"You, boy! What day is it today?"

[PaulS83]

"Why, sir, it's groundhog day!"

It blooming well seems to be anyway. I've decided to take a hiatus from this thing for a couple of weeks. I've booked one of those vimove analysis sessions for the 23rd February, which is like a gait analysis on steroids. I'm sure I'll aggressively throw wads of money at them for any gear that comes with sweet-nothing promises of injury-prevention and then get straight back on this horse.

If I struggle beyond this, I'll book an appointment with a sports physio, who I'm half expecting to recommend that my knee is put down. I'll be softly stroking it whilst the syringe is plunged, saying, "It's OK boy, there's no more pain where you're going."

I ended up running my W4R3, after my lightbulb moment of getting a willing volunteer (the wife) to push me around in a shopping trolley fell flat. Well, first she said, "We haven't got a trolley." To which I stretched my arms out in an "L" shape, like a 90's gameshow host and gave an enthusiastic, "Ta-da!" She wasn't in the slightest bit impressed.

I did my five-minute brisk walk (taking the trolley back) and somehow clawed myself through a run that my body just had no interest in. I felt like I didn't have the strength to lift my legs, and certainly didn't have the strength to stop them from crashing down with every step. Honestly, I was leaving dents in the pavement behind me.

I'm sure it was just one of those nights, but I spent the next day with my knee written-off like a rolled car again.

I can sense all your eyes rolling at me, that I keep going around in circles, but it's such a strange injury in that it keeps going from swollen and incredibly painful one day, to free and painless the next. It never hurts during a run, only afterwards, right inside the joint.

It's like my knee is the Child Catcher from Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang and the rest if me is Jeremy and Jemima. I know the situation is ominous and that I should lie low, but I'm lured out of my hiding place with the promise of goodness. Everything seems kosher, the pain is gone and then whoosh the cage is revealed and I'm imprisoned by injury once more.

So I'm breaking the cycle. I'm not falling for that again.

Happy running folks. I'll keep a jealous eye on your progress.

[Tonkabella]

Oh Nooooo😿. Dodgy knees are the worst ..... I know cause I have 2 of them, caused by doing lots and lots of running before the lovely well sprung trainers we have today were even a twinkle in their inventors 👁 So get it checked out before you end up like me with irreparable damage to it. We will all still be here waiting for you to return and make us laugh with your ramblings. Take care and wishing your knee a full and speedy recovery 😊🏃🏼‍♀️

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

Well done on the run... a longer break now will probably help that knee... keep on the strengthening work. Hope to see you back soon... without the trolly.

[ButtercupKid Graduate]

Hope things work out and solutions are discovered. You could always borrow a wheelchair and do it as a self drive challenge in the meantime ?!

[JAMee]

If it continues it is worthy of further investigation. My daughter had a knee problem during the programme which became so bad she had lots of investigation including scans. Her knee needed to move back slightly and this had been easily achieved as the hospital now make her orthotic insoles. No problems now and it was really quite bad.

[Granspeed Graduate]

Oh yuck. Sad AND annoying for you, all at the same time. Do hope it’s something that yields to expert help. See you back on track soon.