Kneesy Peasy

Annoyingly, I have done my right knee in. As regular readers (all one of them) will know, I am quite the keen runner and I tend to average between 45 and 60 miles per week...but since last Friday I have been out of action. I'll explain. One of my routes takes me along a 1.6 mile stretch of fine Somerset A-road, and during the recent blizzards it naturally got blanketed. The constant trampling of this snow by other users of this route, combined with sub-zero overnight temperatures created a terrain not dissimilar to that of the surface of the moon - I would imagine, having not been there myself. And it is down to running over this icy, uneven lunar surface that I blame the recent destruction of my right knee. It feels like a particularly nasty daemon is sticking a knitting needle through my kneecap when I run for any period of time, and so have been giving it a miss over the last week, instead using a zero-impact cross-trainer/elliptical machine in the gym instead. This is fine, although I can only go for around 40 minutes before becoming so bored I want to strip the skin off my arms...I seriously need to get back out in the fresh air and once again embrace the freedom that road running offers.

When I think about my current predicament, it amazes me that I, up until a few months ago, almost exclusively ran on a treadmill in the gym. Now that I have started to run outdoors, I just can't see the appeal of sweating away in a dingy room with a load of other equally sweaty people. But I digress. I need to get this knee sorted asap and get my luminous yellow jersey on again soon as I fully intend to take part in a sponsored 7 miler in mid February. I forget the name of the good cause that funds raised will go to, but it will be a first for me to actually take part in a running event rather than running for the sake/enjoyment of it. Let's just hope my knee does the right thing and sorts itself out before then.

Also occupying my mind at the moment is the constant nagging feeling that I need to sort my shit out and find somewhere to live, properly. Since I joined the military, I have only really lived in service accomodation (apart from my brief stint in that shared house I moaned about last year). Whilst this is perfactly fine, I really need to acquire my own actual abode. Somewhere I can go to when I am not at work, for example. As it is at the moment, I live and work within the same barbed wire-topped fence, and I'm beginning to go a little stir crazy. So the hunt for a dwelling has resumed at full pace. Wish me luck.