Fourteen Weeks for a Twenty Week Program

Coach Michael tells me I've strained my iliotibial band.

I've been experiencing pain on the outside of my left knee now since mid June. Days of rest seemed the only cure. But when training for a marathon, rest isn't something I can afford in that quantity. I have run through pain before. Actually, it's a pretty regular occurrence, as all endurance athletes will tell you. A healthy pain will dissipate over a few miles. Or if it happens to be the last few in your race, it doesn't matter since you'll be finished soon. But the pain I have been experiencing leaves me hobbled and limping for days. No, not good.

I broke down and finally made an appointment at Finishline Physical Therapy so that Coach Michael could check under the hood and tell me what I'm doing wrong. He was one of my first running coaches with Team In Training and has helped me right myself a couple times before. Fairly quickly, he was able to make the diagnosis. He worked on my leg for almost an hour, then told me in detail how I should be stretching and rolling out my leg. Turns out I had been doing that all wrong for the last couple weeks. Great.

After two weeks and two more visits, I am left with just shy of fourteen weeks to train. It is crunch time. Serious crunch time. Coach gave me the green light to start running again, building my mileage slowly (not doing this got me into this mess). Tomorrow I am going to test my leg and if it feels good after a five mile run, I will feel better about my chances in the NYC Marathon.

So what have I been doing for the last couple weeks?

I turned to spinning. You know, the exercise bikes at the gym. Apparently low impact leg workouts are A-OK for my IT band issues. So I've been spinning and lifting weights- squats, leg presses, etc, in hope that I can somehow retain the strength my legs had before this all started. I have been considering doing a triathlon. Granted, it's been two years since I've been on a bicycle (15 years since being on a road bike), and I cannot submerge in water without plugging my nose. Yet I somehow think it's a good idea. Spinning only made me more curious.

This past weekend Pie-man and I volunteered at the Lake Placid Ironman. We filled the weekend with camping, volunteering, hiking, and cycling. We covered about 14 miles one day and 16 miles the next on the hills in the area, he on his road bike, me on my mountain bike. My quads were screaming. They were simultaneously crying, "What on earth are you do to us?" and "We want more... give us more!". Hmmm....

But the next fourteen weeks need to be about pavement-pounding miles: Running. I need to run. Fingers crossed, tomorrow will go smoothly.

[caption id="attachment_22" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Winner Maik Twelsiek way ahead at mile 65"][/caption]