IT BAND INJURY

Cyndie left a comment asking how my IT band was doing and if I had any pointers.

I had to jump on the opportunity to share what I have found out and what I am doing about it.

Heres what I have been doing:

1. Rest : I taken quite a bit of time off of my running and have seen no change. I can run but mile four hurts ALOT.

2. Foam Roller: I make sweet passionate love to the foam roller daily ;) Seriously, I try to roll out my entire leg 5-10 minutes 3 times a day. It hurt in the beginning ALOT , but the pain ( from rolling )has gone away. Im not sure if that means the knots in the band have gone down or that my roller is not as hard as it should be. They say the foam roller gets in like a deep tissue massage and helps break down the scar tissue that is causing friction on the tibia. I also make sure I get my butt on the roller and roll out that piriformis muscle.

3. Stretch , Stretch and Stretch : I stretch ALOT. They say that is the #1 thing you can do for ITBS ( IT Band Syndrome). Around 4 times a day, and whenever I'm on the floor playing with the kids.

Here are the stretches I do: ( click on name of pose for directions )

- Pigeon Pose

All stretches and exercises from RUNNINGTIMES

4. Ibuprofen Regime : To reduce inflammation where the band is rubbing on my knee I Have just decided to start this. I had been only taking ibuprofen after workouts but I think I need to do this seriously. Also just made an appt today with the Dr. to talk about a stronger dosage and how a cortisone shot could help with the area. I'll let you know how that goes. Appt is set for Monday morning.

5. Physical Therapy : Some of you know I did not want to go to PT because I thought it would be a waste of time ... it is. A already see a trainer that has me exercising my hip and my trainer and husband both (occasionally) give my leg a deep tissue massage. When I do go to PT that is all I do get, my massage and thats it. They only told me what I already knew :( Update 4/23/10 : Went to the physical therapist today and she showed me some hip exercises I had not seen. Why do they seem to know all the great exercises?:) Also got an intense DEEP rub. VERY painful, but its helping. Guess I have to give the PT more time :)

6. ICE ICE BABY : Have to ice after every workout out. Its a lil painful but then you get over it and it helps the knee.

7. Run To The Finish : Amanda at RuntotheFinish also posted a great blog on ITBS.

So thats what I have been doing. I feel as though I have been following the rules to the "t". Getting very frustrated though. Oh , I am also suffering from "short leg", the injured leg is shorter than the other. Due to pregnancy my hip bones are all over the place and do not stay aligned. So I have my hubby and coach "pull" it back into place before workouts. It really makes a difference. It has to be done alot and the only thing that will make it "stay" is strengthening the hip. Has anyone seen a chiropractor about that? Thats the next thing on my list.

I hope this helps some of you . Its the basics.

Tonight I'm going to start back up with Bikram Yoga, lets see if the hot and humid air with DEEP stretching will help. I'm positive that I will see some difference.

Do you do something different? Do you have the elixir to fix this? If so let me know asap, I've become a desperate runner!

Clowns Slowing You Down?

ahhh people. I took a late run , to come home to babies going to sleep and a fresh mind to blog away :).

Today was a happy day with the news of Our little Team DAILYMILE being selected to run in the NIKE Women's Marathon & Half. I was THRILLED, but at first I was confused. I opened the email to only say " what does this mean? Dude, Im so confused" . Yes, I call myself dude. I was doubting our luck of getting in only to think that the email was confirming that I had registered. But no, they have charged the credit card. It was official we were in. I loved seeing the outbreak of happiness on DAILYMILE posts that we had gotten in. I felt as though I couldnt type fast enough to spread the news. For some reason I am more excited about this than going to Ironman Cancun, I think Im more scared of that ;)

Moving on to training, it has been a SLOW week. I look at my weekly mileage and say "PATHETIC", but whatever I got a run in today with out TOOOO much pain and Im happy about that. Tomorrow I will hit up the pool and my bike (which has been lonely since this weekend).

What I have to look forward to this weekend is my first open water mile swim. Ive found a couple of sitters so there is no stopping us this weekend. We will head out to Pleasonton to participate in the Catfish Crawl!! Our wave of "wetsuit men and women" will take off at 10:20 am. You dont even know how thrilled I am that I will be able to swim with the hubby on this one. There have been so many times lately in the pool that I looking at the bottom of the pool and realize that in my triathlons I wont even be able to SEE the bottom. When I think of that I have a small heart attack in the pool... just a small one. So if I do have a freakout I know Mark will be there to keep me from drowning. We all have our weaknesses.... and clowns.....cant forget the clowns.

What does everyone else have going this weekend? What are you weaknesses?

