Why does my Knee Hurt?

This post might resonate with a lot of readers who are into some kind of physical activity and in my case it would be running. After being physicallly inactive for around 3 yrs for various reasons (or well crafted ingenious excuses ) I finally got up and decided to get back on track. Well there were a couple of reasons that jolted me out of my smooth easy life-style and the primary one being the realization that I was getting older. I could not abuse my body in the same way as I could a couple of yrs ago. Like it was pretty easy for me to skip meals for any reason earlier. But fast forward 5 yrs, I am 31 now, and my body has changed that I have to keep my stomach filled to a certain level all the time. This started happening a couple of months back. If I skipped a single meal I would get bad and I mean real bad headaches and then the only way out was to take a tylenol and hit the bed. Nothing else helped. For the first couple of times I could not figure out what was wrong and why was I getting these headaches keeping in mind that I have NEVER had any headaches in my life. Then I started corelating things and came to the conculsion that anytime my stomach was empty, it would do something to my body and head and it would be in a state that I needed food, rest and medicine to bring it back on track.
Has someone else felt or noticed anything like this with themselves or I must freak out and go see a doctor?
Anyways, so I have decided to start with things which I like the most or something which I have wanted to do for a long time and have just been procrastinating about them. I am actively trying to pick up running with plans to run a full marathon by the end of this year. Lets see how that goes. You can watch my progress on my running log that I maintain online at coolrunning.com by clicking the link on your right. So I went for my practice run which was close to 4 miles like 2 weeks back and then I think I overdid it or did something bad to my knee. I have been having such bad knee pains that it difficult to climb up and down the stairs. So I went on the web and started searching for what was going on with my knee and learnt a couple of things that I was doing wrong. I also found a very good website about the problem I think I am having. Its called runner’s knee or IBT (Iliotibial Band Syndrome). This entire website is dedicated to this problem and as I searched more on the net I discovered that it was something very common for new runner’s like me. I have also found a couple of very good stretching and muscle strengthening exercises (pdf doc) which I have been doing for the past couple of days and It does feel better. I at least dont have to limp when going up or down the stairs. But I dont think I can still go for my runs this weekend. I will try..maybe a 2 mile run..and increase it if I dont get any pains. Watch out my runners log or postings on my blog here for how it goes.

Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?

Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?
Have you ever wondered what is the easiest way to start your own Blog or have been bogged down by the choices and the various websites. Above is a nice article which actually taught me about wordpress (believe me I DID NOT know about wordpress before I read this article). I am happy I found it else I would still be using yahoo 360 or blogger or msn spaces which are no where near in features and ease to the combination that I am using now. Read my other posts to figure out what did the trick for me.

Firstgiving – connecting supporters with causes

Firstgiving – connecting supporters with causes
Very good site for any kind of fund raising. Worth a look

Social interaction skills

I was reading this how to go from introvert to extrovert article over at Steve’s website when I came across a link to Rick’s website. Although it does not seem to have been updated in quite some time but I did find this nice article about social interaction which I think is pretty good and to the point. I do not or rather cannot relate to some of the issues mentioned in there because I AM a social person by nature. I have never had problems in meeting and talking to new people but I do know a LOT of people around me who seem to have this problem. It was not until long time ago that I could undestand this concept. If something comes naturally to us, we do not realise its importance. Like the time when I broke my wrist and had a cast for 3 months. Although, I did learn to survive and get the basic tasks done with my left hand (I am right handed) but I did develop some ambidextrous skills after that incident. It was at that time I realised that some of the things that I took forgranted were not that easy for some other person with one hand. Now I can at least understand when someone havs a problem with social interaction situation. It was a completly foreign thing to me some time back. But yeah read the article at Rick’s website. He also has a couple of nice links at the end of the article which are worth reading too.

Long time no see!!

As you might have noticed that I did not post for a couple of days. Well I was catering to some of other higher priority things and yeah to some extent lazying around too . Sometimes when you foucs on things too hard and are at it for long you need some downtime. At least it happens with me every once in a while. I would have periods where I am up and running for 18 hrs a day for sometime and then there is a period when I am just too lazy to do anything. My favourite activity duing this hibernation is either some techie project or watching movies. Both of these activities seem to recharge me. I also seem to have found my new passion. I think it is running. It is something which I have tried in the past in a disorganized way and failed miserabely for multiple reasons. I am trying to take a better approach this time by trying to follow some guidelines and see if I make any progress. So far I am pretty upbeat about it but I kind of injured my knee after my previous run. After some hunting on the web, I found a name for the problem and was surprised to see that there is an entire website devoted to it. So dont be surprised if see a lot of posts about running from now on.

Not good at html

I have been trying to get my website up and running for quite some time now. There are a couple of problems:

• I am no good at html programming : Its not that I cannot learn it but I have just been too lazy and hence looking for some good WYSIWYG free html editors. But so far have found none. The closest I came was Nvu. It was okay but I think I want to try Frontpage too.
• I did go ahead and register a domain name from 1&1.com but I am not sure what do with hosting. A part of me wants to host it on my NSLU2 which I use for my ssh server currently. I run the modified firmware on it. I dont think it should be a problem with my DSL provider and I have a solid 3M/384 connection.

Any comments on whether I should host the website myself or look for some hosting company?