Monday, August 24, 2009

IT band rehab - 8/24

This week I'm in Indiana for work, but fortunately I've been here a couple times before, and am familiar with a short stretch of road behind the hotel that is perfect for what I'm looking to do this week. It is only a mile long, but it is flat (as if there is any elevation change anywhere in this part of the country) and there is little to no traffic.

Total distance for today was 3.2 miles before I started distinctly feeling the IT band becoming sore. It occured to me that the best way for me to gauge improvement on this is not by distance (because pace can change) - but rather time, assuming I'm keeping a consistant cadence. While I haven't been concentrating on cadence - I know I'm around 85-90 per foot per minute. Regardless - when I first started having this issue, I would feeling it after about 5 minutes. After a week or so off, that time extended to around 10-12 minutes. After another week or so off (only a few days ago), that hadn't really changed too much, as I was still around 10-12 minutes. The fact that I'm now well beyond that - at 3.2 miles, with my pace probably around the 8:30 mark - I know I'm in the range of 24 minutes or so, even if I don't know the exact numbers. So it is either sheer coincidence that I'm doubling the time in a span of four days, or the new approach is speeding up recovery.

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