Wednesday, February 25, 2009
long time no post
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
an excellent reason to run today
Paczki! Even though our spinning instructor, Lea, made us all promise to have a "Fit Tuesday". Yeah...that's what the running's for!
(Bonus reason: because I can. Yay!)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
believe in your dreams
I guess I forgot to post last week. What a crazy and confusing week it was! Almost as crazy as my favorite digital short (just watch it, I promise the zombie dance interlude at the end is worth it):
Saturday (2/7): I ran with the orthotics on and didn’t notice anything special – just some tightness in my ITB and that nagging pain in my hip flexor. I had gone to yoga a few days before which really helped ease the pain in my lower back. Saturday’s run was pretty successful – I ran just under 5 miles! I took stretching breaks every 1.5 miles and that seemed to really help. So of course I'm feeling all proud of myself and looking forward to running again on Tuesday morning before PT.
Tuesday (2/10): Here's where it gets confusing: I could barely run a mile without taking a stretching break. So, I abandoned my plan to run 4 miles and ran 3 instead because my hip flexor/inner thigh area was throbbing with pain. Looking back, I realize that I took a pretty intense spinning class at 6 p.m. the night before, so attempting to get out and run at 6 a.m. was probably not a good idea. But, I wasn't thinking so clearly at the time! I slogged through the run and went to PT during which I nearly cried when trying to explain everything to Dawn. She found that my hips were slightly out of alignment, probably because of the orthotics, so she fixed that. Although my overall core and lower body strength is really good because of all the exercises I've been doing, she found that my left hip flexor muscles were weaker than the right. So, we did some new hip flexion machines and I left feeling rather hopeless about the whole thing.
Thursday (2/12): Even more confusion! I ran a solid 4 miles, with stretching breaks every 1.5. I tried to keep the pace slower than normal but still ended up running under 9:30. It was a good run, which I was happy to share with Dawn. My hips were still properly aligned so we focused on doing some more hip flexor stuff. Talk about pain!! Those muscles definitely need some work.
Saturday (2/14): A long run with my valentine! 7 miles, with stretching breaks every 2. It felt great and I had to really stop myself from going the full 9 with Fred. The last thing I need is to overdo it when I'm making some real progress. Got a hot stone massage afterwards. It was heaven!!! Things are looking up...I think.
Monday, February 2, 2009
losing steam!
In the latest chapter of my running injury saga, I got hooked up with some custom foot orthotics today. My PT was able to sneak me in during the guy's lunch break, avoiding the usual 5-8 week wait for an appointment. Nice. If only my PT would have warned me that I would be parading around the office in spandex shorts and a dinky camisole all bunched up so they could check out my "rib and hip alignmnent". Sheesh!! If the orthotics work, my IT band issues could have more to do with the way my foot strikes the ground than my leg length discrepancy. I'm still holding out a little hope that all of these different treatments will add up to some relief for me. Until then, I've been prescribed another month of PT!!!! Oh, the humanity.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
trochanteric burSUCKis
However, there's really no guarantee that this is even going to work which is just craptacular. In fact, the doc said the cortisone could even make things worse. Superb. He cut me off from my last two sessions of PT (oh, darn!) and said I need to rest for as long as possible, as any activity could lessen the effects of the cortisone and cause damage. I'm going to give it a week. No running, spinning, cross-training, strength-training, nada! Just lots of stretching and icing. This would probably be a good time to finish watching the Pride and Prejudice A&E miniseries.
I'm trying really hard to be cool about it, but the fact of the matter is that I might have to stop running for a while. Like, weeks. Or, months. In which case I could pretty much kiss the Bayshore Marathon goodbye. Detroit, anyone?
Oh! I almost forgot! A little treat for the visual learners: