2 miles
mississippi river road path, north
37 degrees
I’m writing this entry almost a week late. During this run, about 1/2 mile in, as I felt the joy of winter running, I felt something else: my left leg didn’t want to bend. For a scary second it was stiff and recalcitrant. I kept running and it started working again but when I stopped my left knee hurt and by the time I got home I was having trouble walking. For a few days I was freaked out as I limped around the house wondering what had happened, but finally I realized (with the help of Scott), that it was probably just my IT band. An IT band injury is no fun, but it’s more likely than a tear or a subluxation to not be serious or need surgery or doctor’s visits or physical therapy or MRIs, as long as I let it rest and not run for a while. So, I haven’t run for almost a week now. Up until Friday, I barely walked. Since Saturday, I’ve been biking on my bike, set up on a stand in the basement. It’s feeling much better. I think I might be able to run tomorrow. Since stopping running, a lot has happened, like midterm elections and band concerts and snow and ice and arctic temperatures. Today’s feels like temp? 7 degrees. I wonder, will I be relegated to the bike path until spring now? I hope not. Perhaps the biggest bummer of this minor injury is that I most likely won’t reach my running goal of 1000 miles this year. Last year I failed with 950 miles. How many miles will I lack this year?
So, the I T in IT band stands for Iliotibial. It’s a tendon that extends from your ilium (a wide, flat bone at the top of your hip) to your tibia (shin). What other fun things could IT stand for?
Free (IT) Band Name
- the isosceles triangles
- imperious tina and the intolerable treaties
- insatiable teresa and the intimate tulips
- the intrepid toddlers
- the irritable tigers
- intelligent tom and the incubating theories
- the iambic torsos
- the important tubas
- the inelegant toadstools
- the infringing tableaus