I thought I would send one last quick note before running the Mini Marathon here in Indy this Saturday, May 2. I think the last blog I sent may have jinxed me. What did I say? “I’m pretty sure that barring injury, if I can run nine miles now, I will be able to run the 13.1 miles for the Mini.” I was headed out to run 10 miles that afternoon. At about mile 3 my knee started to hurt again. I tried to push through it for a while but then decided that if I had any chance of healing before the Mini, I’d better stop. Okay, so it wouldn’t have taken much for me to at least think about stopping but this really was legitimate.

 I made an appointment with my doctor but I figured she would tell me to stop running and that would solve the problem. That would be the logical thing to do, right? If something hurts, stop doing it. Now I can’t start getting all logical at this point; I have put way too much effort into training for this to stop now. Besides, I have told all of you about it and I couldn’t take the embarrassment of telling you that I had quit. Just kidding, I know you would understand. As it happens my doctor is also training for the Mini, as are several other doctors from her office. She sent me to a specialist that she, and it sounds like just about everybody else in the office has been to while training this year. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one.

It turns out that I have a tight IT band. I haven’t actually caused any damage, just irritation of the bursa sac on the side of my knee. There are several ways of dealing with it but in order to be ready for the Mini, which was only two weeks away at that point we decided on a cortisone shot. Take five days off from running, anti inflammatories twice a day, stretching, icing and I should be good to go.

I have now run a couple three-mile runs and a five-mile run since the shot. Things look good, but I am a little nervous about not having more miles run in the weeks just before the race. I am taking the next two days off to rest up for Saturday. My friends that have run past Minis tell me that you get such an adrenaline rush from running with 40,000 other people that they don’t think I will have a problem. I’ve got my fingers crossed but no matter what happens, I will make the best of it. I will fill you in on how it went next week.