Oh goodness, I had a horrid
Oh goodness, I had a horrid 10-miler today. Won't go into all the details but I ended up walking the last 2 miles thanks to my IT band. So frustrating. The main difference between this and my 9-miler 2 weeks ago was that I taped before my 9-miler and didn't tape before I started today. My chiro feels like the tape is good when necessary, and I think I'll use it for my remaining long runs before my race. (Actually the race is sort of up in the air after today but I'm still hoping I'll be healthy for it. It's 4 wks from tomorrow.)
Plan of action: I've learned some great strengthening exercises from the rehab place where I'm going but it's been focused on ankle/foot/lower leg stuff because of an arch issue I was having. (The arch did great today, BTW, giving me faith in this clinic!) But they haven't yet given me strengthening stuff for my IT band. I've had a lot to work on, they can't address it all at once. I'm going to talk to them about the upper-leg/hip strength stuff on Monday, but until then I'm going to implement Jimmy's exercises. Thanks, Jimmy!
I'll keep doing the trigger point stuff; that actually seems to be helping in terms of getting things loosened up in there.
And overall I'm just going to keep getting treated and doing what I've been doing, hoping that it works. The chiro told me he expected this to be fixed in 2-3 weeks, and it's only been a week. I think my expectations were too high for today, considering this is an issue that I've had on and off for 9 months! So I'm going to give it time. My body needs to learn NOT to tighten up in this way.
Lastly, attitude--I'm being thankful for the miles I CAN run instead of focusing so much on the ones I CAN'T run.
ETA: I emailed my chiro (and he responded, on a Saturday, FTW!!) and he still feels my prognosis is excellent for getting this taken care of before the race. I hope he's right but am still going to try to keep a good attitude either way!