Knock Knees

Yesterday’s 10-mile run around the National Mall was fun, despite the crazy blisters it gave me. We ran two loops, starting at the Senate parking lot, passing by the Capitol, up the gravel paths of the National Mall and past all the Smithsonian museums, around the Washington Monument, past the World War II Monument, alongside the reflecting pool (nice and shady!), around the Lincoln Monument, and back. This picture was taken a few years ago while the World War II Monument and the American Indian Museum were still under construction, but if you look closely you can see where they’ll be.

I didn’t write after the August 9th run because I was disappointed with how it went. I had trouble with my right knee and ended up walking most of the distance. Last Thursday, I visited Sport and Spine, a physical therapy clinic that sponsors Team in Training, and got confirmation that there’s nothing wrong with my knee. The main problem is that our training program ratchets up the mileage pretty quickly, so the muscles around my knees and hips aren’t yet built up enough to provide full support. Plus, I have mild knock knees. I already knew that, but the name just cracks me up. I’m learning some physical therapy exercises so that I’ll be in good shape to run the marathon come October.

Because of my knee trouble, I found myself thinking more last week about how running affects our joints. Conveniently, Stanford researchers released a new study last week that followed middle-aged runners and non-runners for twenty years. Of course they found the usual benefits – the runners were less likely to die not only from cardiovascular problems but also from cancer, neurological disease, and infections. But the music to my ear was their finding that the runners’ knees and other joints were just as healthy as non-runners’. I was thinking about that yesterday when I saw an older man jogging around the Reflecting Pool. I asked the man, who looked about 80 years old, whether he had any joint problems. He smiled and told me that after 30 years of running, his joints are as healthy as ever.