Hello Mrs IT Band. Meet Mr Foam Roller

This was me. With a shirt on though. And pants.

Last Saturday I went out for my long run with my friend Tess. I had 18K on the schedule (my longest yet!), and Tess had 20K planned (before I got there she ran two so that we could finish together). She's winding down for the Around the Bay next weekend. Go Tess! Things were going great. The weather was decent, conversation was fun and I felt good and strong. Halfway through the run my calf was starting to cramp, but nothing that I couldn't get through. We took this time to have some fuel

*******NEWSFLASH! It turns out that Gu isn't so bad, I just had the misfortune of having a nasty flavour for my first experience! Mental note to self. No more orange flavoured Gu!********

and water and then we set back in. A little while later I mentioned that my right glute was feeling kind of tight. Again, nothing that I couldn't manage. We carried on and just as we were passing the 13K mark we had to stop for traffic. The light turned green and off we went. One step, two step.........OMG STOP! The pain along the side of my right knee was crazy! I hobbled across the street and tried to stretch things out but it wouldn't go away. Finally I got the pain under control and we got going again. We decided to loop around Tess' neighbourhood just in case I couldn't go on. Once more we had to stop for traffic and once more things seized up as I tried to get going again. I stretched it out and told Tess that I really wanted to finish but we couldn't stop for traffic anymore. We carried on and finally Tess' Garmin beeped the end of our run. I said goodbye and then I got in my car and went home. (Did I mention that I had a wedding to go to that night? Heels. Wicked!) I came home and put some heat on my leg and butt and then found some stretches to do on the internet. Thankfully my leg was feeling fine now as long as I wasn't maneuvering stairs. Too bad there were a lot of stairs at the wedding facility. This wouldn't have been so bad had I not been the driver therefore unable to dull the pain with a little alcohol. On second thought, maybe it would have. Sore leg, heels, alcohol. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

 I had a run scheduled for Monday but decided that I should let my leg rest a bit so I didn't go back out until Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. Every run the IT band made it's presence known, but nowhere near the degree of Saturday. Thank God! Today I remembered that I had a Wag Jag coupon for $50 at the Runners Den in Hamilton so I took off from work early (shhhhh don't tell my boss) and headed out there to see what I could buy to help this out. I was looking for a foam roller and maybe IT band compression. Foam roller - check! IT wrap - fail! Boo. As the sales lady was helping me out a sweaty man out for a run stopped in to use the bathroom. He overheard us speaking and stopped to give me his 2¢ ........"It's gonna hurt like hell the first few times you use the foam roller but then it'll be great!"..... Sounds..... Awesome. The sales lady shooed him away and rang me up. I also got a pair of gloves with the remainder of my coupon in case you were wondering (how could you not be!?).

Sugoi Thermal Gloves

I've been wearing fleecy mittens that I bought at the dollar store all winter. They are WAY to warm and need to go. Of course I probably won't get to wear them until next year, but at least I have them now. That is if I can remember where I put them come the fall. Any way, I brought my roller home, ripped off the plastic, read the instructions and jumped on this thing. What. The. Heck?! This hurts! And the roller is hard as a rock. This can't be right can it? Oh yeah. Sweaty runner did tell me that it would hurt didn't he? Ok, good thing I have a fairly high pain tolerance I guess. I rolled for about 10 mins (SR told me not to overdo it) and did some stretching,

Ain't that the truth!

Now to wait and see how things feel tomorrow. I'll stretch and roll again before bed and get a good nights sleep (I hope) and hopefully the 19K that I have scheduled for the morning will go alright. I'm going to try to stay close to home so that I can walk back if need be. No Tess this week, life dictates that she run at 7:30am. No thank you. Wish me luck!!!