into-the-blue.com

I managed to go running again this morning.

It was significant because for the past 2 months I’ve been almost completely unable to run due to my left ITB giving me a big Fuck You. Cycling wasn’t any better - my ITB would start yelling at me after about an hour on the bike. But the ITB isn’t really the problem.

You see, the ITB is a longitudinal fibrous reinforcement of the Fascia Lata. It is attached to the midpoint of the external lip of the iliac crest and to the lateral condyle of the tibia. The iliac crest is obviously part of the ilium. The ilium has various other muscles that connect it to, amongst other things, the latissimus dorsi.

The fascia lata is the deep fascia of the thigh. In addition to being attached to the ilium, it is also attached to the back of the sacrum and the coccyx. That means that the fascia lata can have an effect on your posture. Alternatively, your posture can play with the fascia lata.

On the other end, the fascia lata is attached to the femoral and tibial condyles. Since the iliotibial band reinforces the fascia lata, it too is attached to various thingies around the knee. Well, one thing only: the ITB is attached on the bottom to the lateral condyle of the tibia.

And so we get to the tibia. Ah yes, the tibia. Ye olde shankbone is one of two bones in the lower leg, connecting the knee bone with the ankle bone. The medial malleolus is the medial surface of the lower extremity of the tibia. The anterior border of the medial malleolus is where we find the attach points for the anterior fibers of the deltoid ligament of the ankle joint, a synovial hinge that also connects to the talus bone. Talus bones, incidentally, have been used as a form of dice due to the fact that they can only land in one of 4 ways, but I digress.

Which, of course, brings me to the foot. Or, as the case may be, my feet in particular. And my lack of arches in my feet. There is also that nasty little thing known as the Achilles tendon or, as I like to call it, the fount of all that is wrong with my gait.

The achilles tendon has this interesting property that it provides proprioceptive information to the brain. As it seems to have turned out, my left achilles tendon sucks at that. That essentially means that if I try to balance on my left foot with my eyes closed I stand a fairly good chance of falling over inside of, oh, a second.

So basically my Achilles tendon screws me over when I go running. Normally that wouldn’t be too bad because kinesthetically you can compensate - I don’t typically run with my eyes closed. That’s where the flat feet come into play. My heel rotates inward too much and even motion control running shoes don’t completely solve the problem (custom orthotics are in my near future). Still not the end of the world, though. But, combine running with cycling and problems start to appear - my cycling cleat for my left foot, for some reason that completely escapes me, was not shimmed to change the angle that my foot meets the pedal. I had shimmed my right cleat, but not the left (translation: I’m really just a cretin and forgot to do so).

This, of course, makes my foot angle in. That changes the angle of my tibia with respect to the knee, which in turn places more pressure on the ITB, tightening it up and making it rub against various condyles around the knee, which in turn makes the ITB a little cranky so it tightens up to try to make me stop hurting it.

That’s approximately when I start yelling in pain like a 12 year old little girl.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there. Because it is connected to the ilium, which is connected to the latissimus dorsi and the sacrum and various other body parts, those start to tighten up and I wind up with a sore back.

The combination of a sore back, a sore ITB, a sore knee because of the sore ITB and the inability to run or cycle for close to two months made me cranky. Couple that with a dislocated finger from riding into a large wooden post while en route to take pictures of Kerry’s new prototype cyclocross bicycle and you wind up with a very cranky me. I’m not very inspired when I’m cranky, so I stopped blogging much.

The dislocated finger, however, drove me to seek professional help.

No, not that kind of help. I mean help of the orthopaedic variety. And the physical therapy variety. And somehow I remembered that I hadn’t shimmed my left cycling shoe, so I fixed that too.

And that brings me to today: I managed to go running for 5km today. I was, of course, ass-slow because I haven’t been running, but at least I managed to run and, more importantly, it didn’t hurt.

Which, of course, proves that Dirk Gently was correct: By creating a new prototype cyclocross bicycle and having Kerry ride it, I wound up dislocating my finger which caused me to go to the doctor who sent me off to the physical therapist which provided me with the opportunity to whine about my leg enough so that they agreed to take a look at it and then suggested that I do some different stretching exercises which in turn made my back sore which made me go to the chiropractor who noticed that my left foot overpronates which reminded me that I needed to shim my left cleat which made riding not irritate my ITB which allowed it to start healing and that in turn let me go running this morning without any ITB pain which inspired me to blog again.

So thank you, Terry Precision, for providing me with some more blog material.