The Underwater Treadmill of Death
Well to start this off I just wanna say that I am 87% sure that my last blog post jinxed me. It was all about running, the good the bad and the even worse. And what do you know it we are now in the even worse stage. Recently I have been having a lot of problems with my I.T. band. This is a muscle that runs along the outside of your leg. It starts at your hip and runs all the way down to your knee. So basically if this muscle becomes very tight (like mine) you have extreme pain whenever you bend your leg at your knee. So basically anything except laying in bed motionless. Soooo yeah things are going great.
Now instead of running I wake up at the crack of dawn to do lots and lots of painful exercises to try to strengthen basically all of my leg muscles so that my muscle magically happens to un-tighten from its ball of fury. You would think that running 50 miles a week would strengthen your legs right? Yeah I thought so too but the answer is no. Actually running so much just makes me much much more prone to injuries like this. And I haven't even got to the best part...The best (worst) part is the cupping. Cupping is a type of treatment where you get little cups put all over the sore parts of your leg and then they suck up all of your skin inside of the cup. This is to try and make all the blood rush to those parts of your leg. More blood flow = un-tightening of the muscle. Unfortunately this is very very painful. Imagine like a pinch but times 100 and 5 of those at one time. I promise I am not a baby but I was definitely holding back tears. Oh and they leave very gross bruises. Fun story about the cupping; I've had multiple people come up to me and ask if I was okay because of all my bruising so if I gain anything from this its that at least I know who my true friends are! Alsooo Michael Phelps used the cupping treatment a lot during the Olympics so of course I am telling everybody that little tid bit too.
All of this is leading up to my latest obstacle. The under water treadmill. This is where you run when you aren't healthy enough to run regularly. This is because being in the water obviously makes you lighter and puts less pressure on your legs. Unfortunately since it as much of a cardio workout that means you have to go for 3x longer than a normal run for the two to be equal. So lets do the math. My usual run is about 45 minutes long. 3x45 min?? That would be 2 hours and 25 min. Add on the hour to do treatment before hand and icing after and you get a whopping 3 and a half hours of being neck deep in water trying to go through the running motion. And of course splashing yourself in the face about every stride. I am really tempted to start wearing goggles so I will definitely keep you updated on that temptation.
All in all, no matter how long and hard things seem to be right now...I'll do it for as long as I have to so I can be healthy and able to run again. I know it sounds cliche but all this had just made me appreciate it that more. So hopefully by next week you will here about a happy "Im Back" blog. And in the meantime if you see some weird bruises on my leg, I'm perfectly okay, just on the comeback!!
Now instead of running I wake up at the crack of dawn to do lots and lots of painful exercises to try to strengthen basically all of my leg muscles so that my muscle magically happens to un-tighten from its ball of fury. You would think that running 50 miles a week would strengthen your legs right? Yeah I thought so too but the answer is no. Actually running so much just makes me much much more prone to injuries like this. And I haven't even got to the best part...The best (worst) part is the cupping. Cupping is a type of treatment where you get little cups put all over the sore parts of your leg and then they suck up all of your skin inside of the cup. This is to try and make all the blood rush to those parts of your leg. More blood flow = un-tightening of the muscle. Unfortunately this is very very painful. Imagine like a pinch but times 100 and 5 of those at one time. I promise I am not a baby but I was definitely holding back tears. Oh and they leave very gross bruises. Fun story about the cupping; I've had multiple people come up to me and ask if I was okay because of all my bruising so if I gain anything from this its that at least I know who my true friends are! Alsooo Michael Phelps used the cupping treatment a lot during the Olympics so of course I am telling everybody that little tid bit too.
All of this is leading up to my latest obstacle. The under water treadmill. This is where you run when you aren't healthy enough to run regularly. This is because being in the water obviously makes you lighter and puts less pressure on your legs. Unfortunately since it as much of a cardio workout that means you have to go for 3x longer than a normal run for the two to be equal. So lets do the math. My usual run is about 45 minutes long. 3x45 min?? That would be 2 hours and 25 min. Add on the hour to do treatment before hand and icing after and you get a whopping 3 and a half hours of being neck deep in water trying to go through the running motion. And of course splashing yourself in the face about every stride. I am really tempted to start wearing goggles so I will definitely keep you updated on that temptation.
All in all, no matter how long and hard things seem to be right now...I'll do it for as long as I have to so I can be healthy and able to run again. I know it sounds cliche but all this had just made me appreciate it that more. So hopefully by next week you will here about a happy "Im Back" blog. And in the meantime if you see some weird bruises on my leg, I'm perfectly okay, just on the comeback!!
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