solar squirrel

This past weekend was the Akron Marathon.  For the past few years I’ve been on a team of 5, and the past couple have been all women teams.  This year Daisy coordinated an awesome team and still included me even though I am a broken out of shape joke of a runner.  (Ok, that was a bit rough)  Luckily for me this year they changed the distances a bit and the shortest leg was now 2.8 miles - a waste for any of my other team mates - but PERFECT for me, since my ITB issues have caused my fitness level to decline dramatically and my longest run this past month has been a little over 3 miles.

AkronRelay2009

I had the 4th leg which was conveniently located walking distance from Todd’s house on Sand Run Parkway.  I got to sleep in and walk to my relay point!  Our goal was to try to come in top 3 as we’ve done every year before (Kent State always beats us!!), but worst case was just have fun.  (Can I just repeat the fact that I am so happy to have such easy-going fun running friends?  No way would some of the people I know allow for an INJURED SLOW team mate to compete with them).  I figured my slowness would only cost us a few min. since my leg was so short.  I got to the start around 2:50 pace and got to see all the fast runners.  I saw Frank and he looked awesome.  I saw a few relay teams, but it seemed as if we were going to be in the top 3 spot.  I was a few seconds late seeing Christina because they announced the number as 296 and I was anticipating them saying the entire number.  Luckily I was watching for her so I knew it was her without hearing her number.  We had a bit of a clumsy handoff of the 80’s snap bracelette and I was off!  I felt awesome the first mile - catching the female relay runner ahead of me.  She was tall and thin and like a gazelle and I felt like a stomping elephant running next to her.  We had a pretty good pace ~6:35 for the first mile and then the hills started coming and the fact that I’m out of shape caught up with me.  I was so happy that I only had to run 2.8 miles!  The AMAZING thing is that my knee didn’t hurt AT ALL!!!!!  I slowed down and she had about 20 sec. on me when I finished.  I was excited to see Jen and I handed off to her and told her to catch the girl in front of me.  Garmin said I had a 7:34 pace which I’ll take given the circumstances.  I took the bus back to the stadium to watch the finish and had an awesome time hanging out with my running friends.  (And yes - we got 3RD PLACE!!!) How I YEARN to be back into running shape!!!  This was just the thing to keep me motivated.

The relay was Sat.; Sunday I ran my weekly Sunday run w/ Katy and my knee hurt, but not too bad.  (This was the first time I’ve done 2 days in a row).  Monday I swam and yesterday I biked.  I feel like I’m seriously on the road to recovery now.  I just need to stay focused and humble and not try to do too much too soon.  I want 2010 to be my best fitness year EVER.

First of all - thank you so much for posting comments (and talking to me in person) about my ITB issues.  I am so grateful that I have so many wonderful supportive friends who know what it’s like dealilng with a running injury.

Now the good news!!!!!!!
Today I had my weekly PT session with Courtney - who by the way is super awesome and also a runner.  I told her about how I was discouraged by the pain that occurred after only 1.45 miles.  She immidiately asked me if I had to go to work after this.  I hesitated but said yes.  (I mean I don’t HAVE to go to work, but I was planning on it!).  Then I realized why she asked - she wanted me to run and she wanted to be sure that I was ok getting sweaty.  Duh - Of course I’m ok with it!!!!  I want to figure out what my problem is!!!

So she has me on the treadmill with 0 incline and I set it to 6.9 mph (this is about 9 min pace I guess - very easy).  She told me to focus on my gait and think about my heel striking before my toe.  She also put a mirror in front of me so that I could see my form.  Initially I was running all wonky and she pointed this out to me and told me to relax and focus on heel-toe foot strike and also not to OVER think it.  (She’s right - good lord my form is awful…)  So I fixed my form and maintained my running - she kept checking up on me every few min. and told me to let her know when/if I felt pain.  Right at a little over 2 miles I started to feel it coming on.  I told her and asked her if she wanted me to stop running.  She told me to focus on my alignment and to keep running until the pain got to the point that I had to stop.  So I did.  I slowed down my pace a little bit, and I focused on my form.  And wouldn’t you know it - the pain stayed the same.  It didn’t get any worse.  I was able to pick my pace back up to the original 6.9 mph without the pain worsening.  I would say it was about a 5 on a scale from 1-10.  But it stayed at 5.  Actually, it might have gone down to a 4 as I kept running.  (Or I could have just gotten used to it…).  Regardless, I was able to keep running.  She told me to keep running until the pain got too bad or until I hit 4 miles.  I got to 4 miles.  I couldn’t believe it.  Before now the pain is either too unbearable for me to keep running - or I’m too scared that I’m going to do damage so I stop and walk.  I think this might officially be day 1 of recovery.

Ok.  had to write a quick post to tell everyone the news.  My knee feels weird at the moment - but I think it’s because of the freakin’ foam roller (torture device) and this other torture device that felt like electric shock therapy.  I’ll post more about those later.

