The Knees of a Teenager

These knees have been with me for thirty two years
When I was ten I had a bad accident on my mountain bike.
I remember flying down a hill sideways through gravel.
When I woke up my knees were a bloody mess.
I was in my neighborhood and yet I couldn’t even walk home around a few blocks.
My friend Kelly rode her bike to my house to get my mom and I laid in the hot gravel bleeding.
I remember staying in bed resting for a week after that.
I never played sports in high school and hiked a little, but that was most of my exercise.
Less than two years ago I started running.
I have to say I feel like I have the knees of an eighteen year old.
I can still see jagged ugly scars from the bike accident I had when I was a child but my knees are fantastic.
Well maybe not today.
I just ran / hiked twenty miles in the San Bernardino forest up to San Jacinto peak at 12,000 feet and back.

That is over four thousand feet of altitude gain.
My knees feel thirty two years old right now.