I had my appointment with the sports massage therapist this morning, and yes, I’m going to go for the low-hanging fruit and liken it to a lesbian experience.
She was a skinny little gal, but with firm-looking hands and pointy elbows. I was scared at first, but soon I started planning a fall wedding. She sized up my legs (my left is longer, but not significantly so), dug through the thigh chub and went to work. She played some soft music, we got to talking, she got to going with the oil and I was in heaven.
She felt the problem immediately. According to her, I had a huge teardrop-shaped area of adhesions, or scar tissue, along my quad and into my IT band. Adhesions are common in runners–basically, it’s just scar tissue that forms from repetitive running. The running causes micro tears in the muscle tissue, and the tears turn into adhesions, which is supposed to alert us to back off, which of course we ignore because we are runners and insist on running and don’t expect to run pain-free.
The adhesions are like knots. They form in the soft tissue and they don’t stretch easily, making the area very tight and restricting blood flow. Then the surrounding muscles become imbalanced, which creates tons of problems. She said my IT band was very tight as well, and likely was pulling my knee a little out of whack and causing those twinges I’ve been feeling (I don’t feel like my knee is injured–it feels like it all originates from my quad, but I feel little twinges going down into the top of the knee.)
I loved what she was doing..and then she explained that what she’d done so far was just loosen things up a little and get the circulation going. At that point, the courting phase was over and we were about to get into the thick of our relationship, and by that I mean she was going to start hurting me and using her sharp elbow to break up the tissue.
So we had our first fight. I tried to tell myself that with pleasure comes pain. I really liked her better when she was sweet-talking my leg, but I was committed to our session and so toughed it out. Can we play some Kenny G please, and can I have a glass of wine to loosen up? I’ve lost that lovin’ feeling.
I could feel the area of tissue literally boing and bounce away from her, and then she would move her elbow ever so slightly and dig back into it. She said it was very stubborn. I said I wanted out.
Eventually, she broke it all up, and she also worked on my gnarly plantar fasciitis-addled feet, my other leg and my back. I ended up in a very happy place! I told her that she was a saint and that I was going to sing her praises, and she told me that I won’t be singing that same song tomorrow when the soreness hits. We parted as friends, and I am now a huge advocate for sports massages.
So the dream is still alive. I am good to go for Saturday!!!!!!!! Roll out the barrel and the bagels! I’m going to try and walk tomorrow just to try to loosen things up, then I will go for an easy run on Wednesday to see how the leg feels.
Since I am so pumped up now and full of hope again, I shall post some favorite marathon cheering signs that I’ve found over the last few months. Just the thought of being able to attempt the race has me in such great spirits, and these signs crack me up! Who wouldn’t be motivated by the following?
All the above non-source pics were taken from a hysterical blog which (along with more specific pic sources) can be found here
And the above pics sourced from here
It’s so hard to pick a favorite. Six days until my near-death experience…yippee!!!!!!
Maybe Marathoner 