[at-l] knees or bees or whatever

[Kent Gardam]

So, I'm wondering why my right knee is feeling better.  First, I'm 56, well okay 57 for all intents and purposes, and have never really suffered any serious kind of joint injury or physical problem while having run off and on for thirty years.  We have a treadmill that I use for my running when the weather isn't conducive to getting out to the sandy trails in our local metropark but it (the treadmill, not the metropark) was out of commission for a few weeks recently and so I wasn't doing any running.  Concurrently, I was doing a remodel of one of our bathrooms and so was making lots of trips up and down the stairs plus lots of work on my knees laying tile, etc.  During that time my right knee started bothering me to quite a degree.  Not really sharp pain but pretty much constant aching to the point where occasionally it was keeping me awake at night.  I figured some sort of injury, maybe a torn tendon or cartilidge or whatever.  My eventual hope of doing a thruhike after
 retirement was starting to look pretty remote.  Then our treadmill got fixed and so I decided to get back on the horse and give it a try.  First walking and then running again after a few days.  Well, after just three days of about 40 minutes per, my knee was starting to feel better.  It's been about three weeks now and the pain is completely gone, not even twinges.
   
  So what think you?  I know lots of you have experience in knee related maladies.  My wife suggested maybe arthritis but that would require admitting to a certain age and I won't do that.  Me, I'm a medical ignoramus who does his best to avoid doctors unless dragged kicking and screaming, so I'd prefer to think that clean living has fixed me, but that doesn't seem too realistic.  Any ideas?
   
  Kent Gardam