The race is less than one month away and I really need my knee to work. The brace was good but after wearing it for nearly 13 hours straight on Sunday, the edge of the brace bruised both sides of my calf (maybe it’s just too snug or tight but it’s not adjustable).

Today, I picked up a pack of KT tape at the store for $14.xx. I have been pretty skeptical
of it for the past 2 years since having seen its popularity grow upon the pro athletes (how would TAPE heal my pain?!) but after having a fellow runner attest to their effectiveness for her IT band issues last year during her marathon, and having watched a bunch of athletes (swimmers, volleyball players) sport them during the olympics, I’m willing to give it a try.  I am not sure how to put it on but it comes with instructions and links to videos so I will see how this goes!

It’s more like I’m willing to give anything a try now to fix my knee so I can continue training and make the race! (Next to do list is to call the orthopedic docs to see if I need PT or not.)  Today, I didn’t wear the brace to work and what a mistake! I started favoring the leg by noon, limping and soon I had weird throbbing pain go up the side of my leg, all the way up to the hip, followed by a sharp pain shooting down my shin and by the end of the day, the top of my feet and my ankle started aching. It was as if my entire left leg was going on strike and didn’t want to work without giving me much pain and suffering.  It probably didn’t help that I was in heels so toward the end of the day, after my 4p meeting, I immediately switched over to the flats in the office. Oh the relief! Limping in the heels most likely added even more pressure to my knee.  There were times when I felt like my knee cap was just going to pop out or my leg would just separate.

How often we take good health and painless movement for granted, wasting our breath and energy complaining about everything under the sun until that health or painless existence disappears! Then suddenly, pain is all you experience, coloring every moment of your day. It’s a major distraction, I will tell you that. But my injury results from neglecting the core and hip — I never do exercises for those areas. Weak core, weak hip, and glutes will negatively affect the gait and cause all kinds of damage.

Update: I was going to wait till later in the week to try the tape but the 9pm coffee is
keeping me up so what else should I do at midnight? It’s not very easy. After watching several videos for runner’s knee and various different ways of using the KT Tape to get the knee back on track, I picked one and tried….and tried again. My first attempt didn’t give much support so I tried another. Four pieces of tape later…I think I got it. Though I should have stretched the tape a bit more for added support but I’m getting the idea how these tapes work. It’s cotton and it has good flexibility to pull your muscles into place without cutting off circulation the way the brace was. But I’m not sure I’m doing it right though — the brace provides good support and the tapes are providing some but not full. Maybe I gotta try again.