My knee still hurts. I am displeased by this.
Occasionally I wonder if there is a higher power (or a time traveler) that is watching out for me. Okay, a twisted knee sucks, but it is preventing me from doing some other activities that might be a higher risk. For instance, my work is planning a ski-trip to Marmot Basin next weekend. I do not think I can downhill ski (which I’ve never done before) with a knee that hurts. So there is a good chance I’ll have to opt out.
Or is this my knee’s way of telling me it doesn’t want to run an ultramarathon in May. (Big baby.)
I’ve been assuming I got injured because I helped some man move his car, but there are other factors leading up to it. On Sunday I ran 40km on uneven terrain. My muscles were aching afterwards, so on Tuesday I wallowed in a hot tub for an hour. On Wednesday I was running outside in the shorts right before the incident. So my knees have been through a lot.
I’ve accepted that I should not run this Sunday. I’m going to see about aqua-jogging instead. Half an hour after the incident I had made an appointment with a physical therapist. I’ll discover what my fortunes are on Wednesday.

Bugger.
Today’s run started so well. It was warm enough for shorts, and it felt great. My workplace was too hot, so being out in the cool was nice.
Up until we tried to help move a car stuck in the snow and I twisted my knee. It hurts, which I’m told is a good thing. But I have big plans for my knee this year! I don’t want it hurt. So I’ll try putting ice on it and hopefully it will get better quickly.

It’s been a fairly rough week.
The problems all started several weeks ago when my parents visited. Their car is nicer than mine so I let them park inside the heated (and probably better protected) garage while I parked outside. This was about the time we had a huge dump of snow and freezing temperatures. When they were done staying in my parking place, I brushed the snow off my car, drove it to the entrance, buzzed myself in and parked. That was where the problem started.
Ever since that time, my driver’s side window has been sticking a little. It felt fairly hard to roll it down. So on Tuesday I got suspicious of it and did something stupid. It was only when I had rolled it all the way down that I realized that I had left myself open to disaster. What if I can’t close it? Sure enough, I couldn’t. It looked like it wasn’t in the track anymore. And the whole door rattled like the window was loose.
Fortunately this was about the time the chinook hit Edmonton, so it wasn’t too bad. I could get it halfway up and if I had the heater on full blast, I was fine. When I parked I had it open all the way, so it could be mistaken as a window instead of a half open window.
It was two days before I could a professional to look at it. A Honda is a solidly built car; well the engine is. You can drive it while everything else is falling apart around it. And that is what happened. When my car was very cold and I opened the window to buzz myself in, the stress of ten years finally hit the window mechanism. They were able to close it, with the advice that I don’t use it much. I’m going with the plan not to use it at all. Until I can get it replaced.

On Monday I get to sign up for the Death Race. Opening day is usually cheaper for the first few people, so it is a big deal for me. I mentioned this at work. Immediately one co-worker challenged another to do it as well. Then we got into a discussion as to the consequences of a dare. Does the first person have to do the dare if the challenged one does it? Is the only benefit of accepting a dare “street-cred”.
What are the rules for dares?
I don’t think I trust Google on this. The best I can find says the rules are: 1) Raise your hand so that only one person speaks at a time. 2) Be positive and respectful. A put-down can hurt feelings. 3) Observe and use the quiet signal.
It goes on like this, but I think there was a miscommunication.

I figured out a way to punish bad behaviour of my my body.
Today, I woke up too early. Usually, my strategy is to negotiate with my body and just lie in bed pretending to sleep. Well, if my body isn’t going to give me actual sleep, I’m through pandering to it. I got up and by 7:30 in the morning I was out there running. I got a good 9km in before I went on my actual run of 17.5km. Then there was the 2km run home. Maybe that will teach my body that when I tell it to go to sleep, it better listen.
It was nice out that early. It wasn’t that cold, and there was light fluffy snow everywhere. That was actually a problem because it made running harder. And before the sun rises, Mill Creek Ravine can be a little scary. All alone there in the dark. I did encounter a cross-country skier. I also saw a flying own on Pope Hill.
Of course, later on I was totally exhausted and had to take an afternoon nap.

Ah, New Year’s Day. Usually preceded by New Year’s Eve. A traditionally disappointing time.
I am usually confronted with the same “other side” where the grass is always greener over there. I did have a pleasant evening, spending it with a small group of friends I already knew and playing board games. It was helped that this afternoon I did some stair-training and then weight-training. I had a large amount of endorphins running through my system that helped relax me.
But on the drive to my friend’s, I saw scantily dressed women going off to bars. Should I have been going out to a bar? No, I don’t do well in bars. I’ve mostly stopped trying to go to them. I did the sure thing of being with friends instead of awkwardly standing in a corner getting stressed over a dark room and loud music. (The more my senses are blocked, the more nervous I get. I’ve only really noticed this feature of myself recently.) But then, there is that green grass over there. They looked like they were having fun. I’m supposed to have fun this evening, but I know if I go that route I will be disappointed.
Is there a procedure for dealing with pretty girls? I’ve been standing in lines with them (today at McDonald’s: pretty EMT member) and I don’t know if there is a way to do anything. I can’t really talk out of the blue unless I know something in common. (Besides, she was talking to her partner the entire time.) Even if I do talk, is it acceptable to just ask for a number? How do regular people do this?
I’m thinking of making a resolution to get a girlfriend this year. (I hate resolutions.) Have I really been trying hard enough?
I had a co-worker who had another party that would have had board games too, but more drunk people. I would have only known two people there, and one of them only peripherally. Should I be going out to places where there are fewer people I know? I go out a lot, but I keep meeting the same friends. And none of them are single, and women, and have an interest in me. (To the best of my knowledge.)
So far my year has consisted of trying to reserve a hotel in Grand Cache for the Death Race. They said they would be having a waiting list on January 1st, but as of 2:00 AM today, they didn’t.