Days 95 & 96: Irate ITB

Oh, I know that pain. That knife stabbing in my left thigh right where the bone should be. I had such a great start too. Feeling all athletic and professional in my cute little running shorts and my new runnergirl dry fit shirt with my Garmin all fired up, I had decided I'd use my 6 mile run to do some hill sprints to work on my speed. First two hills were great. Then, half way up hill 3, just over mile two, I felt an all too familiar pain shoot up the outside of my left leg.

Honestly, I knew the minute I woke up this morning that I should take it easy, maybe skip the run altogether. My hip was so tight my leg actually felt shorter, and I could feel the knot in the muscle right under the joint. But by the time I got home, it was feeling better, and the weather has been stomry, so I attributed the early morning pain to my premature powers of old lady joint weather forecasting and went for it anyway.

Poor life choice. All I could think about was how similar this felt to my ITB strain months ago, and how long I couldn't run for, and how frustrated I was. I slowed to a walk and simultaneously started hobbling through the five stages of grief.

It's not my ITB, it can't be. It's just a cramp. I'll just walk it out.

Damn it. Stupid hip. Stupid ITB. Why did I skip yoga yesterday (hey, I worked from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. At that point what was I supposed to do?)? Why have I not been stretching more? I'm so stupid.

Please just let it stop hurting. I'll take a few days off, I'll hydrate better, I'll eat more potassium, protein, calcium, I'll stretch 4 times a day, just please let it not be an ITB strain.

I really think it's my ITB. What can I do? I might have to take time off. What if I can't even run the marathon? I might cry...

Ok, it's my ITB for sure. What are my options?

I stopped on the side of the road to stretch and weigh my choices. I could turn around and walk back, but that would be a long walk. After a good stretch, the stabbing had subsided to a dull ache, so I figured alternatively I could continue in a run/walk/stretch pattern and get through the rest of the "run." I opted for the latter, deciding it would be more productive and less boring, and set off at a slow, easy pace. I actually covered a decent distance without incidence, until the headlights from a car behind me illuminated a giant spider web spanning the entire sidewalk in front of me and I found myself eye-to-eye with a spider the size of my palm (no, seriously. The bugs get bigger the further south you go. In Florida, they have cockroaches the size of my thigh). Stopping on a dime has a new meaning to me. I carefully picked my way through brush and oncoming traffic to get around the web, and continued on my way. My leg felt cramped and tight but the pain wasn't too bad, so I was doing pretty good... until some jackhole decided to beep his horn at me on a quite, dark street and nearly give me a heart attack, subsequently causing me to run face first into a tree. After calming my jittery nerves and pounding heart, I once again took up my snail's pace. I was only two miles from the finish at this point, I had to keep going. Just to keep things exciting, in the last mile I missed a pothole in the dark and rolled my right ankle. I briefly considered attempting to combine my left ankle and right thigh and convincing Chris we should run a three-legged marathon. Deciding against it, I plowed up the last hill and, one strained ITB, one minor black eye, one rolled ankle, and a minor stroke later, I tumbled into my apartment after the most epic 1 hour 12 minutes and 34 seconds of my entire life (hey, I told you I was taking it slow, don't judge me).

So what now? Thankfully I have two days to rest my leg before I have to run again. I'm going to start stretching 2 - 3 times a day, and definitely before AND after EVERY run... I've been a serious slacker lately. Ideally, I'd find someplace flat to run, but around here, that's non-existent. So I'm going to have to start running on the "wrong" side of the road. Roads slant up toward the middle, and when I run on the "right" side (against oncoming traffic), it puts my right leg higher than my left, accentuating the limp I already have. So running on the "wrong" side of the road evens it out a little. I wonder if I can get permission from the police department for that or something...