Handbook, eh? I'm not good on multiple choice... OR Crisis of Infinite Knee Handbook of the Running Guy Universe

Today was the first day of the rest of my knee.

Forgetting that my Aikido instructor and most of my classmates were out of the state today, I biked down to the dojo, saw no one, promptly biked back home. And there I broke out "The Knee Crisis Handbook."

The book arrived yesterday. On a cursory glance, it's pretty much what I expected: how your knee works, how to keep your knee working, here's what to do when your knee doesn't work and you kinda liked it the way it was before thank-you-very-much.

But the big thing I'm looking for is a whole new stretching/exercise routine, designed for flexibility and strength training. And so far 'Knee Crisis Handbook' meets the criteria.

Two steps back: the problem with my knee seems to be the typical "Runner's Knee." Inflamation behind the knee cap. I start to run, get some dull pain, and my knee cap feels "tight" like it needs to "pop." I can run about a quarter mile before any discomfort. So I'd like the knee to work with the running and the marathoning.

And I'm enjoying the process of getting back up to speed, oddly enough. The stretches added a lot to differnt muscles, the exercises put emphasis on even more muscles. The idea is to take care of strengthening all the leg and upper body muscles since they're all interconnected. And I dig that.

Today was the first day, and just the basics took me about an hour and a half. Well worth it; the trick now is making it a daily/every other day kinda deal.

Here we go.

(the following post was not spell checked or grammer check. C'mon, it was an hour and half of exercise for my knee; I got races to shoot, comedians to upstage).