21 Miles - Ouch
09/23/08 11:33 Filed in: Marathon
Sunday I ran 21 miles, the longest distance I’ll do before the marathon three weeks from now. It wasn’t easy. The first 17 miles were OK but after that I began to realize that I hadn’t been hydrating enough and by that time it was too late to remedy. I felt my leg muscles tightening up and the last few miles were not fun.
I also began to feel warning twinges from my left iliotibial band (ITB), a band of connective tissue that runs along the outer thigh from the hip to just below the knee. I injured that in 1999 while training for my second marathon and it took about nine months to fully heal. Symptoms are pain on the outside of the knee and then when it’s really bad the knee simply locks up. I’ll need to pay attention to good stretches for the ITB, do strengthening exercise for the supporting muscles, get massage and work on my gait. Sometimes in the attempt to run faster I overextend so my foot fall is in front of my body which puts stress on the knee and ITB. A shorter quicker stride with the foot strike falling directly under the body is more efficient for speed and easier on the joints.
Thankfully I have two days of rest, then just a couple of short runs this week and over the weekend I’ll do a seven miler. That should be easy - especially since the place I run looks like this:
I also began to feel warning twinges from my left iliotibial band (ITB), a band of connective tissue that runs along the outer thigh from the hip to just below the knee. I injured that in 1999 while training for my second marathon and it took about nine months to fully heal. Symptoms are pain on the outside of the knee and then when it’s really bad the knee simply locks up. I’ll need to pay attention to good stretches for the ITB, do strengthening exercise for the supporting muscles, get massage and work on my gait. Sometimes in the attempt to run faster I overextend so my foot fall is in front of my body which puts stress on the knee and ITB. A shorter quicker stride with the foot strike falling directly under the body is more efficient for speed and easier on the joints.
Thankfully I have two days of rest, then just a couple of short runs this week and over the weekend I’ll do a seven miler. That should be easy - especially since the place I run looks like this:
I can hardly believe that in less than three weeks I’ll be running 26.2 miles through downtown Chicago with thousands of other crazy people. Who’s idea was this? I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with me and I just hope I don’t hurt myself!