Category: News

Yesterday, I ran farther than I’ve ever ran in my life. I don’t consider myself a runner, but I run often enough. I probably average running about 2-4 miles a week…

So, about five months ago, I was rock climbing with my friend, Steve, at night, in the dark, at Devil’s Lake State Park, in Wisconsin. I peeled off of this boulder, landed on a sloping, rain-soaked slab, and proceeded to tweak my knee. I didn’t hear anything pop or tear, but it felt weird. It wasn’t sore at all.

Fast-forward.

I’ve been in mild discomfort (because of my knee) since about one month after the original injury. I went to an ortho-sports-med guy, who took X-rays and an MRI, and everything looked normal. He said to give the knee about a month or two, but I should fully recover – no problem.

Now to present-day.

I ran 6.4 miles yesterday, on the Illinois Prairie Path, which runs right by my apartment. At about the 4 mile marker, my knee started screaming at me. The pain started to trickle up and down the outside of my leg, radiating from the knee. I told my knee to shut up and continued to run.

So, here I sit with a pretty stiff knee; it’s pretty sore. It’s not swollen. But, as of this morning, I could only walk on it for about a block before it started to throb.

Well, more on the knee later, I suppose. Until I can see the doc again (I have an appointment on 11/11), I guess I’ll just have to deal with it – any that Hot Chocolate 15k run I’m signed up to do on 11/6…

Okay, so this is a pretty lofty-sounding post title; and, to be honest, I don’t really have any good answers to this major life-issue. But just because I don’t have *an* answer doesn’t mean that I don’t think I have a few ideas that might help us out. I’ll just share one, though, for now…

Being individual beings, we find it really difficult to put ourselves in the shoes of other individuals; and even if we feel like we’re gifted at being sympathetic – or even empathetic – we likely don’t maintain a perpetual state of being that is accompanied by a constant burden for others and how they feel or how they would react to our actions. And thus, our principle:

One way that we can find victory over our common, everyday struggles is to remember that we don’t “do life” on our own – but in community. Every action affects the whole – no matter how small.

It’s a simple enough statement, but it’s much harder to practice. One thing that I’ve been trying to do to help reshape my worldview to reflect more of a communal living-type of attitude is to simply think about what my friends and family are doing while I am washing the dishes, hanging laundry on the clothes line, or playing with my son.

So there you have it. That’s one thing I’m working on in my own life; and, by grace, hopefully it’s one area that will improve in this 29th year of my life.