Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Great Hip/Glute Work Stoppage of 2012

If I haven't said much about running for the last month, it's because I really haven't been running for the last month. Hence, very little to say.

I had a hip issue brewing in early February, and then me being me, I had to see it through to near wreckage. Then I went through my highly-refined injury process that goes something like this:
  1. panic
  2. despair
  3. investigate symptoms on the internet and get paranoid
  4. buy something (books, Rumble Roller - right, whatever)
  5. rapidly hand out copays to anyone who might be able to figure something out and fix it (immediately if not sooner)
  6. hit the soft tissue work, acupuncture, chiropractor
  7. give 200% to my own physical rehabilitation. 
Oh, I almost forgot, I submitted it to "Ask the Sports Doc" on the Endurance Planet podcast too, and they addressed it here on this episode!

Hey, I'm nothing if not thorough.

I ended up in the too-much-information zone and saw my trusty PT Mike (and Boston Marathoner :-) who is good about bringing things back to simple terms. It needed time, rest, strengthening, and stretching. Time?? He also said he was living vicariously through me and was bummed I wouldn't be running Boston this year (guilt...guilt). Here's a picture of Mike and I in early February when he had loaned me an autographed copy of 26 Miles to Boston signed by Bill Rogers...arghhhhh. I returned it, unread, and requested a re-loan next year.



I started back running this week, with 5 x 4 minutes slowwww on Sunday and 3 x 8 minutes a little less slow today. No pain, but things feel a bit weird, probably because I'm very focused on that area. But it's progress!!

I have my own hunch about what happened. I'd had a super sore right glute for a few weeks, but it was a non-issue on the run, or so I thought. The hip had to provide backup and finally had enough. Then everything hurt, trigger points were everywhere, and it was hard to know exactly what was cause and what was effect. So my own diagnosis of the Great Hip/Glute Work Stoppage is "multiple organ failure of glute and hip" or MOFGH for short.

The acute stuff resolved fast, and I could cycle, swim, and walk with no problem. So the upside is I've done lots of quality bike and swim. The run will just take a bit of patience....but triathletes have LOTS of that. (haha, yeah)

And a little adversity heading into the first tri of the season just leaves me a little hungrier.