This morning at 1:45AM, I woke up with excruciating pain on the inside part of my left knee. I was in bed fast asleep when the pain started. It came from nowhere. It felt like someone hit my knee with a hammer. It was dull and achy with a very slight tingling sensation going up to my left butt. I got out of bed and tried to walk it off. I could barely put any weight on my left leg. It was tender to the touch. I hobbled around for ten minutes before I tried to fall asleep. I couldn’t. It definitely felt muscular; I put some Iodex on it to cool it. It felt better but still hurt quite badly. At around 4:00AM I finally fell back asleep. When I woke up at around 7:00AM, the pain had subsided considerably. Very strange.
In the morning, I told Binita about my knee. She is certain it was a scorpion bite. Ouch! In my 15+ year in Arizona, I must’ve seen 500 scorpions but had never been stung. That has changed now.
My knee is still stiff but I decided to loosen it up and go out for a short, easy run around my office this evening. With the sun setting (see above picture), I ran 5.5 miles at an 8:20 pace with a slightly stiff leg. It feels better after the run. My neck pain is also pretty much gone.
A week from tomorrow, we fly out to NYC. We are flying the red-eye on Thursday night to arrive in New York next Friday morning. The race is on Sunday. We have a packed Friday but zero plans for Saturday. The weather on race day is forecast to have perfect running temperatures in the 50s, but a chance of rain and slight headwinds. I can’t wait…