I'm pretty pleased with the way I'm feeling right now. I've been able to increase my running quite a bit over the last few weeks and everything seems to be improving gradually.The issue with my knee has been a tracking problem. I've been doing all sorts of quad and glute strengthening exercises, combined with stretching and rolling on a foam roller. I am definitely feeling stronger in my knee, but there has still been a fair amount of tightness that even by rolling I have not been able to get past. I am now convinced that a big part of my problem has been my weak vastus medialis, but just as importantly combined with my tight ITB. This has caused too much pulling on my knee, resulting in the patella femoral syndrome that I've been struggling with for the past three months.
I felt that the foam roller was going to be enough for this, but it wasn't until I tried 'The Stick' that I noticed some HUGE improvements. I've been using the travel stick which is small and quite flexible, so is easy to work the ITB and smaller areas more effectively around my knee. I've been using the stick faithfully for the past 10days with continued great results. It's now part of my warmup and cooldown for every run.
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I can't wait to continue increasing my runs and get back to some epic long runs on the trails. I can even now can see the possibility of some really long snowshoe runs this winter with the hopes of a late spring ultra.
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Training Summary:
Total # of hours this week: 5:44
Total # of hours this year: 8:02
Total # of runs this week: 7
Streak: 7,320 days in a row
