Fixed the bike, broke myself...

Yesterday was meant to be a 7 mile LSD, but it ended up as a quick paced 8. I had a fresh set of boundaries mapped out by google and committed to memory, I was feeling pretty confident from how well the week in running was going. nary a sore muscle to be found on my person, the weather was brisk, but a strategic array of layering kept said person comfortably cool. I blame shoddy construction work for disrupting my routine. Every time I turned a corner I ran into “road closed” signs, usually I run through anyway, subject to the glowering faces of workers standing around, but today the trucks were scattered about blocking entire portions of the road, in several locations, on several streets. I was cut off, and had to recalculate my path. Annoyed, I broke out into Flourtown, far away from the confining construction consternation. I knew where I was, but only had a rough idea of how far it was to get back to where I wanted to be. I usually don't head towards Flourtown, because I don't want to deal with having to wait out the traffic at the busier intersections in getting there and back. 

The run itself went extremely well. I never once felt tired, I kept up a strong pace, and got to cover new terrain that I hadn't viewed from a runners perspective previously. There were long stretches of slow burning hills during which I couldn't help but think, “I can see how Forrest Gump could just keep running”. That's how comfortable things were. So what happened? I came home too pressed for time to partake in my normal post-run stretch routine and protein “shake” (this is a misnomer, since what I mean to describe is actually stirred, but there's something wholly unappealing about referring to a beverage as a protein stir. So shake it is!). 

It wasn't immediately apparent after the run, but by the evening when I was walking through the city, and having to traverse subway steps, I knew exactly what I was dealing with, again...Some of you may remember I mentioned something about a pain in my knee that reared up and disappeared, like a devil-toothed porpoise-shark hybrid breaching the ocean surface for air before returning to the depths of the sea to reclaim its next victim, which in hindsight was a tell-tale sign of the horrors to come. ITBS (Iliotibial Band Syndrome) is a sharp, unforgiving, pain that shoots up the outside of the knee. It occurs mainly as an “overuse” injury. Those that have dealt with this before will immediately attest to how difficult bending the injured leg, or walking down steps, becomes when it feels like your knee is a radial saw that your nerve endings are being sliced by. I've dealt with this injury before, except in the opposite knee, when I first started running over a year ago; too much, too fast, too soon. It took about 2 frustrating weeks to fully recover, but I was far more reckless in caring for it then. This time, I jumped right on it, because I knew something was happening. 

You can probably imagine my fear in how a 2 week set back in marathon training two weeks into the program would be a cause for alarm. I think this time around, it wasn't entirely the running that did me in, but possibly the bicycle cross-training last Sunday. I hadn't been on a bicycle for months, and last Sunday afternoon I hopped on my tentatively functioning Schwinny Cooper and pedaled away like Lance Armstrong fleeing a tidal wave of snarling cheetahs that just escaped from the zoo with a ravenous taste for human flesh. Other contributing factors under consideration for Saturday's injury: 


1) Accidentally running 8 miles, instead of the recommended 7 on the Hal Higdon schedule. 


2) I ran surprisingly faster than I intended to, even though this was supposed to be a LSD run. 


3) I ran a different course than I had planned which had far more hills and uneven terrain (see above: construction consternation). 


4) I didn't stretch at all when I got home (because I was pressed for time and needed to be somewhere). 

I'm somewhat worried about how my spirit will handle this set back. Week two was going so well, and this has the potential to break my spirit so early in the game. This recovery will become a test of patience, because every instinct in me just wants to get up and run, but that, along with parkour, is one of the main activities to avoid while ITBS symptoms persist. We'll see...