Chasing Knee Perfection

"A living dog is better than a dead lion."

My left knee has been a little tweaky since my ride on Sunday. Not quite bad, but not quite perfect either. (At least my right knee, which is the one I had the big trouble with this Spring, has been OK.) I always tell Sarah though that I'm chasing "knee perfection", so, I'm going to pass on riding tonight. Another day of rest/light activity is probably smarter than going to the track, where I tend to have trouble taking it easy. In fact, I told her to hide my keys, bike shoes, whatever, so that I wouldn't be tempted to go once I got home from work.

I've been riding only 4 days a week this year: typically Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. The nice thing about that schedule is that it's pretty easy to move the days around if I decide I need an extra day of rest. Being home 3 weeknights (really 4, since I ride after my daughter goes to bed on Wednesday) is working well to keep the family happy too. So maybe I'll ride on Thursday this week instead.

I've been trying to think of these things in terms of risk and reward. What's the risk of riding (hard) tonight? Hosing my knee for a few days, a week, more? What's the reward? I stay exactly on my training schedule. Assuming that I'll ride Thursday instead of tonight, there's almost no reward. Certainly, there is no significant reward compared to the risk.

So, instead of riding, I took my daughter out for a little hike (using the carrier). We had a good time, but I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to go to the nature center; the mosquitoes there seem to be getting worse. Mom needed a little break tonight, so she liked us being gone for awhile.