So, remember last Friday? I was going to test out the knee on a short run. With my PT's blessing, I should add. How often does that happen? Pretty often, I guess. I'm generally good about following instructions and stuff. I'm a conformist. Sue me.

Anyway, I may have mentioned that I went out for a test run on Saturday. Perhaps I should preface this by saying that most of the time when I try to come back from an injury I start out with just a couple of miles. Sometimes as little as one. And I'll build up very slowly, taking weeks to get up to 4-5 miles at a time.

This time, I took the PT at his word and decided to go crazy with a 4 miler right off the bat. 4 miles. As a test of a knee that's given me problems since the middle of February. So wise. So cautious.

Right.

Fine. I'm an idiot.

First, let me tell about the run. If I remember right, this spring is the opposite of last spring. Didn't we go from winter to early summer in something like two days? The spring of 2018 is over four weeks old and the weatherman is still talking about wind chills and snow accumulation.

Mrs. Dave worked a 12 on Saturday, leaving T-Rex and I to amuse ourselves. I had a couple of things to do. First was my continuing attempts to stop the water leakage in Abby's floor. every time it rains the carpet gets soaking wet. Cars aren't watertight and they'll sink, but I'm reasonable certain that they're designed to keep rain from washing up and soaking your feet just from street splash. This time I removed the driver's seat completely and pulled the carpet all the way back. Still nothing obvious, which is good. But where exactly am I supposed to concentrate my anti-moisture efforts? Everywhere, I guess. So I got the industrial size, super strength spray sealer from Home Depot and coated it all down, left it for several hours under a heat lamp and then sprayed it again. It smells bad and will for a few days, but I hope I've gotten enough now that I don't have to change my socks every time I drive in the rain or snow.

Since the siding job has superseded the new tile floor, Mrs. Dave has also pulled ahead some of the smaller jobs in the queue, one of those being new interior paint. The advantage of this is that I can do it even if we have to continue suffering from the winter that won't end. After taking a short four months to decide on a color, she let me buy a couple of gallons of Agreeable Gray. Painting also requires replacing broken or old-looking electrical switches, covers plates and receptacles (back in the day we called them "plugs", later "outlets", and now they're "receptacles" - my, how language evolves). I used to use a lot of tape around trim and the ceiling, but lately I've decided that's too much work for the little mess that can be fixed with some more ceiling and trim paint.

Dining room and living room. The dining room had the chair rail that was all the rage forty years ago, so I had to remove that, sand, fill, clean and prep that area. And of course cover all the holes from assorted wall hangings that are no longer hanging in both rooms. The painting itself is the fastest and easiest part. Turned on Amazon Prime to Doctor Who and let Matt Smith and Karen Gillan serve as background. The living room was a sage before and it was weird to see it look so different from the same color I used in the dining room while I was painting and letting it dry. Thought maybe I'd gotten a mixed batch for a while there.

After a quick trip to Kroger for bottle returns and grocery shopping, the sunny day had warmed up to nearly 40 degrees, with a chilly wind. So, I went with tights and double shirts. It wasn't terrible comfortable, but I was running. I was slow, but I was running. I took almost 40 minutes to go 4 miles, but I was running. That means a lot. Around the end of the second mile, I felt a little bite from Louie, but it didn't stay, so I kept going, ready at any moment to shut down and walk home. Didn't happen.

About now, you're probably thinking that this was a glorious day, I'm going to call the doc and the PT, cancel the rest of my appointments, and submit my entry to the Vermont Marathon.

While I will admit to having a thought or two about jumping back into training - heck I've done marathons on less mileage - by the time I made it back to the house my thighs reminded me why I began taking such good care to add miles slowly. I knew the PT was nuts for saying 4-5 miles was OK to test. I'm in no shape to run 4-5 miles after zero miles in the last six weeks. DOMS was coming, and coming hard.

But, first, there was this thing with the knee. Nothing more went on as I finished the run and sat to post on Strava/FB. I'd forgotten to charge Hal, who's been languishing in the bottom of the bag since February 15, so I strapped on the phone and Strava'd the run. Feeling pretty good about myself and Louie's inner aspect.

Then I took a shower.

Then I had dinner. 

Then the knee started to hurt. Within 20 minutes the pain went from a zero to a seven. Standing and walking were bad. Just sitting wasn't great. Rats.

Hurt the rest of Saturday evening and all day Sunday. The only distraction was the pain in my thighs from running four miles when I was ready for maybe half that. Seriously, the level of pain and number of days this hurts is like I ran a marathon. Crazy. Today I'm mostly recovered from that, but the knee is still bad. At PT yesterday, the Amazing Amanda worked mostly on my back, which was all screwed up. I've known that for awhile, actually, so I sort of had that as an ulterior motive for being happy the MRI wasn't approved. But she doesn't know what to do about the knee. She taped it, but that's done nothing. Worse, if anything. I've give it the rest of the day. It's OK just sitting, but walking is not. I need one more week before I can call the doc to re-order the MRI. Progress so far with PT is exactly none. There is definitely something seriously wrong down below. There may be some cutting in my future.

Good thing I cancelled my marathon plans for the whole year.

Anyway, I hope your training is all going well. I see some spring races happening out there. And next Monday is Boston Marathon Monday. Looks like my return to Beantown is likely to be postponed to 2020.