Bringing it Indoors

Between the driving rain and tropical storm type winds I decided I needed another option to my beloved trail system for my runs this week. So I went home. Not my actual home but the indoor track where I went religiously for years, across from my former workplace. The indoor track is a padded surface .25km (ish) track that circles an ice rink. The beauty is that no matter what it's doing outside, whether it be a blistering 30C or a subfreezing -20 it's always ready for a run.
Yesterday was a busy day at the track. I seemed to miss a memo about wearing a turquoise top since 75% of the runners were wearing one (weird). I stuck to the outside of the track (designated for runners) but not hogging the lane so the faster runners could pass. And they all did. Ugh. I remember being in the mix of them. Running laps and passing the slower runners as they pushed on. Now I'm one of the slower runners, plodding but determined. I managed a solid 5km run and did outlast a few of the runners before I had to head to my daughter's dance practice to carpool. My leg twinged a bit in my calf muscles. First the outside (left) side felt tight but then that feeling moved to the inner part of my calf. I thought about taking more walk breaks, but then realized if a little calf tightness was as bad as it was going to get I could push through it.
My knee felt pretty good until I got home. After a couple of hours or so I started getting sudden shooting pains extending from my inner knee across my kneecap. I wasn't doing anything special, just sitting on the couch watching Netflix. That's the part about knee OA that drives me nuts. I can be doing nothing and I get this intense searing pain that makes carrying on a conversation very difficult since my whole mind just goes "OH MY GOD..OWWWW!" which, of course, makes me lose focus on whatever the hell I was talking about. I find it hard to tie this to my run since A. it happened almost 5 hours later, and B. I was doing NOTHING involving my leg and I wasn't the least bit stressed. So when I complain I get the standard advice to take more time off running. They just don't understand that taking time off makes no difference. I'm in pain if I run or if I don't. So I've stopped complaining. There's no point...at least out loud to my loved ones ;-)
So, this week's been a banner running week overall. I've managed a total of 15km between Monday and today (Thursday), which is really freakin' good for me lately. Today I'm hoping to bring the total to a lovely round 20km and if I can squeeze in another 10 before Sunday I will be really proud of myself and my bad knee.