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.