One Year On

It has been way more than one year now since the surgery, I feel I've settled since the last post into a slow but consistent upward curve since that doesn't really leave much to write about.

All is the same as before, just further along. I have not gone back to my previous level and frequency of activity, but I don't expect I ever will really. I used to do bike rides in bursts of several long rides in a couple of weeks followed by weeks of short or even no rides at all, and I also did not do any other regular exercising. At the moment I'm still doing my one gym session per week regularly, with some accent on HIIT in the last few weeks, and I do one to two rides per week. While the longest rides are still not where I would like to be, I've passed the halfway mark in the last month or so. It's slow going, but I'm getting there - I've pretty much doubled the weekly distance compared to back around the time of the last post. I'm still upping the weekly distance no more than 10% of the weekly, but the longer my rides get, the more I enjoy them, and the further I can go each following ride, so it really feels like it's paying off.

There are a couple of things I noticed about the IT band in the last six months or so. Firstly, it seems to be slowly regaining tension - not in a bad way, like it's getting tight and would need to be stretched, but like it's no longer completely loose and slack like it was for a long time after the surgery. My surgery was not done primarily to loosen the overall tension of the band, but to remove pressure from one part of the band on the femoral epicondyle. On touch it feels like the epicondyle is still clear of the IT band like it was after the surgery, but the rest of the band feels like it's slowly getting back into performing its original function from before the surgery.

The other thing I noticed is that the IT band would sometimes start getting sore if I do an unusually hard ride, a hard session at the gym or a longer hike. This, however, would be a different kind of pain than the actual ITBS pain. With ITBS, once the pain started it would build up throughout the activity, and it would happen sooner and sooner with each subsequent activity unless I made a long enough break. Now, I am be able to mitigate the soreness by going easier on the bike or altering my gait a little when walking, perhaps taking a short break and stretching a little, and it would get better and better with each following day. I feel that the IT band is relatively sensitive to increases in load, but it recovers and gets stronger rather than developing into a persistent injury.

All in all, it's been a far longer journey than anticipated, but I don't feel like I stopped improving at any point. In fact, I believe I will be able to get through to the other side stronger than I was before my injury in ways I didn't expect before the surgery.