Thin Ice

Last week, I had some ominous right leg pain that started on Wednesday and hampered the last few miles of my marathon pace workout on Sunday. The pain continued this week, which puts me on thin ice: I want to follow my plan as-written as much as possible, but I can’t do that if I’m injured.

Starting on Monday, I traded my usual supplementary training for rehab exercises. Better runners than me would say I should have just added them on top, but finding the motivation for extracurriculars is hard enough as it is.

The pain in my right leg is strange. It starts with a dull, diffuse ache in my knee, which limits my range of motion. I have to slow down almost as soon as it kicks in because of how drastically it affects my gait; I don’t have a great knee drive normally, but once the pain starts I’m basically reduced to a limp. I’d think it was IT band syndrome, but I’ve had IT band syndrome before, and it normally stops me dead in my tracks. There is no negotiating with it.

So, do I have a minor injury to my IT band that I can somewhat run through, or is it something else? This is where I’m a bit stuck. For now, I’ve defaulted to doing exercises that support the IT band because they’re the kind of exercises that are good to be doing anyway:

• 3 x 10 clamshells
• 3 x 10 side-lying leg raises (alternating with sets of clamshells)
• 3 x 10 single-leg glute bridges
• 3 x 15 bicycle crunches (alternating with sets of glute bridges)
• 20 squats

I did the clamshells and leg raises on Monday night, then added the other exercises on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Depending on how things go, I may continue to add to the routine, or I may just resume my usual core and strength workouts and do a reduced rehab set on the side.

So far, results are inconclusive, but that’s better than things getting worse. If anything, I might be showing some slow and small improvements, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. It’s important to really pay attention when your body is threatening an injury and avoid giving yourself too much credit. Pride (or even just wishful thinking) will certainly go before a fall.

Monday: Off, as usual.

Tuesday: 10 miles, with a rough second half. This was where I realized the extent of my knee problem and added more rehab exercises.

Wednesday: 13 miles, attempted at MLR effort, but again with a decline in the second half. I felt better in the last two miles, which gave me hope I can avoid the worst of this injury yet.

Thursday: 4 easy after shoveling a light dusting of snow. Road conditions weren’t great, but at least my knee didn’t hurt.

Friday: 10 miles with 4 at tempo pace (6:07 progressing down to 5:56). This felt good. No worries from my knee, but I was suspicious of the treadmill after struggling with a similar workout two weeks ago. Not much I can do but take this at face value.

Saturday: Another 4 easy. I really wanted to slow this down, but I think the cold made me impatient. I felt good, at least.

Sunday: 15 miles, attempted at MLR effort. Slightly overcooked it at first, and then ran into knee problems just after 10 miles. It’s promising that I lasted longer before breaking down, but only if I keep improving. A big effort like this could easily set me back. Time will tell. I thought about doing rehab exercises, but decided to go all-in on recovery instead.

This Week: 56 miles, with about a quarter of that spent limping. That really sucks when you put it that way! I originally intended “Thin Ice” to refer mostly to the weather we’ve been having, with only a nod toward the state of my right leg, but the double meaning is maybe more apt than I thought. I need to be very careful next week.

Baby: My son is still teething. We can see both front teeth have nearly erupted, but the final push to break through is making our boy very uncomfortable. He was especially tricky this weekend.

On the bright side, he is still very active when he’s feeling good and just got some new climbing cushions to horse around on. We’ve also had some success teaching him gestures like clapping, waving, and high fives over the last couple weeks, which is exciting. Up until now, he has been learning mostly through exploration and trial and error. It is nice to feel like we are teaching him things ourselves.

Currently we are working on using a spoon. He is getting the idea, but the results are messy! We have a lot of teaching left to do.