Please help! post-marathon knee problem

Triathlon Forum
1

i ran the cleveland marathon on april 25th (that’s 2.5 weeks ago), and was more or less pleased with my performance - was on a 3:20-25 pace until the 22nd mile, then fell apart and finished in 3:34. i didn’t bonk, my knees just gave out, then my calves cramped, then my left hamstring. no worries, though, i finished without ever walking, and within 3 days, all my aches and pains went away.

except my left itb

i didn’t have any left itb problems before the marathon.

i haven’t ran since the marathon… that’s not entirely true, i did try running a week after the marathon, and i made it about 100 yards before my knee felt like it was going to burst.

i tried swimming two days later, had to stop after 1000 yards for the same reason

yesterday i tried cycling, felt great for the first 40 minutes, then my itb tightened up. the “out” averaged 23 mph, the “back” averaged 7mph.

today i’m going to see a doctor, because i don’t think this is going to go away by itself. i’ve been stretching and icing, and like i said, i gave myself a looong break from tri training.

anyone else experience this? could someone comment on how this might relate to the thread about running shoes? http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=113576;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;guest=1285461

today i’m going to my schools health-services, where my only choice will be to have a nephrologist or some other non-sports doc look at my knee and tell me i have tendonitis, then give me ibuprofin (this has been their diagnosis for every ailment of mine from a sprained ankle freshman year to a pinched nerve junior year). very frustrating. i definitely trust you anonymous slowtwitchers more than those incompetent bastards. please help!

3

“I received aggressive ART treatment, 3 times a week for the first two weeks, then 2 times a week for two weeks then 1 more session. I’ve implemented a stretching routine to hit the ITB and also use pin point technolgies quad roller 3 times a week to give it a real deep massage”

interesting. thanks for the response. i have a question about the ART and the quad roller, though:

if i may be so bold, how much did they cost? it seems to me that 11 massages would be pretty pricey, especially on my budget (i’m a relatively poor college student). and i don’t know what a quad roller would cost, but it seems to me that the expense would equal a whole lot of pasta, eggs, and chicken.

i wonder if my insurance would cover massages?

5

this hurts too much for me to not BUMP!

6

ran my first marathon last year on waaaay to little training, but i “ran” the whole thing, albeit more slowly than you … it was honestly a minimum of 2-3 months before everything felt completely normal on a training run … long enough that i thought for a while that i’d screwed something up for good. follow the advice given here and in time your body will heal.

also check out the running strong website at -http://www.runningstrong.net/INDEX.HTM

there’s an excellent q&a board there with answers from janet.

7

I use one of these. It has worked well for me. Also, the price is reasonable:

http://www.performbetter.com/detail.aspx_Q_ID_E_4278_A_CategoryID_E_235

8

this is lame, i know, but BUMP!

9

I have ITB problems in my left knee after MdS but was out running last night. The knee felt sore after about 5km but by backing off the pace and stretching out the stride I felt ok and did another 5km (which was all I had planned for last night).

MdS really showed me that I could push through the fatigue and pain and keep going for much longer than I thought. When your options are only keep going or become an ‘abandonaire’ you have great motivation to continue!

I’m planning to do another run today (after a swim) - I’ll see how it goes then.

10

i had an itb that kept me from running for just over a year. don’t f*ck w/ it. RICE, stretch, get treatments etc. give yourself at least 2 weeks before attempting to run again. better safe than sorry.

11

the ITB is a really hard thing to stretch, so i would massage it a lot. When people hear a lot, they think maybe twice a day. Im talking about everytime you arent moving, massage it for a bit. If youre driving somewhere, massage it, watching tv, massage it, you get the point? You should be massaging it at least 10 times a day. This can loosen it up faster than almost anything else. If its tendonitis, RICE and NSAIDS (Bextra, Vioxx, Ibprofen are good ones) will clearup the acute symptoms.

12

Actually I did give it three weeks before running again. I just did swimming and cycling inbetween. Neither gave me any trouble.

Cheers,
dt.