The more things change, the more they stay the same

In a flashback to childhood, topics for today will address chocolate milk, knee socks, and training-wheel bikes. 

Post-Run Recovery Fuel
Coerced by many suggestions to drink chocolate milk for post-run recovery, I finally broke down and bought a bottle of chocolate syrup.

Initially I tried to go easy on the amount of chocolate syrup I used in each glass of milk.  I quickly realized that diluted chocolate milk does not do the trick, so I went all in and souped it up (literally and figuratively).  One of the biggest benefits of being an adult is being able to use as much chocolate syrup as you like in your milk.

Now I drink a lot of chocolate milk even when I'm not in post-run recovery mode.  Just today I drank chocolate milk when I got back from going downstairs to pick up the mail (post-postal pickup mode?)

CEP Compression Sleeves
I was surprised at the number of runners I've recently seen wearing knee socks.  Not just white knee socks, but also black, hot pink, neon green, etc. 

At first I thought it was a throwback with a vengeance to the tube socks of the 1970s.  Now I've learned that these are compression socks, which supposedly help blood circulation for better endurance and faster recovery. 

Initially I wasn't sold on the idea of these compression socks, especially since I already have a couple pairs of rather expensive specialty running socks.  Then I saw compression sleeves, basically footless knee socks, which you can wear with your socks of choice. 

In continuing my mission to singlehandedly keep Amazon.com's stock prices as high as possible, I decided to buy a pair and see if they are helpful.

One might think these look even more bizarre than the knee-high socks.  But I figure if I wear white socks it'll probably blend in fairly well, other than the gap in between the bottom of the sleeves and the top of my socks. 

What would be even cooler would be if I wore the compression sleeves with my Cho-Pat knee straps on top.  Remember these bad boys?

Or maybe I'll just wear long pants so nobody will be the wiser.

Wonky Knee
I only ran once this past week, but my left knee still feels off-kilter.  It's a different feeling of discomfort than what I experienced when I went through physical therapy last summer.  Back then, I had pain on the front of my knee around the knee cap.  Now, it feels achy behind my knee and in my lower thigh just above the back of my knee.

I'm going to take some more time off and hopefully things will heal up.  It's frustrating because I had such good training momentum going, but I know the earlier you address your aches and pains the better.

Guess it's time to get reacquainted with the exercise quadricycle.