Tag: IT band

Owie in my IT band :(

Last year on my family medicine rotation I worked with a sports medicine doc who totally understands the importance of helping people achieve their goals… even when it means a cortisone shot. This past weekend I ran the Malaika 5K and actually placed third in my age group (probably only 10 people in the group, but anyway…) and my knee started bothering me after mile 1. But it wasn’t painful until after I crossed the finish line and was walking along with a friend. Within 20 yards, my knee began to flare up and by 50 yards I was hardly able to walk!

So I spent all of Sunday worrying. Monday I was able to fit in an appointment with the sports doc and he recommended I get the shot next Tuesday. In the meanwhile, a physical therapist gave me some strengthening exercises to do so I can avoid getting IT band again. I feel totally stupid doing them and I was skeptical that they would help, but I do actually feel a burn while I do it! They said that my hip stabilizers are weak, as evidenced by my wobbling on a one-leg squat and by how short my one-leg long jump is (they had me stand on one leg and hop forward as far as I could. My injured leg only made it about half as far as the uninjured) which makes sense since my hips start to hurt after a long run.

So my 3 exercises are to do 3 sets of 25 each:

  • Scissor kicks lying on my side, keeping sure my hips are perfectly straight and I’m keeping my toes facing forward
  • Standing on a step and dropping, then raising the hip hanging off … this one looks the dorkiest!!
  • One leg squats. These are tougher than I thought! I have to do them in front of a mirror or else I slouch and drop my other hip

Hopefully these will help on marathon day in 12 days… now I just have to keep up my cardio, which is hard! I hate swimming for longer than 20 minutes. Last night I could only stand 30 minutes. I hope tomorrow my knee will allow me to cycle at least. And I hope this shot works some kind of miracle and I survive my marathon!

Although I had a dream of maybe doing a marathon in every state, I’m contemplating resetting that goal to a half marathon in every state. I’ve already got Wisconsin and Virginia crossed off that list!