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