The second MMT Training Run of the year was this past weekend, running south from Camp Roosevelt thru Gap Creek and north up to Woodstock Tower. I have been having some IT band pain in my left knee for the past two weeks, a result of running too fast (if that's possible) at Holiday Lake. I had hoped it would be well enough to run all 25 miles of the training run, but unfortunately that wasn't the case and instead I dropped at mile 16. I like to think that my decision to drop was one based off of sound reasoning for my health rather than the fact that there was beer at the mile 16 aide station. I'll let you be the judge on that one.
The gangThe run itself, when not in pain, was pleasant. I ran with Phil Rosenstein and got to hear stories and strategies from Badwater and his recent trans-American run. Shortly after leaving the first aide station at mile 8 my IT band pain came back and I was having a hard time lifting my left foot over/around the jagged MMT rocks (see below). I knew that backtracking to the aide station would be useless since they would have moved on to aide station #2 by that time (gotta love roaming aide stations), so I just kept moving forward and eventually made it to the next spot to drop, mile 16.
MMT Trails
Most of the day's fun was had after I stopped running and got to hang with Tom Corris and the rest of the drinkers... err... aide station volunteers. Tom found a deer hoof and it was immediately put to good use.
High five for the aide station crew!
Captain Hoof
And then of course the fun continued once we made it back to the finish line. Rick Kerby one-upped Tom's deer hoof and found a mounted toilet seat in the woods. Clearly it needed to be brought back to the parking lot social gathering.
Duty calls
Unsure of how to react to Rick on the crapper
All in all, another good day with the VHTRC crew. Sad that I didn't get to run the whole thing, but I went to physical therapy today and my therapist thinks my IT band will be good to go in no time. Until then I'll just try to enjoy my forced downtime.
Link to Kirstin's pics from the day.
Link to Q's pics from the day.
The gang
MMT Trails
High five for the aide station crew!
Captain Hoof
Duty calls
Unsure of how to react to Rick on the crapper
1 comment:
Bobby G:
OK my friend, you are now officially an ultrarunner because you have the classic ultrarunner injury, ITBS. Seriously. Here's the way it works:
Act 1: 2002, my first year as an ultrarunner. Like you, I ran Holiday Lake in 2002 (before you were born) and during the second loop (like you, running it like a freaking marathon), the ITB tweaked and that was it for me. Big walking all the way to a 5:17 finish. Took me about a month to recover totally, and I didn't run any more ultras until the fall (I was a triathlete back then). I didn't do any PT, just stretched and iced.
Act II: Two years later, after running Masochist in 2003 and Catawba in 2004, I thought I was ready for the Ring in September, 2004. I didn't really train compared to what I do now, and thought I was ready for the ups and downs and sides to sides of the rocks. NOT. After coming off Short Mountain--just like you-- it started to tweak again (having never done so in training) and I basically death marched it in to the finish (well, the ITB was an issue along with the hot dog I ate at Edinburgh---ask Gary about that one). I was out for 2 months. No LUS, no Masochist. It sucked. BUT I found an excellent ortho doc and PT this time.
Moral of the story: Get yourself to a good ortho doc and PT (Farouk comes to mind) NOW. My PT saved my ultra career---no kidding. First I had some good anti-inflamms from the doc, then a heel lift, then good hard massage along with PT 2x weekly for about 6 weeks(all the exercises I did are featured in the March 2009 Runners World along with an article written by my doc Bob Wilder and PT Jay Dicharry---no kidding, they are famous). Then my patella got taped to stay tracked during every run, and I was able to run a loop of TWOT at the end of October with no pain.
Email me at sophiespeidel@yahoo.com if you have any questions--the sooner you deal with this, the better your chances of being able to run Terrapin and MMT.
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