Dissecting and getting past an IT band injury

Back in April, I had an IT band injury on my left leg. Iliotibial band (or better known as "IT band") syndrome creates a stinging sensation typically on the outside of the knee. I decided to rest and let it heal--an excellent idea.

As we runners tend to self-diagnose and self-treat, I decided to stay with the pack and dissect the underlying issue that caused the IT band injury in the first place.

Here's what I came up with:

1. It happened not too long after starting to run post-marathon.
2. Post-marathon runs were more exploratory. I ran roads that I had never run before because I was bored with the standard routes.
3. Most of those routes had hills--BIG hills.
4. I ran the hills too fast because I had tended to just muscle through the hills and push through the fatigue.

Once I stopped running hills too fast, the injury went away. I tried using an IT band wrap, but it didn't help at all.

How do I know that the hills were the culprit? I ran in Ireland with a much faster friend and we ran up hills much faster than I should have. The result? IT band problems. How did they go away? Stop running hills so darn fast.

For those of you with IT band issues, Rice University has a nice page with an explanation of the syndrome and suggested stretches to combat it.