Wanted – Cartilage

I am in bad need of some extra knee cartilage. I’m pretty sure I have this depressing panic attack every spring, but this year I am convinced that I reached the end of my biking, running and hiking career. I don’t know . . . maybe I go through this Spring year and maybe this year will be no different. I guess I just live with constant pain all summer long and I get so used to it, I don’t even realize it’s there. But after loafing around all winter, not doing much exercise, the stark contrast between no pain and lots of pain is intense. I really don’t think I could do this every day . . . try to ignore the throbbing, shooting pains in my knee.

Since the New Year, I have been trying to do some sort of exercise a few times a week. I noticed that the elliptical trainer was making my knee sore so I switched to the Life Cycle – big mistake. That was much worse on my knee. I mean 5 miles on the Life Cycle was the equivalent pain to a 30 mile hill ride. So I moved to the treadmill and simply walked for my work-out. That seemed to work out OK for me, but this week I ventured out into the real world . . . outside the walls of our gym. I took a measly 2 mile walk (granted it was one mile up a big hill and then other mile down the big hill – which is much harder on the knees than walking on flat ground) and I have been in lots of pain ever since.

How depressing. How am I supposed to think that I can go back to 100 mile bike rides or occasional trail runs and rugged hikes? This is just not fair. Maybe my knee is the same and I’m just losing my tolerance for pain. Or maybe I finally used up all the cartilage in my knee (just like the doctors warned me would happen). All I know is that this sucks and I don’t like it. Does anybody know of a good sports medicine doctor?