Me, yesterday...

According to the candles on the very yummy chocolate cake that my wife baked for me, I was eight years old yesterday. Add thirty one and you'll get the correct age. Jaysus! Am I middle aged? I certainly don't feel it. In fact, I don't mind getting older at all. When I examine the life cycle balance sheet, things seem better now than when I was twenty one. I'm certainly fitter (not skinnier though), healthier and happier now, although twenty one was indeed a great year. Definitely happier than twenty four. That was not a banner year. It involved prolonged involuntary celibacy. And poverty.

On the subject of being fitter - my bike training has been rudely interrupted by a bum knee. The left one. Given the mileage I have been doing, a sore knee might not be unexpected, but no, I somehow managed strain or tear the cartilage (don't you love the somewhat vague diagnosis that modern medicine provides), doing yoga. For those of you who think yoga is a mild form of exercise, go try it and report back to me.

Being a complete idiot, even though my knee was a little sore, I cycled forty miles last Saturday. I presumed that the lack of any pain during the ride was a good sign. I presumed wrong, way wrong. On Sunday my knee was so swollen I had to tie it down to stop it floating away, and any move in the wrong direction resulted in sharp pain. This was how I ended on the morning of my thirty ninth year on this planet, in the doctor's office having my knee twisted hither and thither. The good news is that, despite the pain, it seems mild enough; I was worried it might be a torn meniscus. The bad news is I am going to have to stay off the bike for at least 10 days, which really screws up my training schedule. Just when I was starting to feel strong. I have no choice but to roll with it. Ice and ibuprofen are my new best buddies. As a good friend puts it whenever something goes belly up, "How bad can it be, it’s not like someone died..."