itband.anat[1]So as I have reported here for awhile, I have IT band problems which have been going on for several months.  The symptoms of it are pain that varies in location and intensity down the outside of my right leg, starting at the hip and ending at the knee.    My response to the injury has been shutting down pretty much any impact endurance training along with increasingly regular IT band stretching.  Well despite hardly running at all the last 3-4 months I have not had a significant change in symptoms.  Almost every day I will be limping mildly for at least some portion of it.

Well today for my brick at the gym I basically said  “F it, what is the difference?”  If it is going to hurt me when I am not even running, I may as well run and see if what happens.  I was very conservative on the treadmill, doing nothing but straight 10 minute mile pace, abandoning the speed up I normally do during the last two minutes of running.  I just wanted to run slow and steady for 20 minutes to see what the end result would be tonight and the days following.  The last time I ran with IT pain going in I was hobbling severely the next couple days.

Prior and post run I did full lower body stretching to hopefully head off complications.  The run itself was ok although my body felt far from comfortable running for 20 minutes, even at the beginner pace.  I followed up with a decently intense 10 minutes on the recumbent bike.

By this time tomorrow I should have a pretty good idea if today’s experiment was a first step forward or just another foolish plan to ignore the signs of old age.

Today’s Workout

Run/ride brick

20 minutes treadmill – 2.05 miles covered

10 minutes recumbent bike