb stairs, squat, sit cross legged and even do yoga with no pain. I even tried my magic Muruvenna (an Avurvedic oil from Kerala that has literally worked magic before on previous injuries) but of no great consequence. And finally on the last day of 2018, I decided to take an MRI scan just to figure out what was going on. (Oh! Happy New Year btw).

Of all the random injuries, it turned out to be a synovial cyst (a smallish one) on the back of the knee  towards the left which had caused a grade 1 strain on my posterior cruciate ligament. Consultation with the doc revealed that this was minor and that it would go away on its own provided I didn't aggravate it any further (turns out that sitting cross legged, squatting and any position where the knees were bent at less than a 90 degree angle would put unnecessary stress on it and prevent it from healing). He did confirm that it was usually overuse / over strain that causes these sort of injuries from happening. I've also been recommended cycling and strengthening for my quads and hams. 

So thats where I am at now. This will probably take another 3-4 weeks to set right. Meanwhile, I'm still working out. We've set up an indoor cycle trainer in our gym room and I have been doing about 10-12 minutes of stationary cycling every day over the past few days. Making a conscious effort to avoid sitting cross legged or bending my knees too much. Overall staying pretty positive and hoping that I'll come out the other end a stronger & better runner. (Definitely wiser runner ;))