Baby Steps

Well...the road back to full strength may take a little longer. Ever since finishing the marathon 2 weeks ago, I've had some residual IT band soreness in my upper calf and lower hamstring. Like my previous injury, I've been rehabbing through rest, ice, stretching, and strengthening. I had no more soreness from walking up steps and swimming was going great, so I really wanted to see how it would feel out on the road. Since cycling is the next step to progress to, I went for a 25 mile bike ride yesterday at a relatively light effort...my first non swimming activity since the marathon. I really just wanted to get outside (it was 70 degrees!) and see how everything felt. I had a great ride and felt only very minor IT band issues. After the ride, I stretched and iced.

Well today, the temperatures were up to 77, so I really wanted to get outside. Rebecca and I went for a short jog to test out my leg. I felt minor dull pain after a few minutes of running, but the longer we ran, the more it started feeling worse. Rather than fighting through it, I stopped to walk after 10 minutes.

So what does this mean? Well it basically means that I need much more rest from running. I need to go back to stretching, icing, and strengthening before trying to run again. I will probably try cycling again since I didn't have much issue yesterday. And of course...more swimming.

As frustrating as it is, I think this injury is keeping me honest in my training by forcing me to hit the pool and work on my weakness. My swim times have dropped significantly from my best swims last year, so I know its working. I guess its just back to the drawing board in taking baby steps toward running again...sigh