I've been running since I was a kid. Actually, I've been running since I've been standing on my feet, as far as I can remember. A few years ago, six and a half to be precise, I've injured my knee - the physiotherapist would later tell me I slightly "pinched" my right meniscus (I can still remember the exact word he used: pinched). I was sure I was not going to run anymore: "Do not operate it" he would tell me, "you'd rather reinforce it with some focused exercise. Then, go out on a run and check you meniscus' condition". I thought he was nuts: the pain was crazy at times. Yet I did what he said - he was the scientist after all.

I began doing squats and exercises to put some strenght, and even though I used to feel like a dozen arrows were shot into my outer knee everytime I would go downstairs, after a while strenght would come back. So I started to run again. At first a couple kilometers, but the excruciating pain would always come back the day after the run; but then things started to get better, the kilometers would quickly become three, then four and five, and finally I managed to do something I had never done before: running for eleven kilometers straight, without stopping even once, in an hour and a three minutes. Never would I think I was able to go that far, yet I did.

My knee still hurts once in a while, especially while going downstairs after a training session, but I learned my lesson: if you can, just run run run.