Rolfing Massage

By Wednesday there was no pain in my shins. I dug into the shins deeply trying to find any little hint. There was none. This was good, but I did not run anyways.
Friday I went to London to get a rolfing massage (structural integration). I walked up and down a hall way so that the therapist could see my posture and legs. Right away he noticed something that no body had noticed before. My IT band was tight. He asked me to lay down on my right side on the bench and then started with his lower arms on the side of my upper leg. I asked him my "IT band is tight, really?" He kind of chuckled and stated "it's as hard as rock!" He moved the arms apart while applying a large amount of continuous pressure on the side of the leg. What a weird feeling! He also worked on the shin and calve muscles. It hurt a little, but well worth the pain. I honestly feel like I have some new legs. Just amazing!

I also talked to him to him about inflammation. You will always have inflammation after a run, it is just a natural response to the type of exercise. You need to give it the time it needs to recover. He suggested I take a cold bath immediately after my run. No stretching just head to the bath. This got me thinking, so when should I stretch? I will do this in the evening after doing some strengthening exercises. I need to come up with a better plan for these exercises. I get bored of them and need to mix it up a little.

Sunday; Run during the morning/day, strength exercises in the evening sitting and standing calve raises, ankle exercises with the elastic band (physio)
Monday morning: pushups, situps, leg tube exercises from Robert
Tuesday; morning run, evening ankle exercises, standing calve raises
Wednesday;morning run, evening leg tube exercises
Thursday; morning run, evening ankle exercises
Friday; off
Saturday; morning or day run, evening tube exercises

I hope that I can stick to the evening exercises. I am usually really tired from work by that time.
There is another little exercise that I have been doing at work every once in awhile. I have a 5 pound weight with duck tape as a foot strap. I rest my leg up on something so that I can pull my toes up and hold for 30 seconds, then release and repeat until it burns. This is to try and strengthen my shin muscles. I have included a special exercise to stretch my shin muscles later.

I ran 5km in about 25 minutes yesterday in Ascics 1110's (These were suppose to be my marathon shoes) on the grass. I followed the Saturday plan above and it worked like a charm. Absolutely nothing to complain about. No tenderness, no soreness, no tightness and I finally got a really good nights sleep. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night thinking about software design crap from work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but I hate not getting a good nights sleep.

Today I am going to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a pair of Mizuno wave nirvana 2. They are a very high stability shoe with a forefoot drop at the metatarsils. This forefoot drop should help with the ball of my big toe being lower then the rest. I tried a pair on and they provide much more room in the toes then the asics gel empires. They feel very different, but still comfortable. These things better help out!

One more thing. Last weekend I borrowed the first edition of the "jack Daniel's Running Formula" from Ken. I like parts of Lydiard's and part of Daniel's training plans. I went out and got the second edition. Now I can refer to them as often as I like. Man, what an exciting week! I sure am thankful for all the help I have been getting lately.