I haven't ran since Sunday February 20th and I've been whining about it and I've been drinking wine. I'm trying to drink away my sorrows and take the edge off my incessant thigh pain. The details are that I ran 11 miles that day with an already achy IT Band. I thought I had stretched and foam rolled enough the day before and I would be fine. NOT!! I was supposed to run around Lake Natoma that day and got half way around when I realized that I had some tightening in my quads specifically my old nemesis the IT Band. I decided I could make it back but took it easy and ran/walked the rest of the way back to my meeting place with my club. I foam rolled it when I got home but it wasn't enough. The next day I was miserable. I could barely walk faster then my 93 year old Grandma.
My thigh was so tight any kneeling or squatting was out of the question. The crackling noises as I went up and down the stairs in my house were almost loud enough to wake the undead. What really hurt was the rubbing of my pants against my thigh. If I closed my eyes it felt like my pants were made of sandpaper and not a fine grit either. As you can see, I whine with the best of them.
So I did what any self respecting college graduate would do...I drank some more whine. LOL. I know now I am being (and I am using my husband's favorite word) ridiculous. What I did do was really think of what my options were with my IT Band. What was the root cause of all of this pain? As luck would have it, Fleet Feet Mid Town was having a 1 hour seminar about running injury free (serendipity coming into play) so I went. I then made an appointment with a Podiatrist who is a runner. I don't have foot pain but thought maybe he could check me out and rule out whether I had one leg longer then the other which is one symptom of IT Band syndrome and any other physical problems. I then made an appointment with an Exercise Physiologist who is also a certified massage therapist who is also a local ace bicycle racer who also trains tri-athletes. I then went to a 1 hour demo on Trigger Point Therapy products. I got a lot accomplished in a week.
Today I went to the Exercise Physiologist, who I am just going to call Mike from now on. We had a long talk about my troubles and he basically told me a bunch of things I already knew. My VMO muscle is weak and underdeveloped. I thought I was doing exercises to strengthen them but he seemed unimpressed by them. He did ultrasound along the whole length of my IT Band and then followed that up with massage. Very painful massage. Turns out besides the very tight ITB, there is something way up high on my thigh that is equally tight. I forget the terminology because he threw some very long scientific type names at me over the hour I was with him. Depending on how sore I am tomorrow, as he wants me to be pain free, he is going to do a gait analysis to see if I am running properly which we may do Friday. I am guessing that I am not running properly and that is why I am having so much trouble.
Who knew running could be so hard? Obviously it can be hard on your body, but hard in that there is a lot to remember. The running seminar I went to demonstrated that to me. Feet under knees, knees under hips, hips under shoulders, head/neck in line with those points all the way down. Like a marionette. Arms at 90 degrees. Tuck your pelvis up and back without tightening your glutes. Always run with a cadence of 170-180. Lean 1/4" from hips not waist when you take off, from there if you increase your speed it's in the degree of lean and how your legs flow behind you. Let gravity propel you forward. He said your arms and legs work in unison so if you want to run faster pump your arms faster your legs will follow. He said to only work on one thing at a time for 30 seconds or so. I don't know how I could possibly remember to do all of this stuff. Handouts would have been great.
My final thoughts are that I have hope. I really have to get this corrected or my running days are over. It might not be today but someday the tracking problems I am having with the patella will wear down and give out. If I can rule out all the what ifs and work on what can be corrected then I should be able to continue on this journey to run a marathon. I didn't even tell Mike about that. He doesn't know me yet so he doesn't know how fixated I can be with things. When I get fixated I rarely let up until I have followed something to an extraordinary end or the bitter end. Which one will this be? BTW, I'm drinking Petite Sirah from Six Hands Winery in Walnut Grove as I write this. They are a small family run winery out in the Delta.
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