The Learning Experiences Continue...

I was going to title this post "This is Pissing Me Off!" But I opted for the positive tone, since I'm a positive person.

Having suffered an unexpected bout of ITB syndrome Tuesday, I was aware of the possibility for more of that today. Tuesday was a bit of a hellish day for me. My legs were killing me all day. I had to walk around a lot that day when all I wanted to do was sit and rest. I got a good night's sleep and yesterday I felt much better. I felt some slight lingering effects in my lateral knee area once in a while yesterday, but nothing serious.

I woke up this morning feeling great physically. I ate a banana and some of the healthy pumpkin cake January made. I loaded up on a ton of water to get hydrated. My goal was to run that 5 miles I was going for Tuesday.

I stretched really well, especially my ITBs, calves, and hamstrings. I wanted to make sure nothing would tighten up and rub my ITB over my femoral condyles. That sucks!

So I started my run going the exact same way I did Tuesday. Physically, I felt as good as I've ever felt on a run. I wasn't felling that wall at all, so that was great. I had a good pace going as well.

As I was coming down that hill between 16th Street and 12th street that's when I felt it. That ITB pain started coming back, but this time in only my left knee. My right leg/knee was the big problem Tuesday, but felt completely fine today.

the pain wasn't too bad, so I kept going past 12th Street. I noticed it started progressing a little but so I turned around, slowed down and walked down 12th Street to Grovers and eventually home.

I was extremely frustrated because I was feeling great. I probably got about 1.6-1.7 miles of running in before I had to walk the rest of the way.

When I was researching this pain, I found that it can be caused by circular tracks or crowned surfaces. I remember running on a lot of crowned sidewalks Tuesday. But I made a point of avoiding those surfaces this morning. I also saw that when you have patellofemoral pain (chondromalacia) that it's triggered by going down hills. But that kind of pain is behind the kneecap and on the medial side of the kneecap. That's not what I felt. So I was frustrated that going down the hill seemed to trigger my ITB pain.

I think there are some factors as to why this is happening:

1. It's been cold in the mornings... maybe my legs are tightening up from that?

2. I need new running shoes really bad. Seeing as how I should be replacing them every 350-500 miles or every 6 months, I'm really overdue, like a year overdue.

3. I noticed that my left calf was much tighter this morning than my right calf. This can trigger ITB syndrome sometimes.

4. I also noticed that my left ITB was tighter than my right. I thought I stretched it out enough, but maybe not.

5. I have to avoid hills. Going up hills is no big deal, but going down is tough. It keeps my quads constantly loaded and obviously that's not good, At least for me right now. This will be tough when we move back to Dallas. All it is out there is hills.

6. I exercised my legs pretty hard on Monday. I think doing this and running is too much for my legs to handle. I trained my calves too hard and I did a lot of squat reps. My legs have probably been too sore and tight because of this. No more leg workouts.

So these are the things I think caused it. I think I just need to rest my legs for now.