Yeah, terribly uncreative given the subject matter, but hey, it's MY site, and I'll put whatever title I want on my entries, thank you very much.
So. Darrin and I do orienteering. Darrin's been doing it for over half his life, and I've just been doing it a little over a year. For those not familiar, it's basically getting a map with a bunch of things marked on it (called controls, or markers), and you have to find each one in order and report back to the finish. Most people run, but we aren't runners, so we just walk. And as you might expect, I do easier and shorter courses than Darrin does, since he's a map geek and he's been doing it forever, and I'm still a beginner really.
Okay, so last Saturday there was an event in Athelstone, not too far from where we live. And we both went. And I did the easy course, which was 2.6 km (something like a mile and a half, give or take). So not very far into my course, on the second marker in fact, I was neck and neck with two other entrants. One was (apparently) a dad with his young son (6 or 7), and the other was two girls, about 10-11 years old. I actually thought they were all together at first, but then the girls raced on ahead. Now, I'm the kind of person who finds it REALLY annoying when I'm supposed to be using my wits to do something, and somebody comes up and ruins it all by making the answer/result so obvious, like having four people clustered around the marker. And I knew that if I didn't pass these people up soon, they'd be trailing me (or I'd be following them) for the rest of the course, and that's no fun for me.
I'm not sure how it happened, but I slipped on something and landed on my butt. Not an uncommon occurrance, especially around wet terrain. And I got up again, and noticed absolutely nothing wrong, nothing hurting or scratched or scraped or ANYTHING. Just annoyed that I'd slowed myself down when I was trying to get AWAY from people spoiling my course. So I was on one side of a creek ("creek" here meaning "a path that water flows down for maybe two days a year"), and there was a path going down and across the creek, and up the other side. And I got up the other side and I noticed my knee popping. The first time, I thought "no big deal, things pop from time to time and then they're fine again." But this time it was step, pop, step, pop, step, pop. And it wasn't hurting, but it was really noticeable and jarring to the rest of me. I figured out how to walk without it popping, but every once in a while I'd forget and step the normal way again, and *pop*. Great. Just what I need when I'm not even a quarter finished with the course yet.
I finished (in about 44 minutes, I think), and by then my knee was in noticeable pain. (And as I'd predicted, those girls were RIGHT WITH ME the whole rest of the course. Grr.) And it's been like that ever since. It's Thursday night now. I've missed two days of work this week (I went on Tuesday and wished I hadn't). And I'm taking tomorrow off too, and then it's the weekend, and during this term I'm not working Mondays, so hopefully by the time Tuesday rolls around, I'll be able to go back, as long as I keep resting it.
So. Darrin and I do orienteering. Darrin's been doing it for over half his life, and I've just been doing it a little over a year. For those not familiar, it's basically getting a map with a bunch of things marked on it (called controls, or markers), and you have to find each one in order and report back to the finish. Most people run, but we aren't runners, so we just walk. And as you might expect, I do easier and shorter courses than Darrin does, since he's a map geek and he's been doing it forever, and I'm still a beginner really.
Okay, so last Saturday there was an event in Athelstone, not too far from where we live. And we both went. And I did the easy course, which was 2.6 km (something like a mile and a half, give or take). So not very far into my course, on the second marker in fact, I was neck and neck with two other entrants. One was (apparently) a dad with his young son (6 or 7), and the other was two girls, about 10-11 years old. I actually thought they were all together at first, but then the girls raced on ahead. Now, I'm the kind of person who finds it REALLY annoying when I'm supposed to be using my wits to do something, and somebody comes up and ruins it all by making the answer/result so obvious, like having four people clustered around the marker. And I knew that if I didn't pass these people up soon, they'd be trailing me (or I'd be following them) for the rest of the course, and that's no fun for me.
I'm not sure how it happened, but I slipped on something and landed on my butt. Not an uncommon occurrance, especially around wet terrain. And I got up again, and noticed absolutely nothing wrong, nothing hurting or scratched or scraped or ANYTHING. Just annoyed that I'd slowed myself down when I was trying to get AWAY from people spoiling my course. So I was on one side of a creek ("creek" here meaning "a path that water flows down for maybe two days a year"), and there was a path going down and across the creek, and up the other side. And I got up the other side and I noticed my knee popping. The first time, I thought "no big deal, things pop from time to time and then they're fine again." But this time it was step, pop, step, pop, step, pop. And it wasn't hurting, but it was really noticeable and jarring to the rest of me. I figured out how to walk without it popping, but every once in a while I'd forget and step the normal way again, and *pop*. Great. Just what I need when I'm not even a quarter finished with the course yet.
I finished (in about 44 minutes, I think), and by then my knee was in noticeable pain. (And as I'd predicted, those girls were RIGHT WITH ME the whole rest of the course. Grr.) And it's been like that ever since. It's Thursday night now. I've missed two days of work this week (I went on Tuesday and wished I hadn't). And I'm taking tomorrow off too, and then it's the weekend, and during this term I'm not working Mondays, so hopefully by the time Tuesday rolls around, I'll be able to go back, as long as I keep resting it.
No comments