I: Iliotibial Band

I started running at the urging of SS in Summer 2005. After about a month of running on the treadmill, I started to feel some pain in my left knee. Google and WebMD, and SSm, all agreed that it was Iliotibial Band Syndrome. Some days it hurt worse during running than others, but thanks to a strap that I borrowed from WMN, I never stopped running, and about six months later, it went away on its own, which I noticed after I forgot to wear the strap a few times. For the next year and a half, it never bothered me. During that time, I had to stop running because of a stress fracture in my foot and because I hurt my toe in a very strange accident in lab, but never because of the IT band.

Then I ran the Rudolph Ramble with The Sister in December. I hadn't been running consistently during November, and even though the Ramble was only a 5k, it was a 5k on ice and snow and generally treacherous conditions. I slipped and slid all over the course, and a few days after the run, I noticed my knee start to twinge again. The stairs hurt. It hurt to get out of the car. But I didn't think too much of it, and on Christmas Eve, I decided to go for a run. I was about 2.5 miles into it, and I felt AWESOME. I was in the middle of one of those runner's highs that don't happen very often, when you feel like you can run forever. So I decided to make another loop of the neighborhood. And then it started - my knee was literally screaming in pain, and I had to limp my way almost a mile and a half home. I was in so much pain that night, but my family didn't seem to notice or care - I kept getting sent up and down stairs to get wine bottles, put food away, etc. When I got back to Chicago, I tried to start running again with a strap, and some days, it would be fine; others, I couldn't even make it a mile. I withdrew from my half marathon training program, I'm not running the half in DC in three weeks, and I was really worried that my running career was over. Then on Monday, I went to the gym after I taught a class. I had intended to read some papers while biking on the recumbent bike, but in a strange twist of fate, all the bikes were full, but there was an empty treadmill right under the ceiling fan. I ran a 5k, and it felt pretty good. Not painless, but pretty good. After the run, I stretched out, went home, and hung out on my foam roller for several minutes. Since then? No pain. I ran 4.5 miles on Saturday pain free. It felt amazing. Hopefully, this means the worst is over. After all, I have a 10 miler to train for! 

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