3 Sisters 7 Days

I ran 23 miles on Monday – to campus and back (11 miles each way), with a one-mile detour to refill my water bottle. Just as I reached campus, I almost thought I felt … a kind of “tightness” that sort of hurt, but I wouldn’t call it pain, exactly, on the outside of my left knee. I stretched quickly before going to a meeting (all about research and heavily attended by graduate students, so my flushed face, sweat, and snug running attire didn’t even raise an eyebrow), and began jogging back off campus as soon as it was over. As I shifted from warm-up jog to easy 10-minute-mile pace, I became increasingly aware that the “muscles” around my left knee were not just tight; it was really starting to hurt.

Nearly half-way back home, about the time I slowed way down while looking for some place not too far off my course where I could refill my water bottle, I could tell that the pain was increasing. I endured a dull, persistent ache for the remainder of my run. I stopped at a red light before crossing the street to where my car was parked, and it was all I could do to step down off the curb when the light changed. I sort of hobbled across the street, keeping my left leg stiff and straight to alleviate the pain, poured myself into my car, and headed home.

Despite what was easily the worst running-related pain I’d ever experienced, I had every intention of joining my girlfriend on Tuesday for our usual short, “recovery” run. This wasn’t positive thinking or the more commonplace denial. Rather, some deep part of my psyche recognized that pain is ephemeral compared to the constancy of running in my life.

I’ve been running since I was in Third or Fourth grade, when I read a biography of Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, who has been called the greatest multi-sportathlete that the United States has ever produced. Babe was a tomboy who excelled in basketball, golf, baseball, tennis, swimming, diving, boxing, volleyball, handball, bowling, billiards, skating, and cycling as well as track and field. What I remember most is that she literally ran to the market for her mother when she was a little girl, hurtling over hedges along the way. Babe didn’t compete in her first track meet until 1930, when she was 19; she qualified  for five events in the 1932 Olympics, where she set a world record in the 80 meter hurdles.

Until junior high school, my running “career” amounted to racing the neighborhood kids. I typically beat everyone my age or younger, even the boys! Although 7th and 8th grade track didn’t amount to much more than an extension of gym class – we competed primarily amongst ourselves, with students from the other local junior high school added to the mix sometimes – I became more serious. I began running the market, the library, and my brother’s baseball games – all within a mile of our home – and entered the house more often than not by dashing through the front door, across the entryway, and hurtling over the gate that separated the living room and family room/kitchen. This addition to our home’s structure, intended to confine my then baby brother Jeff, and prevent him from reaching the stairs, coincided perfectly with track season.

I ran hurdles and sprints in high school, but wasn’t a star. I earned my varsity letter primarily because there weren’t many female hurdlers in our league – so few, in fact, that I often competed only against my own team mates! That’s the subtext. The real story of my high school track career is that I started running long distance. I’d complete the sprinters’ work-out, then hang around to warm down with the distance runners. My favorite work out was to run the cross country course – sometimes barefoot! – and then jog the mile or so home, with my school clothes and books in a gym bag thrown over one shoulder.

I’m still not sure why I never competed in the longer distances, or simply switched to cross country. But I did continue running – typically four to 10 miles at least three or four times a week -  during college and graduate school, on my honeymoon and relentlessly during my divorce, and through all four of my pregnancies. I even ran a 5K when I was nearly six months pregnant with my daughter Reiley.

I know, know. Running through emotional pain is not the same as running through a physical injury. Still…

Although I really didn’t want to, I took three days off training for the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon next month. (To be honest, during this time, that pain in my knee deterred me from anything more intense than a moderately-paced walk on a flat surface.) I had a deep tissue massage on Tuesday, a chiropractic adjustment on Wednesday, and felt well enough to walk the dog on Thursday. I jogged about a mile – with my five-year-old, so this was a slow jog – on Friday…and the pain returned.

It turns out, I have ITBS for “iliotibial band syndrome,” attributable to a lack of strength and flexibility in the iliotibial band, often aggravated by running on tracks or crowned roads. The solution? In addition to warming up “enough,” stretching thoroughly, and “getting a longer leg” (seriously; my chiropractor confirmed my massage therapist’s observation that my left leg was longer, and made the necessary correction), runners are encouraged to cut back on the intensity and volume of training and avoid hills and cambered roads. With the exception of the chiropractic adjustment, none of the other remedies will prevent ITBS. They only make it less painful.

And so I will continue to run – a little further, and hopefully – but not necessarily – less painfully – each day.

Tags: causes of ITBS, how to respond to pain from running, living with runner's knee, reasons to continue running, remedies for ITBS, running with ITBS, why run

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Cracking the Code: How Running Made our Lives, Running, San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon 2010, True Tales of a Real Life Super Mom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.