Too old to run

I am being facetious; I am sure I am not too old to run. But this week it felt a bit like that. Only very recently I had started to have to stretch on a regular basis, as otherwise my bum would seize up during my runs. And now I had a niggle in my left knee. I don't know what it is; I don't think it is anything serious, but I thought it might be better to give the knee a bit of a rest. I don't want to give myself a rest altogether, though, so I decided to do a few days of exercise on my bike. And I just took one of my somewhat longer loops on country roads that I normally run, and just biked it. It is less exercise on bike, of course, as when you are going downhill you don't do anything. But I could imagine it is not that much less than one of my somewhat shorter runs. After all, I am not only lugging myself up these hills, but also my 20 kg bicycle. I am not going on the road bike on purpose; one reason is that when you go uphill, you have bigger gears, which makes it heavy going. Yes I know this is exercise, but it has to stay fun as well. And when you go downhill, you'll bounce all over the place. The road bike is quite rigid with tiny tyres, so if you hit a bit of a pothole you get catapulted into space. On my commute that's not much of an issue, as most of it is quite well-paved. But these little country lanes can be a bit more variable in quality.

It was actually quite pleasant. I did it three days in a row, and by the third day I actually managed to remember to wear cycling glasses, to keep the insects out of my eyes. On the fourth day I had to get tested in Bangor so I wheeled out the road bike again. Almost a week of biking! But I'll try to run again soon. I want to know what this knee can and cannot do. And if this problem doesn't go away on its own initiative I might have to see if I can find a physiotherapist for it…