"Champions are made when no one is watching"

Thanks to the appropriately named runner's knee(s) that I've developed, I couldn't run today to mentor.

Blackstone shuttle
runners:
Sri (NB)
Knapp (Nike)

and we may have IT band issues. The team is getting rickety.

Speaking of IT band issues, this was a particular demon of my running for quite some time.

What does it feel like? The outer part of your thigh to the top of your knee should feel like crap. When walking down stairs, it hurts like hell to bend at the knee and you have to Frankenstein your way down by swinging your leg down to the next step.

What causes it? Running on uneven surfaces aka all of Providence. For me, it was also heel striking; after switching to mid-foot, problems were gone. Downhill running (this is why I tell people to walk down hills) also caused them.

Treatment is... the short term treatment is to stop running ASAP. Running through this injury only makes it worse. We are all science experiments of one since what works for you may not work on me but what I found that helped was to basically roll the affected outer thigh on a cylinder-like object (wine bottle) and move it up and down the thigh. And I mean you are laying on top of it. It hurts no matter what, but after 2-3 days of this, it'll feel a lot better. If you wanna look like a real runner, buy a foam roller instead of using a wine bottle.

Stretching also helps. Standing up straight, place the affected leg behind the other leg and place your hand that is on the same side as the affected leg on a wall. After that, move the affected leg further in the opposite direction and you should feel the it band stretch.

For the last stretch, sit down on the floor and have the unaffected leg behind you The affected leg should be in front of you and in the indian style position. Lean forward. And that should stretch the it band.

And since this is a blog, I thought I'd share that Nike is doing a promotion where they are looking for a correspondent to write for them; definitely entering that contest and the results come out June 1st.