This is what my training schedule had looked like leading up to the 2017 Canadian Standard Distance Championships. Visibly vacant and unfulfilled. There’s a lot of incomplete (red). There was no glitch in the system, nor did my Garmin stop working. On May 16th, I felt the first pull of tightness on my IT band during a cross country workout. I made it through the workout and thought nothing of it, keeping up with my regular volume and intensity. This was my second mistake. On May 19th, I was 10 km out on my long run when a sharp pain ran down my leg and caused me to default to a limp/hobble 10 km back to the starting point. I knew my IT band was damaged, but I had no idea how bad it would turn out to be. To make matters worse, when I got back to the starting point, the gym doors were locked, with my car keys inside. I proceeded to run another 4 km home on a bum leg. The next morning I couldn’t bend my leg without excruciating pain and could not walk at all. Clearly this was not good.

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