The road to recovery: strength training (or How to recover from IT band syndrome)

Imagine this: you're running a half marathon, when at the 15k point you're knee begins to hurt like hell causing you to stop/slow down/gut it out hellishly.  Now fast forward to the moment your physician/google/your running pal tells you you have something called IT Band Syndrome.

ITBS is considered an overuse injury, and usually (but not always) occurs when you overtrain -- i.e. break the cardinal rule of increasing your running by more than 10%.

Obviously you need to incorporate rest into your recovery, but don't forget to cross train!

I got ITBS exactly one month ago while running a half marathon in Winnipeg.  I was on track for a PR, too.

My recovery consisted of two weeks of mostly rest (save for some cross training).  I did run 13.1 very hard miles, after all.  Now I'm hitting the gym 3-4 times per week and am diligently working on increasing the strength in my legs, and am starting to see results.  Last night I ran 1.5 miles (my longest distance since the half marathon).

Last night's leg session went thusly:

set 1 (warm up): Squats with barbell.  90lbs. 10 reps.  Note: I go pretty slowly on the way back up.
set 2: Squats with barbell, 150lbs 10 reps.
set 3 and 4: Squats with barbell, 160lbs 10 reps. Note: this amount of weight produces enough workout of my glutes and hamstrings that I feel it later.

My one rep max is still unknown to me.  But I've already done reps at 200lbs.  I still want to know my max. :)

I also did bicep curls... nothing special.  27.5lbs in each arm. 3 sets, 10 reps.

The kicker is that I began my session with the 1.5 mile run on the treadmill with a knee brace on the affected knee.

And the recovery goes on

Contrary to what I originally thought, recovering from a nasty bit of IT band syndrome isn't depressing or annoying.  I've been getting some terrific workouts in at the gym and thereby building a lot of muscle.

If you don't already know, I get IT band trouble because of complications from having a twisted pelvis.  Now that twisted pelvis has been untwisted, the prognosis for the future is great.

So there's no running news yet.

Still meanwhile...

Wow, hard to believe, but we're coming up on a month since my last significant run (half marathon in Winnipeg).  I've decided to take the time off from running in order to 1) let myself heal and 2) do some strength training.

The healing-by-resting part is probably wise given my particular circumstances (recovering from SI joint dysfunction). But the strength training is something I haven't done at a gym in over a year. Frankly, I wouldn't be doing it now were it not for the fact that I won my current membership to Goodlife Fitness (yeah, I'll probably keep going at the end of my six month trial).

I like to load about 90lbs onto the barbell for my initial set of squats. For my second and third sets I use 180lbs.

I also do one set of lunges--last time I did not use weights.

So that's the news.

Meanwhile...

It's been a week and a half since I last ran, and nearly a week since my last cross training session.  Truth be told, having responsibilities makes it tough sometimes.  But this last week really has been a perfect storm.  To start with, it took several days to recover from Body Pump (my first encounter with the Les Mills class in over a year).  Then Canada Day happened.  So yes, I'm going to call this last week a rest week.

So since I don't have any new running experiences to share, I'll tell you about my first experience running in adulthood where I was timed.  It was in the fall of 2001, and I was required to run one mile in 8:30.  

It was terribly early and dark out.  The grass still wet, and the air still pregnant with humidity, I set out in cotton (yes, cotton) sweats.  I had no watch, and no means of knowing how I was doing.

In retrospect, I was probably running a 6:45-7 split at the start (in other words, a blistering pace for someone  inexperienced at running).  But that pace slowed drastically about 1/3 of the way through. Eventually I must have been running a 9 minute pace.  I finished in approximately 8:40.

We all ran on a resistance track; and yet, despite this, only a handful of us failed to achieve 8:30.  As a member of that handful, I simply assumed that running and physical activity were not my forte.  I was wrong... Though it would take a long time to know it.

I undertook a lot of runs over the following year.  Some were longer than others--frankly I found the long ones to be much easier.  I wish I could go back and do those old runs again.

What, if anything, did I learn from the experience I described above?  I learned that running requires discipline, self confidence and good physical conditioning.  Some people look at running 1 or 2 miles as a major undertaking that they're simply not capable of.  And for some people, it's really true.  But for the most part, I feel most people can run a mile if they are adequately prepared.

