7-1-08
I started running again on Friday, yay! For those who don’t know, I got IT Band syndrome on the inside of my left leg last August, did 3 months of rehab, started with baby steps running again until I was about to start running hard at the end of March after a month of plyometrics training. However, one day on the treadmill I randomly got a shooting pain on the inside of my left leg. It didn’t go away, and in April I took off two weeks of all types of training to go on a school student trip to April. When I came back I stuck to training on the Stairmaster. Starting in May I began a hard leg strengthening cycle. This lasted until about a week and a half ago, where after I took off a week of all strenuous exercise before attempting to run again. I ran for 45 minutes in an indoor track at my gym that has horribly tight turns. I had to go VERY slow on the turns because it was hurting the inside of my left knee. I ran for the first 15 minutes with an effort level of 5, 15 minutes with an effort level of 6, and 15 minutes with an effort level of 7. It felt good to run again, even if it was extremely slow as not to get hurt. I barely broke a sweat, but got something. My calves were really tight by the end of the run also. They are still a bit sore. I hit the Stairmaster on Saturday for recovery at speeds 9, 10, and 11 for 20 minutes each totaling 60 minutes. That workout surprisingly worked up a nice sweat. There is nothing more satisfying to eat after working out than bananas, and RIPE bananas. Not the perfect yellow ones that everyone thinks look so beautiful; I’m talking about the ones with black spots ALL OVER THEM. THOSE are the satisfying bananas.

I ran again on Sunday, but I made a poor choice of running at 10:45AM. It was like running underwater, that is how much humidity there was on top of the 75 degree Fahrenheit weather. Apparently during the summer you can really only run before 8:00AM or after 6:00PM. I tried to do the same 5, 6, 7 effort level run but the last 15 minutes were very difficult to pull off a 7, and I felt myself constantly dragging. I think I averaged around a 9 minute mile pace between the 3 effort levels. I was very tight after the run and stretched a bunch, and did some self-myofascial release for my calves. I took off yesterday because I was tired from not enough sleep, which is usually the case for me. Of course I always feel more energized after I eat some fruit though. Still no injury! I’ll hopefully be able to wean myself back into real training like I did last summer. However, this time I’m going to try it without the treadmill because I have a feeling that the treadmill and I don’t get along so well as far as avoiding injury goes.