GOOOS-FRA-TRI

egh , arrr , egh and one more EGH!!
Today was supposed to be my first triathlon. My first check in this magical world of triathlons that I have submersed myself in training for the past 3 months. That was not to start this weekend though. The hubby and I both registered for the Baby Ice Breaker Triathlon ( Hubby was doing just the ICE Breaker, no "baby") in Folsom, CA. Not till Friday did we realize that Folsom is 4 hours away. Now we are not wusses but traveling with family and 2 children under the age of 2 for a 45-55 min triathlon ... well the math was adding up. With babysitting issues and the drive haunting us we decided it would be best to NOT attempt to make it up there :(
Now we both have spent the weekend in a MAD/SAD attitude towards this. I mean it would be the first TRI of the year for both of us and we had money into it .... Since this is my blog I will say that there has been time (even today) that I have wanted to throw my bike shoes through my living room window and scream. What made matters worse was with this "mad/sad" attitude I hovered over DAILYMILE looking at everyones races and tri's and while I was so happy and inspired by other athletes posts I was pissed that I was not out there with my notch in my belt. I will admit, I just ready Heather's race recap from RunFasterMommy and I loathe her, yeah Heather I loathe you for the next 2 min. The competitive athlete in me knew she was doing her first tri this weekend as well and wanted to WHOOP her in the bike and swim portion ... she would rape me in the run :)
**breathe** GOOOS - FRA - BA **breathe
wait ... one more time
**breathe** GOOOS - FRA - BA **breathe
Must think positive thoughts ... like this all happened for a reason. Gives more time for my IT band to get over its mood swings. 4 more weeks to be faster for my actual SPRINT distance at the Morgan Hill Triathlon.
What did happen this weekend though was a GREAT and EXHAUSTING workout with my husband. I really wish we could be training partners but with 2 little ones, while one is being the triathlete the other is the babysitter or "parent" :)

Another thing to take note in my training is that I bought a new pair of shoes and POWERSTEPS, has anyone else tried those bad boys out? Its going to take some getting used to but hoping it will help my flat feet and overpronating. The sad thing to say right now is that I have no clue what kind of Mizunos they are , they are purple that is all I can say.

Now that I think to myself we did a lot of crap this weekend. Yesterday we spent most of the morning at the Sea Otter Classic. Which was intense! So many vendors I was totally blown away. Dropped some of the hubbies cash (which he calls anniversary gift) at the LUNA tent and cruised around picking up free stickers. Also I hit up a tent with people doing custom bike/tri jerseys, totally psyched about designing my own jersey :)

Ahhh... well Im rambling. I feel a bit relieved and while typing this my husband read the first part and decided to put on the movie ANGER MANAGEMENT for me, what a sweetheart, now let me go and give him a dead leg.

Mini Calendar Freakout

This post is TOTALLY going to sound like a valley girl typed it up (which I kinda am) but when Im really excited/nervous I sound like an idiot. But this is me.

There have been many posts which I have started but never have posted. The past 6 weeks in training have been EXHAUSTING and even MORE EXHAUSTING. I felt a little lame just expressing how tired I was. But coming to the end of the day that all I could think about. Changed things up a bit with eating a little bit more and then something happened to my IT band and really sidelined my running the past 2 weeks. I got through my hard headedness and with the caring helpful hounding of my husband and lovely DAILYMILE friends I just took the time off completely from running. 5 days later I feel great and havent had any pain in my leg at all in the past 3 days. GOOD, I really needed to hop back on the horse today.

So that is the roundup of how training has been the past weeks ... but this past weekend I kicked off my event season with my first 100k bike tour. I will recap later on that because I cant even think about that right now.


After naptime a short time ago , I grabbed my youngest and walked out to the living room, I dug out my planner and looked up my training papers which told me I would have a FULL week, then I opened the planner to this week and BAM on Sunday I have my first triathlon EVER. Now its a "Baby" Tri. 2o0 yd swim , 6.5 mile bike and 2 mile run. Its nothing and I probably blow right through it but HOLY HECK man this is really launching my tri "career" ( I couldnt think of another word) and IM WIGGIN OUT DUDE!! I mean the next weekend is a 1 mile catfish crawl and then 2 weeks later my first SPRINT then another 2 weeks later another SPRINT , 1 week later my first OLYMPIC.... there is more things happening but I will stop there cause I think you might have caught my drift on the small nervous freakout here!

****breathe****

Now that I typed that out Im weirdly over it. Now my worries are just getting through the day. I have to also promise myself to blog religiously from now on so I can look back at these moments after I officially have become a BAD ASS :)