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laffingllamas's avatar

I just took a few weeks off and then got back to basics. I had been doing my long run each week on trails with lots of elevation gain and loss. I think some steep downhills was what got my IT band agitated. I'm back up to 10 miles now on a relatively flat course, and I'm running about 3-4 miles once or twice a week on trails. I'm wearing an IT band strap just to be safe, I have stated doing some strength training and yoga, and I'm biking and walking here and there when I can for some cross training.

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Stoic Running's avatar

Sounds like you’ve got it under control! I’d work in a good squat set somewhere in there if you have time :)

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laffingllamas's avatar

Three weeks ago, I got too ambitious and went from 10 miles to 13.5 miles in one go on a trial I love to run on. I had to walk the last mile back to my vehicle because I was having some major pain in my leg. I now believe this was ITBS, because I felt sharp pain in my upper leg, the outside of my knee, and the top of my calf. I took it easy for a couple of weeks, got back to running, and ran a 10K trail race two weeks after the overly ambitious run. Everything was fine. I ran six miles three times the next week, which was last week, and yesterday I ran my very first half marathon. The race went great, but the same pain crept up part of the way through the race. I'm thinking now that I should have skipped the half marathon or at least taken a LOT easier and walked a lot through it. I'm thinking this time I should probably take a few days off, maybe do some walking for a few days, ease back into things starting with 3 miles or so, and then gradually add more miles over a longer time period and not try to get back to 13 miles until at least a month. What do you think?

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Stoic Running's avatar

Oh wow sorry I didn’t see this comment earlier!!

It sounds like you need to strengthen the area, to me at least. Do you know anything about how your glut meds interact with your glut max and adductors? Like, is it balanced? If not or if you don’t know, I’d say head to PT. Do a bunch of body weight squats, side leg extensions, and pelvic floor exercises and see how you feel.

You might just need to improve your core stability, or you might need to actually strengthen. Either way, lmk what you find out!

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