Signing up for Dublin the day after the Cork marathon seemed like a good idea at the time. Shortly after this happy occasion, I was enjoying a long downhill at mile 8 of a comfortable 13 mile run when something twinged sharply on the outside of my left knee, causing me to hop around in the road on my right foot, proclaiming my most colourful Irish phrases to the neighbouring field of cows. I looked down at my leg, and finding it still in one piece, gingerly set off again with no further cause for concern. At mile 10, again on a downhill, the same thing happened. I tried to change my form slightly, and continued on carefully, with the pain coming more and more often, until it was pretty much continuous for the last half mile. I iced it when I got home, and later Google told me what I already knew: I had sustained my first official injury, the dreaded iliotibial band syndrome, or ITBS (my shin splints and blisters didn’t count, I sucked it up and ran through them).
The iliotibial (IT) band is a ligament that runs down the outside of the thigh from the hip to the knee, and helps stabilise the knee and maintain its forwards-backwards position. When the IT band becomes tense, possibly from over-running (Paris to Cork in 8 weeks) or doing a greedy marathon (Cork 8 weeks after Paris), it tightens and pulls a connecting tendon, which rubs over a sharp bone in the knee, manifesting itself in sharp knee pain and certain delicacies of the Irish language.
I went to the physio who vigorously rubbed it out, bruising the outside of my thigh quite literally black and blue from hip to knee, and faithfully followed his instructions of rest for a week, and two four miles and a 10 mile to get back into my program. I revised my carefully planned training program from 18 weeks to 13 weeks and then, following various festivals, physio appointments and enforced rest, to 10 weeks. I set out on my first long run, the same route as my disastrous 13 mile, and was feeling good, optimistically planning to run the Munich marathon two weeks before Dublin (five marathons in 364 days, why not? – I had clearly learnt nothing from Cork). I passed the spot where I’d first felt it all those weeks ago, and nothing happened. I was feeling good, very comfortable, like I could run for hours, and then disaster struck at mile 10, and this time it wasn’t a one-off twinge. It happened at every step. I knew what was happening in my knee, I could see in my mind my tender, vulnerable tendon scraping on the knee bone like a twig on a toothy saw, and I knew I had to stop running. I walked the last three miles, occasionally forgetting and breaking into a run again only to be brought back to walking again.
I came to the heartbreaking realisation in those long three miles that I wouldn’t be running Dublin, and that I should have realised this weeks ago. But runners are stubborn creatures, and when the little marathon bug gets hold of them and gives them that invincibility, there’s no talking to them – tell them they wouldn’t be able to get up in the morning and run to Gibraltar before breakfast and they’ll laugh in your face.
I went back to the physio, who rubbed the IT band out but didn’t give me either a magic solution or a definitive answer to The Question: When can I start running again? Another appointment was booked, and another week of torturous rest and heartbreak prescribed. I spent the rest of that week in mourning and in bed, stubbornly refusing all suggestions of alternative workouts and repeating my stale mantra, I’m a runner. By the end of the week I realised that I was both depressed and slightly crazy, and promised myself that on Saturday I would buy myself a bike, and that it wouldn’t make me any less of a runner.
I went to Halford’s, focused and determined not to look at the colours of the bikes until I had chosen which one was right for me. It takes a special kind of customer service to dissuade a client from making any kind of purchase when they have walked into your shop with their money already out and their minds made up to spend it on anything, as long as they leave with some form of what they came for. Halford’s managed it spectacularly, and I left with no bike, and my triathlon dream in tatters (the runner purist in me was delighted).
By the end of the weekend my friend had had enough, and put her foot down, giving me the metaphorical kick up the backside that I deserved (I’m not sure how close I came to receiving a physical one). She told me in no uncertain terms that I was going to do Dublin, walking – walking! – that she would do it with me, and that we needed a training program.
So, I will walk Dublin: it will take just over 6.5 hours at 4 miles an hour, I am not allowed to do it drunk, and I have to take it seriously. Eight weeks to go!
The iliotibial (IT) band is a ligament that runs down the outside of the thigh from the hip to the knee, and helps stabilise the knee and maintain its forwards-backwards position. When the IT band becomes tense, possibly from over-running (Paris to Cork in 8 weeks) or doing a greedy marathon (Cork 8 weeks after Paris), it tightens and pulls a connecting tendon, which rubs over a sharp bone in the knee, manifesting itself in sharp knee pain and certain delicacies of the Irish language.
I went to the physio who vigorously rubbed it out, bruising the outside of my thigh quite literally black and blue from hip to knee, and faithfully followed his instructions of rest for a week, and two four miles and a 10 mile to get back into my program. I revised my carefully planned training program from 18 weeks to 13 weeks and then, following various festivals, physio appointments and enforced rest, to 10 weeks. I set out on my first long run, the same route as my disastrous 13 mile, and was feeling good, optimistically planning to run the Munich marathon two weeks before Dublin (five marathons in 364 days, why not? – I had clearly learnt nothing from Cork). I passed the spot where I’d first felt it all those weeks ago, and nothing happened. I was feeling good, very comfortable, like I could run for hours, and then disaster struck at mile 10, and this time it wasn’t a one-off twinge. It happened at every step. I knew what was happening in my knee, I could see in my mind my tender, vulnerable tendon scraping on the knee bone like a twig on a toothy saw, and I knew I had to stop running. I walked the last three miles, occasionally forgetting and breaking into a run again only to be brought back to walking again.
I came to the heartbreaking realisation in those long three miles that I wouldn’t be running Dublin, and that I should have realised this weeks ago. But runners are stubborn creatures, and when the little marathon bug gets hold of them and gives them that invincibility, there’s no talking to them – tell them they wouldn’t be able to get up in the morning and run to Gibraltar before breakfast and they’ll laugh in your face.
I went back to the physio, who rubbed the IT band out but didn’t give me either a magic solution or a definitive answer to The Question: When can I start running again? Another appointment was booked, and another week of torturous rest and heartbreak prescribed. I spent the rest of that week in mourning and in bed, stubbornly refusing all suggestions of alternative workouts and repeating my stale mantra, I’m a runner. By the end of the week I realised that I was both depressed and slightly crazy, and promised myself that on Saturday I would buy myself a bike, and that it wouldn’t make me any less of a runner.
I went to Halford’s, focused and determined not to look at the colours of the bikes until I had chosen which one was right for me. It takes a special kind of customer service to dissuade a client from making any kind of purchase when they have walked into your shop with their money already out and their minds made up to spend it on anything, as long as they leave with some form of what they came for. Halford’s managed it spectacularly, and I left with no bike, and my triathlon dream in tatters (the runner purist in me was delighted).
By the end of the weekend my friend had had enough, and put her foot down, giving me the metaphorical kick up the backside that I deserved (I’m not sure how close I came to receiving a physical one). She told me in no uncertain terms that I was going to do Dublin, walking – walking! – that she would do it with me, and that we needed a training program.
So, I will walk Dublin: it will take just over 6.5 hours at 4 miles an hour, I am not allowed to do it drunk, and I have to take it seriously. Eight weeks to go!
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