Injury Update: Sometimes It's For Real

At first I thought I had a sports hernia. Now I don't think so. It turns out that I might have something else entirely. Now I think I have illiotibial band syndrome (ITBS). The illiotibial band is the

"...band of fibrous tissue that runs down the outside of the thigh. It provides stability to the knee and hip and helps prevent dislocation of those joints. The band may overdevelop, tighten, and rub across the hipbone or the outer part of the knee. Each time the knee is bent or the hip flexed, the band rubs against bone"

Here is why I think I have it. I went on a long run on the Saturday about ten days ago. The outside of my right knee started hurting after running down around the Capitol. I stretched it out a little and continued. Every few miles I would have to do the same thing, but I could generally run on it with only mild discomfort. Cut to the next day when I could barely walk down the stairs. I knew nothing good could come of this, and yet I tried to run on the gym treadmill because I thought everything was just tight.

I didn't run for nearly a week. Then about six days after the injury I ran on the treadmill for two miles, stopping after the first mile to stretch. The next day I tried to run a mile with no success so I biked it.

Then I went an orthopedic doctor who said I probably have a mild case of ITBS, but I haven't had an MRI. He told me to stretch it out a million times a day and I guess gave the go ahead to continue to run... I think. He wasn't too clear on that one. But yesterday I ran two miles very slowly on the mall and I felt fine. I stretched a lot before and after (mostly doing the hip jut stretch as you see to the right), so maybe that will have to be the new normal. I'm desperate to get out there and run again since it's been so nice.

Injury Update: I overreact

False alarm. It turns out that I overreact about certain things. I thought I had a sports hernia, but it turns out that I just hurt my groin, probably from a bad turn or something weird I did with my legs. I am shortening my stride and doing some extra stretches in order to ameliorate the condition. I don't think it will be a problem moving forward.

Also my shoulder is healing. I had something like tendonitis and now I can do around 50 pushups. So I say that I'm good.

Boston Jackets

The jacket of your dreams. Everyone loves the Boston Celebration Jacket, and this year the color scheme is a departure from years past of a variation of blue and yellow. There are a whole bunch of clothes from the Adidas website right now. In coming weeks there will be more and probably some stuff from Nike and New Balance, but the official gear is always fun to see when it's first introduced. I'm not sure I'll actually buy the jacket, because it's a little flashy, and I don't know where I'd wear it. On a run? To the mall? Neither occasion seems appropriate. The only venue I'd wear it would be post marathon and that would just seem like a wedding dress -- wear it once and then it hangs up in the closet. I think I'll stick to the long sleeve shirts and shorts.

Instead I'll Run These

There are two runs that I prefer to run in instead of the Rock'n'Roll Marathon that is overpriced and without a course map.

First is the George Washington Classic 10K, sponsored by Pacers Running Stores. I volunteered for this a few years ago, maybe in 2007, when I was injured. I remembering it being a well run race that had good giveaways and post race snacks. Climate change wasn't as powerful then, so it was still pretty cold. I'm looking forward to running it in shorts. I wanted to run a 38ish (likely a 38:10) I think my best 10K was 38:53 way back in 2009, but I'm sure that I can best it.

The second is the Colonial Half Marathon down in Southern Virginia. I'm not sure what really to expect from this one, only that I want/need to run a marathon before I run Boston, just to gauge where I'm at. I think I've done that for all of my other more successful races. My PR was in 2009 with a time of 1:25:37, which I'd like whittled down to sub 1:25:00. It seems that 2009 was good to me.


I have a lot of work to do, but I think that I've gotten faster. These races will be markers to see what I should run. I've taken a lot for McMillan's Race Predictor. I input 2:59 even for my marathon time just because I wanted some wiggle room. So the below race times were predicted for me by science.