On the Injured List

My body hates me. It seems like every time I pamper it with a good healthy diet (ok let's not count Halloween candy) and good, intense physical activity it decides to break down on me rendering me incapable of running say... 2 Half Marathons so far this year?! As I mentioned in my last post I suffered a blow to the outside of my left knee in my 1st Half Marathon in March, ended up with severe Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITBS), missed my other Half Marathon in May, took 6 months off running and started training again in August for the Atlanta Weather Channel Half Marathon on Thanksgiving Day.

3 weeks ago, I smoked a 10 mile run at a blistering 9:00min pace and since then my ITB has been really irritated and won't let me run more than .5 mile without freezing up in pain. (And sorry if this is completely boring and insignificant to you- but unfortunately I'm not able to talk about many great runs lately... ITBS is my story these days) To describe ITBS for those of you lucky enough not to know what I'm talking about- at first after my fall it felt like something was 'popping' in my knee with every step, a muscle was slipping over the bony part of my upper, outer knee- especially running downhill. Turns out that the ITB glides back and forth over the lateral epicondyle of your femur bone constantly while running but with overuse (mostly the case) or injury it can become inflammed and that makes it difficult to glide easily over the epicondyle- resulting in a 'creaking','frozen', almost grinding pain at your knee. At first, and this has been confirmed by several other runners I know with the same condition, I was sure it was a bone injury because it feels like a big bruise or something on the upper outside of your knee.

Anyways, so for the past 3 weeks I've been trying not to lose hope of being able to run the race (3 weeks from today), icing, popping pills (Ibuprofen), CONSTANTLY stretching, biking and doing strength training on my legs- especially the hip adductors/abductors and upper leg muscles. Yesterday I rode my bike alongside my running partner, Girl On Top, and it was so hard to see her continue to progressing so well without me! So after I got home that morning I informed Handsome Husband that today was the day I was going to drop a ton of money on any device, potion, contraption or machine that would make my knee heal and help me run the race. He was easily persuaded (I must be a nicer person when I'm able to run) and we ordered "The Stick"- the Original Body Stick, an ITB Compression Strap and a Foam Roller. These are the things I need according to several Google Searches and several Runners World Forums, and a lot of researching. My Strap was shipped today so I'm hoping I'll be back out and running next week!

The whole point of this post is to hopefully help anyone if they are in the same mess as I am with the ITBS, and to let you know that I'm going to test these 3 items out and share my experience with them. Hopefully they will work some serious magic and you'll see me out there in 3 weeks achieving my goal of a sub 2:00:00 Half Marathon!

Keep Rockin.

You made it!

Hey thanks for checking out i run atlanta! I hope you will find this running blog helpful, entertaining, inspirational... hey if nothing else it will make you feel incredibly fast and fit because like I said, I'm the not so serious runner type. I'm in it for the health benefits. I'm in it for the time to my self in the mornings before my family is awake. Ok really, I'm in it for the t-shirts. Nothing makes me feel on top of the world like a nice t-shirt that says "I just ran a half marathon, booyah!"

Which reminds me, let me introduce myself. I am a 23 year old mother to 1 little 1 year old monster, T. A native Canadian, I have been fairly regularly active my whole life but I got serious about running my final year at UGA and joined the Triathlon Club. After a pretty nasty bike accident I decided to ditch the wheels and hit the pavement for a Marathon. After a couple weeks of training for that, I found to my surprise that I was pregnant! T was born July 2007 and my handsome husband got a job in Norcross- Welcome to Atlanta! A new mom with lots of time and energy on my hands, I became determined to become that runner I've always wanted to be. And I'm proud of what I've accomplished! While I'm still not there I ran my first 10K this February, an X-Terra Series Trail Race at Conyers Horse Park, in 1:02:02. I ran my first Half Marathon March 1, another X-Terra Series Trail Race at Ft. Yargo State Park in 2:16:30- during the race I fell and hit my knee pretty hard, which turned out to be a pretty bad ITBand injury that set me on the injured list for the next 6 months.

That brings me to 9 weeks ago when a friend and I decided to train for the Weather Channel Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving. We downloaded the Ultimate Half Marathon training plan (intermediate) from RunnersWorld.com and hit the streets. We've improved our times from an average 10 minute mile to an average 9 minute mile and we look and feel g r e a t!

As I set out to find great places to run in Atlanta (and when I say Atlanta, I mean all of Greater Atlanta too) however, I struggled to find a lot of really helpful information. It's been my goal to create a website that has all that information I was looking for- I wanted to know where all the great routes were, but I needed to know how long they were. And whether they were jogging-stroller friendly. And what facilities are nearby (water fountains, bathrooms). And how to get to the trail from the parking lot (more complicated than it seems sometimes...). One of my goals for this blog is to showcase some awesome running spots I've come across so that all you Atlanta runners can use and share that information!

And last thing for today, I promise- I want this to be a blog where you can share information as well as find it! Let me know if you know of a great race going on around here, leave a comment, send me an email, tell me about a great route or trail you found last weekend... I'm all ears and hopefully as the blog grows in popularity we can get that information out to all our runners across Atlanta. I also want the blog to be useful to runners in all stations- whether you are thinking about it, just starting or have been running for years I hope you will eventually think i run atlanta is the best running blog ever in the history of the world.