Injured-say what?

I can proudly say that I have been injury-free since my junior year of high school. Bad news: that streak ended last weekend. Sigh. As I was running my 6-mile as my training log told me to do, my knee started killing me. At mile 5 I almost skipped the last mile and went straight home but my pride made me finish. See, the problem I had was it would go in waves. One mile I would be in near tears, and then the other I felt like I had no issues at all. I try to convince myself when I run that it is just mental and nothing is really wrong, but then when the pain keeps shooting up and down I am reminded that "nothing is wrong" is inaccurate.

Turns out I may have done something to my IT band. The iliotibial (IT) band is a tough group of fibers that run along the outside of the thigh. The gluteal muscles and the tensor fascia lata muscle attach to the top, and the lower part attaches to the tibia, just below the knee. It functions primarily as a stabilizer during running and can become irritated from overuse. Which is exactly what happened to me.The pain resides on the outside part of the knee or lower thigh, often worsened by going up or down stairs, or getting out of a car. Or doing anything.

So the "knee problem" is really a IT band problem which basically means my muscle in my thigh is too tight and so it constricts on my knee. The deeper issue I am having is that I am training for this half and have too much pride to quit. I just want to run it, dang it!

I am convinced of two things:

1. If I don't run I will get fat
2. I failed if I don't finish this training.

Okay, I am smarter than those two assumptions, but I cannot help but to feel that way. I don't like not being able to do something and I want to prove myself wrong. News flash: this is not a time to prove myself anything but a time to be wise. I bought myself a foam roller and we'll see how that goes. I just can't help but to look at my training log and be sad thinking I may not get the chance to compete.

I talked to Wes Lunt about his knee injury yesterday and we were both in agreement that it is frustrating when the whole rest of your body is fine and you have one part of it that debilitates you from competing. So frustrating. So right now I'm on the mission to try to rehab back to training and still run until I cannot.

To never giving up,
Tera

Why Treadmills are Dangerous

So a couple weeks ago I began training for another half marathon. Crazy, I know. I get ambitious and think I can handle it and forget what a dedication it takes to train for 3 months. I just know how rewarding it is at the end of the race to know how hard you trained for it and to see the benefits of it. I'm not trying to win anything, but I love to challenge myself.

This week, as I've said before, we are kid/house sitting and so my schedule is completely off. I am now running at 4pm and if you've been outside this week at all, you'll know it has not been running weather at any point of the day, and even worse in the afternoons. Tuesday I thought I was going to die after my run. I laid on the ground under a fan for a good 10 minutes and Kai licked me all over thinking I was a gonner.

To solve my hot-weather-not-good-running-weather I decided I would suck it up and run on a treadmill. I've been anti-treadmills for quite some time because I don't think they translate well to the streets, I don't love the gym-vibe, and I prefer to run outside. I get board on treadmills but even worse, I get too competitive with myself. I start off at a good pace, but then keep pressing the up button on the speed because I want to go faster and faster and then all of a sudden the whole section of people running are staring at me. Why I do this to myself I will never know. I was supposed to run 4 miles yesterday and this is what happened:

The last mile I pressed the speed button every tenth of a mile and the last tenth of a mile I was going at a 10. Now, some may argue this is good for me because I am pressing myself, which I would agree but I'm not sure this is the best thing for me.

To being too competitive,
Tera

A picture is worth a thousand words

We're house/kid sitting all week so there won't be much blogging or sewing but we are having fun pretending we are parents of 3 kids, a dog, and learning what life could be like for us in 15-20 years.

I baked some cookies yesterday and Kai was really sad he couldn't partake:

To not always getting what we want, (I can't help but to sing in my head "but we get what we need"),
Tera