Here’s the shortest version of the story to recap it all:

I intended to run towpath at a 3:30 pace (this would be an 8-minute PR - totally do-able).  I was on week 7 or 8 of my 18 week training program and the schedule called for an 8 mile paced run.  (8 miles at the intended marathon pace - 8:00 miles).  This should have been and easy run.  Well, 4 miles into it I started getting this bizaar knee pain in my left knee.  This pain was so bad that I had to walk - something that has NEVER happened to me before.  Now, mind you, I did experience something similar with regard to knee pain the 2 runs prior to this - but I kept running and decided it was just a fluke.  This 8 mile run did me in, though, and I was forced to walk / run the rest of the way back.

I tried self-healing:  bought new shoes, took ibuprofin, stretched, rested, cross-trained.  Nothing worked.  So I went to the Dr. after a full 2-weeks off didn’t help. The only time I get any pain is when I’m running - nothing else hurts.  He was worse than useless and I left knowing nothing of what was wrong or how to fix it.  (At least I knew that my Xrays looked normal).

So - I scheduled an appt. with an Orthopedic sports Dr.  This place is AWESOME.  Right across the street from Akron Children’s hospital.  (I think they cater more to kids than to adults…)  I had 2 Dr.’s moving my knee, making me balance on each leg, do squats, walk, etc.  They asked a TON of questions and decided that it was likely an imbalance issue, possibly ITB.  They scheduled an apt. for me to see the physical therapist.

The physical therapist is a young, friendly girl about my age.  She also is a marathon runner.  She spent an hour with me and determined that I had obvious weekness in my hips and told me it was 100% my ITB that was causing the problems.  She gave me some exercises and stretches to do, and we scheduled an apt. with the gait analysis guy for the next week.

Last week I went in and the other Dr. (let’s call him gait-guy) had me lay on a table and he looked at my feet and legs.  He had me walk and run while he watched how my legs and feet moved.  He looked at the calluses on my feet and he tested the strength in each leg.  It was so funny because he IMMEDIATELY saw the problem.  In a nutshell- I have a crooked leg.  My left leg, rather than coming down strait from the knee to my foot, is slightly bent into the right.  This causes my running stride to do almost a loop when my foot hits the ground.  This in turn causes a lot of strain on my hip muscles - and in particular my ITB.  They were amazed that I had been able to have the life of running that I explained to them and baffled that I’ve never had any problems with my ITB until now.

The solution:

I have stretches and strength exercises I have to do daily to strengthen my hips and stretch my ITB.  I was also fitted with special orthodics that raise my left leg up and to the left in an attempt to keep me from doing the strange loop thing when my foot strikes the ground.  I was told to wear the orthodics for a couple of days to get used to them and then I could attempt a 1-2 mile run.

So - yesterday was the planned day.  I decided I would try to run 2 miles on the flat towpath.  (I know - that’s the most pathetic sentence related to running that I think I’ve ever written.)  Katy was over and she wanted to run with me.  Perfect - that would force me to only go 2 miles and at an easy (9-min) pace.  So I put on my Garmin, get my running stuff on, and set out to do my 2 miles.  BIG DAY!

We jogged the 800 ft. to the start of the towpath - I stretched one more time and we started the 2 mile run.  I was keeping an eye on my Garmin to make sure that we only went 1 mile out and that we didn’t go any faster than 8:30 pace.  At 1 mile turn around I felt fine (the shortest distance so far that I’ve experienced pain is 2.7 miles in) and we headed back.  Wouldn’t you know it - 1.45 miles in - the pain was back.  We had to walk the last .5 miles. 

I feel like I’m going backwards rather than forwards.  Every time I attempt to do a run, the distance I can go before I feel pain is SHORTER rather than longer.  I’m worried that I’m doing all these stretches and massages to my ITB and it’s making it WORSE rather than better.  I’m now not even capable of running 2 miles without pain.  What is it going to be next?  Will it start to hurt just from walking?  Why am I going backwards rather than forwards in recovery?  Ugh.  I am SO frustrated by the inability to do what I want to do, but even worse is the fact that I’m not seeing ANY signs of improvement.  In fact, what I’m seeing is a declining fitness level combined with a shorter and shorter running distance capability.  I’m like a fat person who is starving themselves and gaining weight rather than losing.

So what should I do?  I know - Todd tells me that soft tissue injuries take a long time to heal, and that I should be happy that I have legs and the ability to walk.  I get it.  But that doesn’t really make me feel any better in the short term.

If you’re still reading this - can you give me some advice because I’m dying over here!  I need something to keep me going - someone to tell me that the recovery is going to start soon.  People that haven’t spent over 50% of their lives as a runner don’t understand.  I started running when I was 12 years old.  8th grade track team.  It’s not like I just picked this up a couple of years ago to loose weight or try to look good in a bathing suit.  Running and me know each other well.  We’ve been together for a long time.  Longer than most of the relationships in a lot of our lives.  We’re going on 20 years of friendship and now my good old pal running is lying in a hospital bed on life support.  This is a HUGE part of my life.  Oh, and not to mention the fact that it’s a HUGE part of my SOCIAL life.

So enough rambling because now I’ve gotten myself all worked up and there are tears in my eyes and I can’t see the screen very well.  Argh.