IT hurts, make it up as you go

by Duf Anything and Everything, Fitness

My knee problems over the last couple months have seemed to become more and more IT band related.  IT band problems can be chronic and very tough to deal with.  Yesterday I ran a couple miles over lunch on the treadmill and the band tightened up almost immediately afterward.  The IT band starts around your hip and extends down the outside of your leg down to a little below the knee.  That is exactly where my discomfort radiates from.

Last night when I got home I did some painful rolling on the area to try to loosen things up.  It felt better briefly but later on in the night I was limping around the house with a gait that looked like I was 77 instead of 47.  The only real treatment I know for the ailment is regular stretching/rolling.  Running on the treadmill yesterday probably didn’t help matters much.

Yesterday I saw on the Tarpons FB page that this Saturday’s game was for the X-league league championship.  I was confused.  According to my tickets for Saturday, this was supposed to be the fourth and final regular season home game against the team from Cape Fear.  I expressed this confusion as a reply to the post on Facebook.

David Albers/Staff Timmy the Tarpon is announced at the first Florida Tarpons arena football game on Friday, March 9, 2012 in Estero.

David Albers/Staff
Timmy the Tarpon is announced at the first Florida Tarpons arena football game on Friday, March 9, 2012 in Estero.

I received a reply rather quickly.  The explanation was the team from Cape Fear was “suspended” from the league this past weekend for some unpublished reason.  They decided they would just convert that date into the championship game where the 5-2 Tarpons would play the 6-2 Rio Grand Valley Sol.  Evidently the head coach from the Sol has also been suspended for not following “roster guidelines”.  There seems to be a lot of rule breaking going on in the league.

Going into this season I was hopeful that the Tarpons joining up with a new league this year would elevate the situation both on the field and in the stands attendance-wise. Unfortunately that has not been the case.  The level of play has not improved, attendance is probably the worst I have ever seen and this league appears to be held together with bubble gum and shoestring, just like the previous league.  I see no possible scenario where the Tarpons will be back on the field in 2016, despite admirable efforts by ownership to make arena football viable in the area.