As most of you probably know, about a week and a half ago, I developed ITBS in my right leg (same problem I was having in my left leg.) The night of one of our 10-mile recovery runs, I had a bit of tightness and pain on the outside of my right knee. Then I did something rather stupid, and went hiking the next day. Again, a little pain on the outside of my right knee when going down hills, but nothing spectacular. Tuesday I was doing one of my maintainence runs on the treadmill at work, and started to get the familiar sharp pain in my right knee. However, stupidly, I decided to run through it. Maybe it was that I was so used to running through pain by now, or maybe it was pure stubornness, but I kept going for another couple miles.

That afternoon, I was having quite a bit of pain. So I called up my chiropractor and saw her the next morning. Then it was a pretty rigorous routine of stretching, using the foam roller, ice, ibuprofen, and rest. I skipped that week's 10-miler in favor of rest, and tried running that Sunday evening. Pain. Frustration and ice that evening. More of the same. A couple more chiropractor visits. Thursday morning, I try running again. Pain. But it doesn't linger, so I'm hopeful.

This morning is our 26-mile training run, which I'm skipping. I tried to run in the gym again, but stopped after a mile. I am sitting at work right now with a bag of ice tied to my leg with an electrical cord, and I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by worry and frustration. It would be one thing if I slacked off in training and injured myself, but I think I've been quite dedicated to my training. My mind really wants to do this marathon, but my body is rebelling against the physical activity.

Two more 8-mile runs, and then the marathon. Will I be ready? Who knows? Will I do it? Definitely. No question. It's just a matter of how much I'll hurt afterwards.

Send my right knee healing thoughts, por favor. This is driving me crazy.

So yesterday I went on my first real run in 2 weeks, an easy 4 miles in the treadmill. The first two miles were fantastic -- no pain at all. The latter two were a little iffy, but it was tolerable. Afterwards I was sore, so I iced and stretched all day and night. Today, I am (very surprisingly) pain-free. So I'll take that as a good sign.

If I'm not physically better, I'm at least mentally in a better place. I think I'm going to try a slightly longer run tomorrow, and then the 8 on Saturday. If I'm feeling great on Saturday I may do a bit extra, say 12 or 14, just to get back in shape a little.

In other news, we got our swanky CoolMax AIDS Marathon singlets on Saturday (Buddy picked up mine for me.) It's hard to believe that time has passed so fast -- the marathon is less than 3 weeks away!

Thank you to everyone who's put up with my complaining over the past couple of weeks. Things are starting to look up!

So we are now supposed to be in the taper period of our training. But given that I've missed a bunch o' runs, I personally am in my panic period. No, not really, but I was feeling a little slacker-y given that I hadn't done a long run since January. So this past Saturday, while everyone was scheduled for 8, I decided to try a longer run. The first 8 I did with my group, and was feeling the pain, but it was pretty tolerable. I did 4 more miles along the Great Highway, and they were a struggle. It was probably partly the mileage, but I think a lot of it was the fact that I was running alone. Whatever the reason, by the end of the 12 miles, I was pretty much doing the hunchback run, i.e. running without bending one knee. I had wanted to do 14 or 16, but fortunately, that last bit of common sense running around my head prevailed, and I stopped. After that I spent a good 15 minutes standing in the cold cold ocean to ice down my legs.

My chiropractor has determined that I have weak hip flexors, and this is contributing to my IT band problems. She reasons that the IT bands have to tighten to compensate for the muscle weakness, and this makes them rub more against the bone, causing the friction and the pain. So she's given me a series of exercises to do, and they seem to be working. I feel much more stable when I run.

At this point, I'm feeling pretty good about things. As my coach pointed out, there's nothing I can do at this point to significantly improve my race day performance, so I'm now I'm basically where I'll be on race day. I think I have the endurance to do the race, and I've accepted the fact that this will be a painful marathon for me. But hey, "pain is weakness leaving the body", or some other No Fear slogan.

Anyway, I am definitely getting psyched about the marathon. It's less than 2 weeks away!

Saturday was our last training run in the city, a "short" 8-mile recovery run. I was having quite a bit of right knee pain, and around miles 3-4, I was considering stopping at 6. But as 6 got closer, I got my second wind and was able to finish the 8.

It's now 3 days before I leave for New Orleans. I can hardly fathom that 5 1/2 months has already passed! It feels like yesterday when I was struggling to finish our first 3-mile run. Thank you so much to everyone who's supported me along the way!