Friday, September 11, 2009

My Hips Don't Lie

So after Tuesday night at the track, my hip wasn't feeling so great again. Each time I walked between intervals, it hurt a little. Oddly it didn't hurt at all when I ran. By the time we were home and into the evening it was hurting really bad. Then I didn't sleep well because I couldn't move in bed without really bad pain. Wednesday, I limped around all day and moved at slow speeds as if I had the flu. I was grumpy and the 800 MG Advil wasn't working. Greg convinced me to call Oxford Physical Therapy and made an appointment for the next day. I think I was in denial that something was wrong.

The appointment went well. Diagnosis is: hip flexors (i.e. everything in my hip) is tight. My IT band (iliotibial on the diagram) is a little bit tight, but not effecting my knee and I actually can't tell it's tight. He could tell by feeling it (gross). He thinks my bursae are a little swollen. The ligaments around them are all irritated and tight. And my quads are a little tight. Thankfully my piriformis isn't at all in pain. It's mostly all the big red chunks at the top of this diagram.






















I stretch after I run, but I've never really paid attention to what I'm doing and guiltily admit sometimes I don't stretch much or at all. You can't train for a marathon and not stretch properly.

So, I am going to do my exercises, not run 18 as planned this weekend, and start adding the mileage back easy. Good news is that I should still be able to run Columbus. I just have to take it easy for a bit and be more careful. Glad this happened now and not closer to the race date where I probably wouldn't have enough time to fix myself.

Today I feel a lot better and there is barely any pain. I am going to run maybe 2 miles later today and see how it goes. Baby steps. For my appointment next week, they are going to work on me and do some things to get my hip a lot better, which I have a feeling means hurt me to heal me.

2 comments:

E-Speed said...

glad you are going to be able to deal with this quickly! it happens to the best of us!

Butch said...

Is this related to the fall from the bike? Doesn't sound like it since you're talking inflamation and tightness.