Run out of time.....

"Well Tim I have good news and bad news....."

Earlier this year I wrote about a problem I'd discovered with my knee when I went for a run. Well it's taken me 5 months, but yesterday I finally got a diagnosis on my injury, or more aptly perhaps... 'my condition'.

When I walked into Sandy Hospital yesterday I had already resigned myself to needing an operation of some sort, a torn ligament probably being the problem. I figured wait for 6 to 8 months, get the op, then rehabilitate for another 6 to 10 maybe. Yes, a pretty long turn around but afterwards everything would be back to normal and I'd be running again at 100%

Well yesterday the Doc delievered his verdict and it wasn't quite as planned. The good news was that my MRI scan revealed no damage to the ligaments, so I don't need an op. But the bad news is my cartilage behind my knee cap is wearing out (due most likely to all the street side running I did in London) and my Doc said no surgery would help it. Instead he said it's a matter of 'management', even going to the point of saying maybe I should stop running......

Over the past 6 years running has become embedded in my lifestyle, and in the past 3 years it is the only constant I have known. Even when I backpacked around Europe I took my running gear, seeing the old people's faces as I ran through streets of Salamanca on a 40degree day is still a memory endeared to me. But I wonder now if it's a memory that won't be added to, as maybe I have...... run out of time.