I wish this post was going to be me rejoicing in the fact that I am all better, 100% free of ITband woes. The reality is that after months of physical therapy I still struggle to keep my IT bands happy. I was fine for awhile. I even felt good enough to play with running five days a week. I figured if I kept most of my runs easy, minding a low heart rate, then I could pull it off. I've also only been adding 5% to my mileage each week with a step back week every third week. Sounds reasonable, right?
Wrong! Last week was my 5th week of running 5 days a week, only 18 miles total. I even made it back up to 5 miles for my longest run. But, alas, on Monday I woke up with a tender IT band on both legs! Sigh...
So, it's time again to adjust my goals and have a talk with my ego. My main goal is now just to be able to run any mileage. No more chasing mileage goals. Time to put the blinders on when looking at what my friends and fellow runners are up to. Time to start swimming again so I can sustain running on just 3 days a week instead of 4. I've been fairly successful with 4 but I think 3 with 2-3 days of swimming will be the best for my IT bands. It's clear it's not the intensity or distance that does in my IT band it's the lack of rest between days of running that they need.
It will be a few weeks before I can hit the pool again. But I've got yoga classes I can go to. I checked out the local yoga studio, finally! Only took me 6 months of knowing about it, and driving past it many days each week during errands, to finally check it out. What a find and only 2 miles away! I'm still going to keep my running going but only as much as my IT bands will allow. I'm taking this whole week off except for Saturday. Saturday I'm going to a 5k that is being put on by Laura's multi sport club. Not sure if it will be a race or just a run for me. Guess I'll find out when I get to the line and the gun goes off.
Hopefully next time I stop by I'll have better news. Maybe having better news will make me blog more. For now blogging is so uninspired since my running is questionable these days. Fingers crossed for some inspiration!
