A secret about running I learned the hard way!

Okay I know the few of you that read this have been waiting to long to hear from wise old me. (HA! Ha! Ha!) I have decided to share something about running with all of you that read this (like 2 of you) that I learned the hard way. Okay, since I started running I have had three injuries that have sidelined me from running for awhile and let me tell you when you want to run and you can't it kills you. The first one I banged my knee and it hurt for over a year until I found a fabulous physical therapist who helped me figure out that my IT band was tight and that my quad had gotten weak. Next time I got hurt was last year and I was finishing up a 20 miler and I rolled my ankle on a curb five weeks before my marathon. Again a fabulous physical therapist helped me out again. The third time is right now. Crazy but my left big toe has really been hurting so I went to the PT to ask for help so that I can start upping my miles again. After seeing him and thinking about my other injuries and reading about this I realized that CORE WORK IS WHERE IT IS AT!!! You may ask why? Well you see had my core been in better shape my IT Band would not have had to work over time to compensate for weak hip muscles and me banging my knee just aggravated the whole thing. Second, after rolling my ankle I was given exercises for it but also exercises to help me control my core. Now with this last injury my big toe hurts because my foot is compensating for a hip weak muscle. CRAZY I know it. Well I am going to be doing some more homework. I am going to be dusting off my old text books and I am going to be taking an online class to dust off my old gray matter. (I have a degree as a physical therapist assistant but I haven't used it since my son was born 8 years ago. Sad I know) As I am learning again I am going to try and share with you what I learn. I am going to do posts about the certain muscles that make up the core and I am going to research exercises to help strengthen them. Now, really I am doing this for total selfish reasons because I want to help myself but I guess if you want you could benefit too. So the moral of this whole post is NOT TO NEGLECT YOUR CORE MUSCLES!!!! Go do some of your own research and share with me what you find and together we can help each other stay on the road to running.