Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

Guess it was time for me to become a real athlete and suffer my first sports related injury.  Badass? Nope. Just sucks.

On a regularly scheduled Wednesday night run I got a bad pain in the side of my right knee.  I carried on but it got worse not better.  Bad sign.  Post run (and post ab ripper) it was painful to walk.  The next day I had shooting pain in my knee and high up in my IT band so I took a few days off...(and by off I mean I only swam, although there was some pain kicking off the wall).  A few days later I was able to walk again, pleased with myself for curing my injury I went on a run through the forest.  About 2km in the pain came back with vengeance.  Took another 2 days off and continued to feel discomfort walking so I was immediately off to physio.  The therapist quickly diagnosed me with IT band (Iliotibial band) syndrome.  He performed some painful procedures (ripping my IT bands apart with some weird suction cup things) on my thigh and gave me exercises to do to help strengthen my butt to support the IT band..... and of course prescribed me the foam roller.  I then googled my inury and convinced myself my sports career is over.  Never google your injuries!

It's now 5 days post physio-session 1.... all rest except for a daily swim.  it isn't better, it's still causing me pain, although less on a day-day.  Walkng down stairs in the worst, but seeing as I hate stairs it's giving me good reason to take the elevator at work :P  tons of stretching and tons of painful foam rolling.  I'm hopeful this will be short lived.  I really need triathlon in my life right now.  I'm considering trying a spin tomorrow and see how that goes, but no pushing it.  One girl in the tri-club is going to teach my water running on Sunday as well.  Being in pain and feeling out of shape grows tiresome quickly.... I have learned that no matter how much pain you're in swimming is a great outlet cause nobody can tell you're crying in the pool.  So time to focus on my swimstroke (for which I am finally feeling improvements) and time to get myself better in every way possible.  Hopefully I'll have some good news soon and I'll be ready to kick butt in sports and life.