I am finally settling into some consistent marathon training after some post-half Ironman recovery. The Ironman Muskoka 70.3 run course left me with a very sore and inflamed IT Band and running a 9 miler the week after the race was not the brightest of moves. The hilly course and the camber of the road really tore it up. I am sure my form also got a little out of whack during the race as well. Fortunately, after some diligent stretching, massaging, strengthening and icing it appears to have fully recovered. I was starting to get a little panicked since I am signed up for the D&L Heritage Marathon on November 4th.
On Saturday I did a 17 mile run with only some slight discomfort. One positive that came out of this was that it forced me to re-align my Chirunning form and strengthen my hip muscles. On my Saturday run I noticed that when I really focused on my form the pain in my knee would subside. Most notably when I aligned my pelvis correctly. I also found some articles that indicated that strengthening your hip adductors improves ITBS issues(Hip abductor weakness in distance runners with iliotibial band syndrome. http://physio-optima.ca/bibliotheque/bit.pdf ) . So I have been diligently doing “Clam-Shells”, “Fire Hydrants” and side-lying leg raises for the past couple weeks to strengthen up my hip muscles. In addition to this I have also started a total strength training program at a local fitness center in order to build up before the onslaught of Ironman Lake Placid training ramps up in the new year.
Yesterday I headed over to Rodale Fitness Park in the rain to do what I hoped would be a tempo run. I wasn’t sure what my ITBS would be like after doing ~17 miles on Saturday. I started out with a nice, easy pace for my first 10 minutes and things were feeling really good. I decided to jack up the pace a little bit more. Still felt good. And it continued for another 6 miles. Not even a hint of ITBS discomfort! WTH? Amazing how it could just disappear like that? Maybe I just needed 17 miles to fix it? Probably more like 17 miles of form focus that is starting to become firmly in-place. Hopefully this continues and I can get back on track with my training plan which has been a little behind since I was trying not to make things worse up until now. Hoping to do ~20 miles this weekend and then a good recovery week thereafter. Only 31 more days until the D&L Heritage Marathon.
