Running Recovery Hits Minor Snag

My running progress hit a bump in the road Tuesday when I set out to run around my neighborhood, with 6+ miles as my distance goal. This kept with my stated aim of gradually increasing my distance while taking notice of how my right leg felt around the knee (I am recovering from an IT band injury). On Saturday I had pulled off a similar 5-mile run without any pain or warning signs, so I was cautiously optimistic. Tuesday's run was unpleasant to begin with: it was warm and very, very humid. But I've run through those conditions without trouble before; the problem was that I begin to notice my right knee area between 4 and 5 miles. I walked much of the remaining distance, which I curtailed at 5.69 miles to prevent any aggravation to that area in my right leg.

So apparently I wasn't spacing my runs out enough over the week and will have to give myself some more time before I set out again. I think that when I resume running, I will stick to one run per week for a couple of months. Also, I'd like to confine my running to the treadmill since that seems to involve less shock to my knees.

This IT band problem has been really unsettling to me, but I have been able to partially compensate for my sidelining from running by doing other things. Like swimming, for example, which I will write about in tomorrow's post.