No pain, all gain

Had my third and last PT appointment today. I went for a run on Tuesday morning for four miles and at the end of it there was no pain, no tickling, no anoying sensation in my right knee. The Physical Therapist says that just through stretching I've been able to really loosen up my IT Band. He was actually shocked at how much I improved with just five days of stretching and mentioned that he wished he had recorded the first time he stretched me and the second time--it was that big a difference.

It seems that my three months of non-running could have all been solved by stretching. Lots and lots of stretching. But it took three doctors, a set of x-rays, an MRI session, and tons of advice to get to a resolution.


I have to consider this another major running lesson learned: there is no such thing as too much stretching. I thought I had this stretching thing down by now--I had even increased the amount of the I spent stretching. But apparently it wasn't enough. When something is tight you need to treat with lots of stretching. I was spending about five minutes every morning and five minutes every evening stretching my IT Bands (since I found out that both sides were tight) in order to loosen them up. And that is a lot more stretching that I thought would be necessary.

If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to run five miles tomorrow and six on Saturday. If all that goes well, I'll be getting back on the distance wagon, scouting out races and filling up more states on my map.