Austin Marathon & Early March Update

Several good folks have asked me lately about how my knee is doing since I have been whining about it a lot the last month or so.  It is always good to be loved even when one doesn’t deserve it!

I went to my orthopedic surgeon’s office the week before running the Austin Marathon and saw his PA, Jenny.  She and the good doc are the only people on earth who have actually seen my left knee from the inside, so I figured she might be able to help.  She moved my knee around, pushed and pulled on stuff, and asked me a bunch of questions.  In the end she diagnosed me with iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome, which sounds a lot worse than it is.  The wonderful news was that she didn’t think there was any sign of damage to any ligaments or meniscus, and she told me I could go ahead and run the marathon and not worry about damaging anything.  After seeing Jenny I started doing a bunch of exercises and stretches for my ITB and got almost immediate relief!  At the same time I also changed up my shoes and was coming off a few days of lower mileage, so it is hard to say exactly what changes resulted in the dramatic improvement, but whatever fixed the problem I was able to run down in Texas with my good friend, Todd. 

It was a really really good race for me.  There was no personal record, not even close, but that’s OK because that wasn’t the objective.  The first objective was to be there to support my training partner in his quest for another Boston qualifier and the second to just get a good 26 mile 385 yard training run and have fun.  Quite unfortunately Todd had a pretty rough day and did not meet his goals, but after about nine miles he “sent me on” so he could suffer through the rest of the race on his own.  With all the pressure completely off in terms of personal performance I possibly had the most fun I have ever had running a marathon.  I just clicked off the miles at about a 3-hour pace, never hit the wall, scraped the wall, or otherwise encountered the wall.  I finished in a time of about 3:04 tired but feeling better than I ever have at the end.  I spent $20 for a 20-minute massage on my left ITB while I waited for Todd to come in and I have basically had no more issues with my left ITB.

These last couple of weeks since the Austin race I have started training harder and now, unbelievably, I started having knee/ITB issues on the other side.    But I’m not going to whine about it.  It is what it is.  It comes at a very inconvenient time in the Boston Marathon training cycle, because I really should be training very hard the next three to four weeks, but at least I recognize the symptoms, have a plan to address it, and mercifully I have been able for the most part to run key workouts pretty well.  If you read this and are so motivated, pray for me, body and soul.  If I am honest I have to admit that I am having a little trouble maintaining an even emotional keel with the ups and downs; one day I have a great run, the next I struggle with pain.

On the fundraising side we’re over Heartbreak Hill!  Generous folks have donated over two thousand dollars now to help kids and communities in Africa through World Vision.  We only have $520 dollars (symbolically 5.2 miles) to go to reach the finish line, and in the grand scheme of things the fundraising finish line is much more important than the real finish line.  It is good to have come so far.