Toughing It Out Through 8 Miles

I went for my weekly long Saturday run. My goal was 8 miles, and, lo and behold, I actually did it. I was gone about 1:20 but the last five minutes or so I was walking off the pain and cooling down.

My Route

I ran up Campo Bello to 20th Street and north to Grovers, then west to 7th Street, as usual. But this time I crossed 7th Street and ran all the way down past the ward building and the end of the road where it curved around to Villa Rita, then back up to Central. Then I went north to Union Hills, and finally west to 7th Avenue before turning around and going back the same way.

But right as I got to 7th Avenue and turned around, my IT Band started tightening up on my left leg... AGAIN! As usual it felt like a really sharp pain on the lateral side of my knee, but I continued on.

In fact, the last four miles I really pushed myself through that. I didn't really know I had that it me. As I was running back, I was constantly saying affirmations to myself to really hold the pain off. I said things like:

"My legs are loose and feel great."

"The longer I run, the looser my legs get."

"The longer I run, the looser my IT band gets."

I was really able to hold off the pain. That is, until I got to my last mile. Holy moly, was that hard. A few different times I thought my knee was going to give out on me from the pain. Soon after that, my other knee started feeling some of the same pain. By the time I was finally finished, I could not believe I really pushed through all that pain.

I was kind of impressed that my pain threshold was that high, although I don't want to test it anymore while I run. I have to really be consistent with my stretching every day, as well as get enough sleep. The last time this happened to me, I did not sleep a whole lot that night. Last night I went to bed at 10:30 and woke up at 2:30. Why? I don't know... I just couldn't sleep. But I took a snooze this afternoon and when I woke up, my legs felt slightly better.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed I ran 8 miles. A year ago, I had a hard time running 3 miles. Now? What a cakewalk! ;-P