Recovering from my knee injury

In winter, skiing has always had a great part in my trainings, but never before have I skied so much. In fact, for one and a half month I've almost done nothing else than ski. This is sadly because I've had a knee injury since a training camp in January. The cause is presumed to be a lot of running on hard surfaces. So I had to lay off running for as long as the pain was gone. It wasn't easy giving up running, but fortunately I enjoy cross-country skiing very much too and this year the conditions for this winter sport have been great. I've also competed in five ski-orienteering competitions and there's at least two more to go. Four of the races have been Estonian Championships, where I've done quite well, considering that my ski-o trainings are the competitions themselves.
First, I won the 2008 middle distance in M18 by a minute, which of course was a big surprise. Results
Then, this years middle distance, where my biggest opponents were in the ski-o national team. I was 4th, which was also somewhat of a surprise, because there were some that should have beaten me without any problems. Results
The next day, M21 relay in a new format of competition. I don't know the name or explanation in English, maybe something like precision-ski-o. We had the same team as in the summer (me, Timo, Markus), but in different order. Markus, who hadn't skied for years (although originally he was a skier in his youth), started off well and came in 4th, close to a medal. Timo didn't have to ski any penalty laps and with a solid race, we were 3rd. Then I started on the last leg. There was a big time gap in front and a smaller one after me. I had one penalty lap to ski, but I managed to keep our third place til the end. Results
The last event so far was the sprint this weekend. There was no M20 class, so I had to compete with the men. I was really satisfied with my race and I finished 7th, 1:14 behind the winner. Again there were some, who should have beaten me easily. This was maybe my best ski-o competition so far this year. Results, map:
Meanwhile, my foot has been getting better and better and Yesterday I tried to run again. It was pure joy and I've really missed it. Two hours passed with what felt like only half an hour! There was no pain, but it's not 100% healed and I'll still give the knee some more time to recover. So I'll continue with mostly skiing, but occasionally going for easy jogs. In 10 days will be perhaps the most important skiing start for me this winter - "Haanja Maraton", which is a 40 km classical skiing marathon. These are my "hometracks", since this is where I've mainly been skiing this winter.

Picture: me finishing in the sprint

Next post next time.