Injury Update: Physical Therapy is an Angel

After receiving the news that I have ITBS, I went to physical therapy for a few weeks. Long story short: I'm cured! I no longer have any pain, no tinge of it even and I've completed a full marathon, a 5K and a half marathon since graduation from Gimp University.

One of the first things my trainer did was use dry needle release to loosen my muscles. No, it's not acupuncture. It's when a needle is stuck into the muscle, and the practitioner uses it kind of like a joystick to get the muscle to contract and/or release. At first I found it horrifying, but then after a few sessions I learned to love it. Not love it, but love the results.

We also worked on strengthening my glute and hip muscles. One exercise we did where I was lying down on my side and I did some leg lifts. I call it the Jane Fonda. The next one I did was where you tie a strap around your legs and move to the side. That's the one I should still be doing today because it helped the most. Then the last one was where you stand on one leg and put your leg on a slidey thing and push off at a forty five degree angle away from you. It never really did anything for me.

So there you have it. We also worked on my shoulder, which is better now but it still feels not 100%.

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. 

Rock N Roll: Going for Broke

And by "Going for Broke" I mean that I would go broke trying to run a lot of races in DC. Running is expensive! (But I'll get to that later.) I was ready to pay the $110 to run the Rock N Roll Half Marathon, when the race-- sans course map and three months away-- SOLD OUT. This is the first year that the ubiquitous "Rock N Roll" series has visited the District, so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I knew that there were about 600 entries left, but I decided to wait until the next day because I procrastinate. When I tried to register the next day, I found out that the number of entries was zero. Well that made my decision easy. I think my procrastination was generated by the fact that the Rock N Roll half marathon was way overpriced and that chaps my ass.

As you can see from the screen cap to the right, the prices for the half marathon were really expensive. I think I ran the Freedom Run Half Marathon for less than $60. Granted it was an hour and a half away, but still. Paying over $75 for a half marathon really is pretty ridiculous, especially when the full marathon is only $15 more. By that logic, the extra 13 miles of race logistics are a little more than $1 more per mile? Makes no sense. And as I stated above, there is no course map, so what people are getting themselves into? The only thing I took away from this experience is that I really need to get into the race directing game.

There are a few other choices I have including the Colonial Half Marathon, which is at the end of February and the GW Birthday Classic 10-K, which is mid February. These races will put me in good position for Boston on 16 April, and I won't go broke either.

Big Deal, News Follows

According to this article, when men exercise there is a protein in our brain that is created known as BDNF, which helps promote a healthy memory. There is high levels of BDNFof those of us who exercise, therefore it's important to exercise in order to retain a healthy memory. As if you already didn't know, right? Therefore, if you want to maintain cognitive health, go move your ass.