tried to make me go to rehab...i said, "no, no, no."

i've been running since forever. when me and my gal pals realized that by joining the cross county and track + field teams, we'd be able to work out with the boys, we signed up faster than you would believe. i made some awesome (boy) friends who ran very fast, which pushed me to run faster since we all ran together. my relay team broke a record at our middle school (!!!) and i went on to run in high school too. through college, i just ran for fun.

my sophomore year of college, i went to the doctor with excruciating pain in my right knee. diagnosis? "runner's knee." when this happens, your kneecap gets misaligned and starts pulling to one side or the other of where it's supposed to go and it scrapes against your bones and cartilage (that's why it hurts). so you go to physical therapy and do all these crazy rehab exercises and eventually, your muscles are able to pull your kneecap back to where it ought to be.

it's been years since then, and even though i have to wear a knee brace sometimes, it's been pretty good for a while. but it's started bothering me a lot lately. and it's frustrating, because i want to run but my body is like, "nooo. do lame rehab strengthening exercises instead." and those aren't fun.

maybe it's because i started going to a new gym / running outside sometimes. maybe it's because i've started running longer than i was doing during the school year. maybe it's because my running shoes are a million years old and don't cushion my knees like they're supposed to. for whatever reason...it's back to rehab for me. boo.