An Old Familiar Feeling

There's good news and bad news today.

The good news is that I feel my conditioning and grappling are getting better and better, even after my successful completion of the black belt test two weeks ago.

The bad news is that my right knee--the "good" one--is giving me pain and stiffness with normal bending. It's definitely not an ACL tear, thank goodness, because the knee is strong and stable.

But when I tore my ACL two and a half years ago, I also tore my meniscus, which gave me pain and stiffness when bending my leg--similar to what I'm feeling now. In recovery terms, it was a sideshow to the ACL.

I'm probably going to call the doctor who did my ACL surgery to have him look at it.

I don't recall a moment when I hurt my knee recently. I figure it was in the run-up to the test or the test itself. I recall telling my friend Larry that my knee was hurting a bit the week after the test, and he said, yeah, sometimes you get hurt at the test but don't realize it because of all the adrenaline.

The running, specifically sprinting, I've been doing has been good for my cardio. On Saturday, I sprinted early in the morning, then took two hours of classes beginning at noon. My quads were sore, and my right knee; but I held up fine through the classes. In grappling I twice got the back of Warren, one of the sampais my age, who was exhausted, and I got him to tap out once. Usually Warren gives me a really hard time in grappling.

But today, Sunday, I changed my plans and I'm not sprinting. I'm worried that it will make my knee worse.

There does seem to be a cycle, particularly in middle age, where you get near the peak of your condition, and some injury forces you to start over again.

We'll see what happens this time. At the least, a meniscus tear (if that's what it is) isn't nearly as big a problem as an ACL.