My knee didn't like me last week and when I went water running I could see why since I have more muscle atrophy than I thought - left foot flops around in the water with very little control compared to the right - despite the fact that my right foot has always been 'floppy' (it waves to the crowd but isn't a problem since I have excess laxity in one of my foot ligaments.

I spent the long weekend with friend in the country getting fat and have an MRI tomorrow morning. I saw a surgeon last week who said that surgery is a last resort and often makes knees worse. He also said I've done all the right things but these things can be difficult. I've decided I'll try to combat the muscle atrophy which must be effecting my boxing anyway and hope that it'll come good then. Of course if they can see something clearly in the MRI that'll be great but I'm not holding my breath.

They didn't test me on an isokinetic machine despite guessing that my quadricep angle is 15 degrees or more (they didn't measure it but guessed it). The theory is that it's been so long that there must be more to it otherwise it would have fixed itself.

I've decided I'm not finished running yet but my knee may take a little while longer to forgive me for the way I abused it - hopefully not more than another 6 months.

The Kenyans live there since they can make more money running in the states than in Kenya. They flew all over the place and worked part time jobs to supplement their running income then they send a lot of their money home to their families. I met some of them at the gala dinner of a marathon I competed in and kept in contact and was then invited over.

It's fun running with them except your lungs bleed

(or they feel like you do and the air is cold compared to what I'm used to so you get a little minor nose bleeding)