After approximately 6 years of running consistently, 1-3x/week typically, and not missing more than a week or so due to snow or a cold, I am here today reported that I have not run AT ALL in 3 weeks, and before that, I maybe ran 1x/week for about a mile.
It has officially been 2 months a 1 week since the marathon. Its amazing how our expectations can fool us, even if we know the logic behind what a marathon does to your body, I guess experiencing is believing.
I put off running a marathon because I was afraid I would get injured. I knew that a large majority of people who run one get injured during training or during the race (I have seen it). During training in fact, a large part of me truly believed I would get injured and not be able to run the race.
Yet, I still did not anticipate how much this race would affect me, even a week after finishing it. I read my post from a week after and almost laughed. I was SO excited to go for a relaxed jog that Saturday. Then I headed out the door, ran a few blocks, and then hobbled back around to sadly come home.
2 months out, I know that throughout some of training and definitely during the race, I had IT band syndrome (diagnosed by 2 health professionals) and likely a few other tight muscles around my right knee that all liked to pull at it and cause strange sensations when I walk or run.
Despite all of this knowledge, I hit a low point last week. I went to yoga and had a good deal of pain shooting through my right leg throughout much of the class. After YOGA! Knowing I had "been good" and not run for over 2 weeks, I did not take this all that calmly.
Simply put, I got pissed. I got a very narrow glimpse into what I always feared, being injured and what many of my patients go through when they have a condition that they feel they cannot control and common sense techniques they thought would help are not working. The worst thing about the pain was it did not make sense with everything I had read about IT band syndrome, so I felt helpless in terms of how to fix it. The exercises I had told to do did not seem to work. Running had been taken from me and I did not know how to get it back.
I called the next day to try to set up Physical therapy (I had already gotten a referral, but was given the impression I could probably fix the condition on my own), but soon found out it would cost me $350-$450 per session and I had to meet my $1,000 deductible. Yikes. I spent hours researching online and continuing to try my exercises and doing the dang foam rolling with little success.
I stopped walking to work completely, since I was convinced that was making it worse. To put it dramatically, I felt like a shell of my former runner self. And interestingly and consistent with what I had heard, my body generally was in more pain when I woke up and I generally felt more achy, which likely was caused by lack of exercise.
All of this detail comes down to a happier ending though. Luckily, I talked to someone who made a very small but helpful comment. She said that I should probably use the roller "wherever it hurt." This may seem obvious, but I was oblivious. Perhaps so stuck in my narrow minded view of the problem and my official diagnosis (IT band! IT band!) that I could not fathom I could have other problem areas too.
I started foam rolling where it hurt and almost got instant relief a bit after the rolling. My muscle was sore, but did not feel like there was a rubber band it in ready to snap at any moment. I had made a small amount of progress.
I just needed this little bit of momentum and hope and my mood changed.
A week later, I have been rolling daily and doing yoga without pain and I even walked to and from work a few times this week (1.5 miles each way, where a block of walking caused me pain last week). Thursday night I got through an hour of yoga and could do all the poses without pain. I was basically ecstatic.
Looking back, here are the takeaway thoughts:
1) As injuries go, this was not even close to "bad" and I'm lucky I didn't injure myself worse. Hopefully I can take this experience with me and tackle bigger injuries if I ever needed to. But on second thought, lets just say hopefully this helps me avoid them in the future.
2) Going through this was likely important in some way, as it has made me appreciate my health and my body more than ever. I'm taking care to do workouts that are beneficial to me (more on yoga in another post) and my body is truly appreciating it.
3) I learned a lot about my body and its limits and how to best listen to it.
4) I also tried to learn to not be over-reactive to pain but take it as a signal. Some days I did better than others with this, but I think this is an important life skill in general.
I haven't tried running in several weeks, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to continue to build on my strength and flexibility and get back to running reasonable distances. In fact, I'm thrilled to begin doing so, when the time comes.
Perhaps it goes without saying, perhaps not, but as grateful as I am to have been able to experience running the Chicago marathon in 2013, I highly doubt you will ever find me doing one of those again!
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