When is recovery going to start?!? ITB SUCKS
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.
29* year old Akron native. Recently completed my MBA with a concentration in Sustainability. Passionate about innovative renewable energy technology and endurance sports.
September 7th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hi, I read your blog and needed to respond, although you don’t know me:) I had ITB issues several years ago and it is definitely not a quick fix. You will be running with the pain for a while. But the wisest advice I got when I was frustrated like you was from another runner who told me run ’til you feel it, then walk back. For me that lengthened by a 1/2 mile each run. You said yours was shortening, so that does suck. But maybe it won’t tomorrow. I actually think part of my trouble healing was all the time I took off.
Once I got back to long runs, I would feel my ITB. If it became that clenching pain, I could stop and rub it and could resume. I also found that picking up the pace helped as did uphill running (good way to appreciate uphills!) I remember panicking at mile 13 of a marathon because I felt the pain, picking it up a bit, and then not feeling it again. Picking it up is sort of counter-intuitive, but I think varying stride really helped move the band. That marathon was likely 6 months after my original onset of ITB pain.
I haven’t had ITB issues in 10 years. I’m sure my original bout had to do with increasing my mileage way too fast. I am cautious of that now.
Good luck. It’s hard because you want to run a set number of miles, but I would instead try to grow them and see if they lengthen. I remember also doing 2 runs a day just to get some miles. It was encouraging when I saw that the band was not getting worse.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Another blog reader coming out of lurkerdom
I missed the Towpath last year because of ITB problems so I feel your pain 
In addition to Susan’s advice and the PT exercises, I found it helped to run at the track - sprint the straight aways and walk or slow jog the ends. I started at 10 laps each direction. I could run pain free and it felt like a real workout.
My ITB problems are caused by leg length discrepancy. The exercises did work and I am (knocks wood) pain free this year and planning on making it to the starting line on 10/11. Hope this helps and you’ll be back out on the road running pain free ASAP!
September 7th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Wow, great encouraging story, Susan. I am really glad you responded. Solar, I read your post a while ago, but did not respond immediately because, honestly, I wanted to say something helpful and I needed to think about it. All I can say is, trust your feelings that your current doctors know their stuff, follow their advice, give it more time, and keep in touch with them if it is not responding as they told you it should. Oh, and depend on your friends for support. Most of us have been through something similar, and we know that frustration. Stay tough, physically and mentally.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
You poor thing !! Pain is the way your body tells you to stop. See ya in the pool………well, not this week anyway….or next !
September 9th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Thanks so much for the encouragement guys. It means a lot to me. Especially the people I don’t even know! (Or do I know you? Have I met you Susan or Sarah?) THANK YOU!!! I can’t tell you the way it made me feel to read your comments.
I’m off for my weekly apt. at the physical therapist so I’ll let them know about my awful attempt at a run and see what they say.
September 9th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Hey,
so have they told you it is not okay to run if you feel any pain? I feel like maybe you are expecting all this work to leave you pain free but I am not sure the healing process really works like that, especially with ITB.
My experience with ITB was also related to too much mileage too quickly. I am sure you recall our run in the freezing rain when my leg literally refused to work and we had to walk back. Similarly I had another run with the girls that fall where I had to walk back because the pain was too much. On all my other runs I was never pain free, but the pain was tolerable and I was capable of running through it. Note that the morning after a run where I had to walk back I completed my first 50k. I obviously did not do any additional damage and after that I finally got into a PT and got some ART therapy done on the leg. I continued to run with pain but was able to run through the injury and finish my first 50 mile race. The pain eventually went away without ever taking a break from running.
I am not a big fan of meds, but back then I did take ibuprofen or aleve before my long runs to cut back on inflammation and make the run more “pain free.”
I think you should try either taking an anti inflammatory before your next run and seeing if you can get in 30 minutes or next time the pain flares up keep going and see if it doesn’t get better. Sometimes there is just some scar tissue in there that you are going to need to break up in order to run pain free again.
to put all of this shortly there is no magic bullet, but if your docs are saying you aren’t doing damage I think maybe you should try to run through a bit of this pain and see if you can train through it to get healthy again. Obviously in addition to all the PT stuff. And I would highly recommend stretching and massage.
October 8th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Try doing some deep-water running in the pool.
November 10th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
CURIOUS how it’s going now, Solar? A year later?? I’m in the same unfortunate place. Funny thing is, that my ITB issue began while beginning running again AFTER the towpath marathon (about a week after the 10/10/10 race). First 4 miles then pain, then 2, then maybe 4, then 1 mile….Stopping running for a while is, I’m sadly convinced, the only real solution. -I have a PT, and have been doing the exercises and stretches, but I agree with Aquaman and 4royle. The water running seems to be the only thing that I can get away with. …While researching, I have found a lot of people who supposedly run through this by cutting back mileage, but I don’t believe them, or atleast I don’t believe that they are healing correctly, or that they have the same issue as I have. I’m suspicious of that advice.