OK, I'm grasping at straws to include whatever I can as a workout. This was at least as good exercise as walking, though.

This was actually pretty strenuous basketball. We played 2-on-2 for about 2 hours. Best of 7 series, and the young guys beat the old guys 4 to 3. It was 12-11 in game 7 when I got a page. After I answered it, the young guys had caught their breath and went on to win 21-15. I should have just waited the last 5 minutes it would have taken, because we had them on the ropes. Even though they're younger, we're in better shape. Plus, we have veteran savvy. Oh well, live and learn.

Went in to see Honkamp for a look at the MRI and possible surgical options. He showed me the spot on the cartilage that was missing, and where the fragment(s) are. A point I need to make here is that the injury is not actually to the meniscus, as I previously thought. And it is actually on the medial portion, not the lateral portion. The injury is to the femoral articular cartilage, which presents a wider range of therapeutic possibilities. If it was the meniscus, we would just remove the piece and debride the defect, and that would be all. We discussed the option of simply removing the fragment, and debriding and smoothing out the defect, as this can be done on the articular cartilage as well. This is the simplest procedure with the fastest recovery time - stay off for a few days, back to regular activity in 3-4 weeks. He mentioned that if there is a piece of bone attached to the fragment, he could reattach it to the cartilage/bone, and it would likely heal back together, almost as good as new. This would require about 1 month of non-weight bearing, and gradual return to activity over the next 3-4 months. He also gave me the option of making tiny punctures in the bone and cartilage to allow healing to extend out into the cartilage area and also make it nearly as good as new. This is known as microfracture surgery, and you may have heard about it with guys like Amare Stoudamire, Greg Oden, Jason Kidd, Chris Webber, etc. It seems this is a very successful procedure as long as strict adherence to post-op rehab is maintained. This again would involve non-weight bearing (crutches) for 4-6 weeks, and then a long series of PT and rehab, with slow return to activity over the next few months. If I had this procedure done, I would probably be able to get back to my regular training workouts sometime in the spring. At this point, I think I'm going to opt for the basic scope and clean of the cartilage. I'm not prepared to be off my feet for over a month with 2 little kids at home, a job, and people who count on me to do things. If I was a professional athlete, I might say that microfracture is a good option, but for now, I don't think that's right for me. If he can reattach the cartilage, well, that's the gold standard, and I'll go with that because the long-term (lifetime) implications to "keeping all your parts" is likely very beneficial. Otherwise, if I still have problems with my knee, I can always do the microfracture later on, if that seems like the way to go. So I'm tentatively scheduled for the scope on September 24.

Played some light basketball in the backyard. I haven't been doing much swim/bike/run lately, but at least I've been somewhat active with the walking, golf, and basketball. No races on the horizon, plus a pending surgery have me low on the motivation right now.

Best intentions of a bike ride today were cancelled due to rain. I'm kind of enjoying this hiatus from workouts, but I don't want to get too used to it. There is no sense of urgency right now, since I don't have any more races this year, and I'll be having surgery sometime next month. I did recap the last week's events. Check them out if you want. The highlight day was Saturday.

I was going to hit the pool today, but I didn't have time to. I'm seriously considering joining the Y due to its ease of access. I need to check on what the hours for the pool are first, as it's used by the high school for practice and meets.

Busy day at work + first full day back from vacation + girls' night out = no workout today.