Too Much of a Good Thing

First off, I want to say that this last year was truly amazing and I'm thankful to have shared the trail with great friends.  I'm not going to recap every race and epic run from the past year but I will say that by the end of November I started to feel as though I may have cashed in all of my good running karma.

During the Zion Traverse with Jared and Jay I felt a dull ache develop in my left knee.  After the run it wasn't terribly painful so I just applied some R.I.C.E. therapy for a few days and got back to training for the HURT 100 coming up in January.  Well, the pain didn't go away and in fact got worse, so after a few visits to the Dr. and an MRI (thanks Betsy!) we had it pretty well figured out.  A small tear in the meniscus, a cyst behind the patella, severe tendinitis and a little frayed cartilage just for good measure.  The Dr. believes it is the tendinitis and cartilage that is causing the pain and the tear is just minor, which is why I've decided to try resting it instead letting a surgeon "take a look around" in there.  I withdrew from HURT, which was extremely disappointing, but we're still going to have a great vacation and cheer on Greg (I may even try some pacing duties).  

What caused it?  At this point I believe it is an overuse injury.  I ended up with nearly 1,000 miles more than last year and 40% more vertical, perhaps a little more than the recommended increase.  So, as far as running goes there's a big question mark hanging over 2010, but I'm trying to remain optimistic as I signed up for the Pocatello 50 and sent off my Wasatch 100 application. More than likely I'm going to have to be flexible this year by incorporating some different activities like cycling and mountain biking to help things heal, which probably isn't a bad thing since I tend to get too focused sometimes.  For now I wait and heal...