Monday, January 22, 2007

“Ow! Ooooh! Yeow! Ahhhh!”

ORN: 3 miles, no watch

David asks in a comment today “Tell us how it feels on your ITBs when the massage therapist puts his/her fingers to the connective tissues. Do you feel/hear the popping?”

Oh my. Did I ever.

I’ve never had a massage before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. When I shook hands with the guy this afternoon, I felt like my hand disappeared into his. The grip was amazing. His forearms looked like Popeye. This will be different.

I plopped onto the table and he started working my right ITB. He seemed a little surprised, yet pleased, that I knew a bit of what I was talking about. He worked up and down the ITB, pressing hard. Most of it was OK. Then, David, yes, he did find one dandy knot, one adhesion, one spot of real “popping” on the ITB, just above knee-level.

“Yep, that’s a good one,” he said. “The rest of your ITB is tight but all runners have tight ITBs. The problem is in that knot.”

So we talked a lot about stretching, warm up, cool down, shoes, racing. He thought most of my plan made sense, though he encouraged a longer cool down and more stretching at the end of my runs. Further, that the cool down length is proportional to the time I run. Seemed to make sense.

Will it help? We’ll see. I had a decent 3 mile run this morning. Run a mile, walk a minute; seemed to work. Mostly it was great just to be out in the dark at 5:30am. Running. Like back to a rhythm, sorta, again. The knee hurt some but not bad later in the morning. A couple of ibuprofen seemed to set that straight.

We’ll see how the rest of the week goes.

Oh, one more thing…how about the Super Bowl? We are in a unique location, halfway on a direct line between Indianapolis and Chicago. The Bears-Colts game will have us hopping for two full weeks now!!

9 comments:

David said...

That's what I like to hear! That pop right above and outside the knee. As great a release as a runner can covet.

Now I can sleep at night knowing you'll be better.

Anonymous said...

It was a good pain, right? I've had that, too. Let's hope it's the start of all things good for you. The ITB is something you will have to watch forever, but it will improve. Good luck Joe

Anonymous said...

It was a good pain, right? I've had that, too. Let's hope it's the start of all things good for you. The ITB is something you will have to watch forever, but it will improve. Good luck Joe

Anonymous said...

I hope things continue to go well for you. By the way any bets for the game with someone from Chicago??

Anonymous said...

Well, that's another bit of good news! At least we have identified the problem area. Then, you got in a good run to go with the good news. I'm rootin for the Colts cause I like Payton Manning and Indianapolis is a bit closer to me :-)

Anonymous said...

Hurts so good, right? ; ) : ) I hope the healing process keeps progressing!

Anonymous said...

The massage part sounds good, Joe -- but I would have opted for a facial and a manicure afterward, too! Oh, right...you weren't at a spa...!

Glad you can get out on the road again...!!

Anonymous said...

Joe-
Check out www.activerelease.com it's the main website for the therapy and you can find people who practice in your area. It is similar to massage, although they take you through the full range of motion at the same time. It can be quite painful (but it feels good too?? I'm crazy) due to the pushing on the sore spots. Though it sound like you already had some of that with your massage. I always asked the dr. who I go to how men could go through this with all the hair on their legs. She replied- "I make them shave." You could also find out about kinesio tape. I raqn on Saturday with a strip of this tape up the sides of both of my IT's and it really helps to support. there are lots of websites on kinesio tape..just google it. It took several trips to the sports physician for ART, usually I went twice a week for about two months for complete improvement. I could feel the steady improvement with each visit. I recommend it. It worked for me.
Jenny

Anonymous said...

Sounds painful! Is that the back part of your knee?