OK, I know I owe you an update. You're dying to hear what the state of the knee is, aren't you? (Come on, I know there's a least one person out there who's just the tiniest bit curious...)
With Coach Kris' help I made an appointment with an orthopedic massage therapist at the Sports Medicine Institute at 8am on Monday morning. Jon is a genius. He performed a few tests to diagnose the issue and once he had determined the problem was with my IT band he went to town with deep tissue massage. I watched as he screwed up his face and sucked in his breath, "Oh Wow, is this where it hurts?" With magic fingers he found the exact spot on my knee that was painful and was able to trace the attached muscles and ligaments and apply gentle and intense pressure to reduce the tightness. I left in more pain than I arrived but it was good pain. Luckily my work environment is casual enough so I sat with my leg on my desk with an ice pack strapped to it, several times for the rest of the day. I didn't run.
By Thursday I was feeling pretty good (and more than a little antsy) and under the advice of my coaches decided to try a very gentle jog, with strict instructions to stop the instant I felt any pain. I warmed up for 10 minutes, did the full complement of dynamic stretching I'm supposed to do for every run and then ran a steady 3 miles without pain. Success! Hurray! I was pretty chuffed.
On Saturday morning I had another appointment with Jon and this time he split the time between both left and right IT bands. Again I iced like crazy and then on Sunday morning decided to attempt the run I was supposed to do this weekend - 10 miles. Again I was extremely obedient and did a slow warm up, full set of dynamic stretches and then off I went. Again I ran without pain. I'm back!
So what can I tell you about this experience. Well, the first and obvious lesson is don't be afraid to seek help as soon as you feel pain. I know everyone says this, but as I mentioned last week, I also understand that it's really tempting not to. I am so much better off now than if I had gritted my teeth and put my head in the sand about this injury. Jon says that it's totally possible for me to address this purely through massage, foam rolling and stretching because I got it before it caused more damage.
The other lesson is psychological. I'm a little ashamed to admit that though I was really upset about the injury last week, there was a small part of me that was relieved. An injury would be a perfectly acceptable way of ducking out of this marathon. You see, 26.2 miles still seems like an awfully long way to run. And I'm terrified that I won't be able for it, that I'll give up, that I won't cross the finish line. But what I realized during the week is that I definitely won't cross the finish line if I don't even start. I can't let the fear of failure prevent me from trying. If I fail this time, I can always try again. Cliched perhaps, but still true.
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