Ironman Florida is Saturday. Race week always comes with a mix of feelings — some excitement, some nerves, a general aura of self-pressure. This year that mix has an extra layer: I’ve been nursing some IT band pain — the outside-of-the-knee kind, pretty standard runner’s knee territory, which has needed more attention than originally planned.
On October 24th I ran the RunNash Half, using the exact pacing strategy I meant to carry into Florida. In the finishing miles, that familiar ache was back — same spot, same IT band. It was enough to rattle me a bit, not because the race itself went badly, but because it told me the strategy I’d been building toward isn’t one this IT band is ready for yet.
This isn’t new. The IT band’s been a recurring character across a few races this year, and it’s not fully resolved. Real buggers like this don’t respond to toughing it out — they take tinkering, patience, and real expertise. I’ve been seeing a PT occasionally, and I feel good about the adjustments we’ve landed on: spreading running volume across more, shorter runs instead of fewer long ones, and leaning into heavier lower-body strength work instead of high-rep stuff.
The frustrating part is timing. I like this new approach. I believe in it. And I can’t really implement much of it until a few weeks after Florida, because a taper is not the time to overhaul anything. Knowing the fix and having to wait to use it is its own specific kind of annoying.
It gets a little more complicated too — there’s a marathon I’m doing in Hawaii just a few weeks after Florida. So this isn’t a problem that resolves Saturday. It’s a longer project I’ll be managing through the rest of the year. That’s honestly a bit discouraging to sit with. It’s also part of the sport. Injuries aren’t a verdict — they’re something you manage, season to season, race to race.
This taper keeps finding small ways to test that mindset. Saturday, on what was supposed to be a simple long ride, I got a flat. Nothing serious — one more minor thing landing at an inconvenient time. It’s tempting to read a string of small setbacks as some kind of sign. Really, they’re just lumps, and the only move is to take them one at a time and keep moving.
So here’s where Florida actually stands: it’s a bit of a mystery. I’m planning to run slower than I normally would, with more frequent, and maybe longer walk breaks built in. I won’t fully know what that looks like until I’m out there reading how the leg feels in real time.
What I do have is experience. This isn’t the first race this IT band has shown up uninvited to, and every time it has, I’ve learned a little more about what it needs mid-race and what it doesn’t. That’s real, earned information, not just hope. My job Saturday is to use it — to make the calls that get me to the finish in the best shape my body will actually allow that day.
I don’t have a tidy ending for this one. Going into race week with good training and an unresolved IT band is two true things at once. That’s fine. That’s just where this is.
— Iggy
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