Back From Vacation and IT Band Troubles!

Happy Friday!  I have been MIA for a couple of weeks since I've been taking time off from running to try to heal my knee pain and this week I was gone camping at Detroit Lake, which was fabulous!  I use to be excited to come home from vacations, but now I want to stay on them forever!  Sometimes reality just blows and it would be nice to not have to deal with life's stresses for more than a just a week!

But that's not the way life goes, so I enjoyed my time off and spent as much time in the sun as possible!

Maverick spent as much time in the water as he could!

I stayed in the sun as much as I could!! 

We spent an afternoon on a pontoon boat!!  TONS O' FUN!

Maverick also got to come out on the pontoon boat :))

The water was really cold in the cove where we floated, but felt so good!  Could have stayed out there all day!

Our little family enjoying the view <3

And what camping trip wouldn't be complete without a few drinking games?!

Ok ok, enough of the vacation photos!!  Onto the what is REALLY on my mind, my knee and marathon training!!  I've attempted to run a hand full of times since the pain has come on, and only make it about a mile before my knee is screaming at me to STOP!!  I talked to my running coach and he gave me some good advice to walk for the time I would normally run, and also look into getting an IT band massage.  I've been reading a little online about recovery for IT band issues and it sounds like rest, stretching, icing and intensive massages 3-4 times a week are recommended.  Well all that sounds great, except I don't really have the money for 3-4 massages a week!!  So for now I have 1 set up for Monday and am hoping the therapist can give me some suggestions for at home massages I can do, maybe with a foam roller.  Also resting is going to be hard, mentally.  I'm only 2 months away from the marathon and am falling behind on my training.  I am scheduled for 16 miles next Saturday and really don't want to miss it because it's part of the marathon course!!  I'm hoping with taking the 2 weeks of that I have and the massage will be enough to get me back into training.  

So in the mean time I'm still doing ChaLEAN and am happy to report I've lost 4inches in the first 30 days!!  I'm actually a week behind since my camping trip, but will start the next phase on Monday.  I can do ChaLEAN with no aggravation to my knee.  So that's helping keep me sane, but it's still not running!

Tomorrow is the Classic Pineapple 5K that I'm doing with friends.  It involves obstacles and should be a ton of fun!!  I won't let my knee get in the way of this one!  Since it's not running the whole time I think I will do just fine, hopefully...

Alright, off to start some more laundry and unpack more camping crap I mean gear!!  Hope you are enjoying the heat!

Have you ever had IT band issues? And what was the best treatment you found?