Canada Day: Five reasons why it's different from the US

So evidently the entire country shuts down on Canada Day and everyone wears red and white while singing "O Canada" in the streets while eating poutine and waving their "chip" debit cards.  Or not.

Of course, as an American in Canada I'm learning all sorts of fascinating things about Canadians, running and yes, running in Canada.  Here's 5 reasons why it's different to live and run here:

1. The weather.  Obviously.  Running a half marathon at 1 degree Fahrenheit in March is something you probably will never do in NYC or LA.

2. The metrics.  Distances, temperature and so forth are measured using the metric system here, so half marathons are 21k, freezing starts at 0c, boiling occurs at 100c, 40 degrees is unbelievably hot, and all liquid beverages are described in ml (millileters) and liters.

3. The spelling. Yeah liter is spelled litre here. Center is centre, color is colour.  This is pretty obvious stuff.

4. The prices.  Things are more expensive here.  A brand new pair of Brooks Adreniline are $160.  Haagen Daz ice cream is $7 for pint.  Of course, workers get paid better here.

5. There are probably a lot more runners here.  Saskatoon is an amazing city to run in.  Plain and simple. The Meewasin Trails run parallel to the South Saskatchewan River (which divides the city's east and west sides) on both sides and provides a running experience you simply aren't going to get elsewhere.

Adventures in Cross Training: Les Mills Body Pump, Canadian Style + Biking

I'm now officially a member of the Goodlife Fitness gym.  My membership is good Canada-wide, and lasts 6 months.  Hurray for the free gym membership (thank you to the Saskatchewan Marathon folks).  

My first official act will be to attend Les Mills Body Pump class tomorrow.  The idea here is to start strengthening my leg muscles and ward off overuse injuries.  Believe it or not, I'm actually pretty ripped thanks to all the running, and my previous Body Pump sessions at 24 Hour Fitness in New York City.  Yet, running is such a difficult endurance sport that you need more than just strong leg muscles, you need *really* strong leg muscles.  So I'm thinking I'll do two sessions of Body Pump each week, and try to also fit in a day where I do fewer reps with higher weights.  Maybe even do a full body work out.

Special bonus: 35-45 minutes of biking per gym day (I do need to get there, of course).

This week I've biked about 40 kilometers on a mountain bike.

So that's the rundown for today!

Humboldt recap + Injury!

It just so happens that we arrived in town at the same time as the carnival!

So I'll start with this: until this spring I had a twisted pelvis.  Chiropractor fixed it, but I'm still adjusting, which means I'm susceptible to things like IT band syndrome and so forth.  Naturally on my third consecutive weekend of racing things didn't go so well.

About 1.5 kilometers into the race, my right knee became an issue.  At that point, unable to really run, I walked the rest of the way--I might also add that instead of doing the full 10k route, I "switched" to doing the 5k and removed my race bib.  As of now, I'm not going to be doing any more racing until I'm at least 90% healed.  

So my next adventure will consist of strength training and cross training.  Lunges?  Check!  Squats?  Check! Mountain biking?  Check.

As it turns out, back in May I won a 6 month gym membership to Good Life Fitness (good, evidently, at any of their locations in Canada).  So we'll see how that works.

More important than the gym will be actual cross training so that I keep my conditioning.  If there's one thing I don't want to do, it's feel gassed after only running a few miles.

Today's race, the 2014 Conexus Sizzler Strut, was in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, which is about an hour east of Saskatoon.  Despite the fact that flooding appears to be a serious issue in Humboldt (at least when it rains), the city's elevation is actually greater than that of Saskatoon.

Jasmine and I camped out--despite the rain--under a small pavilion.  All the tent campsites at the local campground were flooded pretty bad!  The ground under the pavilion was so saturated with rain water, that when I removed one of the tent pegs, a small clump of wet earth came with it.

The second night we stayed at Pioneer Hotel Motel on 9th Street.  I'm not a huge fan of hotels/motels, but this one was pretty good and old-fashioned.  Notable was the diner on the ground floor--Sunday morning breakfast buffet was $10.99, and worth it.

The rain came and went all weekend, leaving behind vast puddles, soaked streets and an even more lush greenery than before.  On the way back to Saskatoon, we encountered this:

So that's the recap for today.  It anyone has has been battling Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, feel free to reach out to me.  I'm always eager to hear how folks have dealt with this.

More photos from Humboldt: