Runner's low

I knew it! I do have weird bones!

Well, actually, it was always weird joints that I suspected, i.e., strangely loose ones that sometimes issue a loud popping noise (especially from the shoulders, both the weak and the hale), for no particular reason and with no accompanying sensation at all to explain it. Maybe it's like cracking your knuckles, but just in the shoulders. It's gotten to the point that I don't even hear it any more, and have to stare puzzled at others' shocked expression for a second before figuring out that they heard a loud crack when I reached for that cup of tea, and now fully expect my arm to drop off and spill tea across the floor.

But for now, it's my right knee. Remember how I wanted to run in the half-marathon on Sunday? Boo. :( I was all set up and on my way -- packing away 11 tidy kilometers per run, already half of what I'd need to do on April 1st -- when suddenly my right knee starts yelling at me with every step. Or rather, emitting the noise the aliens made at Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day. "Skreeee!" it shrieked. "Shut up!" I hissed. Alas, to no avail. It got to the point where even gingerly easing my way down the billion stairs of the Treppenweg was a painful ordeal. So I gathered my Deutscher Ring insurance papers and paid a visit to the doctor. (Again.)

Well, holy holistic healing, Batman! It turns out that in 26 years, I just, shucks, never seemed to notice that my entire right leg, from the hip down, is significantly rotated outward. This means that while the left foot strikes the ground pointing straight ahead, the right one points outward like a duck. Which of course means that after 11 kilometers on pavement, the unevenly distributed impact concentrates itself on the inside of my poor right knee; and then when the doctor digs his thumb into that tender tendon, my vocal cords make the same noise as the knee itself. "Skreeee!"

So now, at the ripe old age of 26, I get to wear orthopedic insoles. They're actually super comfy. It's like, you know how when you buy insoles at the drugstore that promise "arch support", and so you try them out and think, "hey, yeah, I guess I can feel a tiny, soft hump in there that barely brushes my arch a little bit"? These are more like suspension bridges thrusting mightily up against my arch and filling in the entire gap from ball to heel. Ahhhhh. They're strong but springy, and my knee is already thanking me.

Unfortunately, ze good Doktor has also forbidden me to run in any marathons until I also buy a replacement for those battered, floppy old Nikes that I think were purchased roughly around the same year that the human race discovered bronze tools. Which, financially, is a mission better fulfilled in the States, given not only the cheapness of the dollar right now, but also the fact that Americans (paradoxically, heh) have a near monopoly on the sport-shoe industry, and therefore the same pair of Adidas that cost 120 Euro here will cost me about 80 bucks (60 Euro) there. So no running until I go to Seattle for Spring Break, it seems.

Sigh. I guess there are worse things than being ordered by the doctor to sit on your ass and eat German chocolate all day. (Wait, one of those activities was not in the prescription. Maybe it was the sitting on your ass part. Chocolate is definitely medicinal.)