faster with age

     After 2 more days with Sunday off completely, I had high hopes for today's run. Everything has been feeling great while not running. I got a mile and a half into my run and the hip pain came back. I kept running a little ways but it quickly got a lot worse and I could tell there was no way I was going to get very far so I quit right then. I was really hoping for at least 5 or 6 miles. I had even taken 800 mg of ibuprofen 1/2 hour before the run for my knee. Maybe that's not enough time to kick in? So I walked back to the house and went for a 30 mile mt bike ride with a strong north wind blowing. The pain is right at the front of my left hip, right where the hip flexor is shown in the diagrams I have looked at. It is also near where the top of your quad muscles attach to the hip. 

    PM  Hip felt so good I tried running again but only made it 1.3 miles.

     Tried running again this morning. Once again everything felt great and ready to go for about a mile and a half. Then the pain comes on and quickly gets bad enough that I have to quit. Frustrating. It's been 6 days now and I haven't made much headway. With only 11 days to go something is going to have to happen fast. I may just have to skip running altogether for a couple of days.  Rode 20 miles on the mountain bike. 

     Went bowhunting elk this morning. I wore my garmin just for fun and ended up hiking about 4 1/2 miles on steep terrain. While climbing my heart rate gets to the upper 130s, about where it would be running around 8 min pace. I found a nice bull. I couldn't ever get close enough for a shot but it was fun watching him trying to keep the smaller bulls away from his cows.I'm going to go back tonight and see if I can find them again. No running today but maybe the hiking is good cross training. My hip or knee never bothered me and I didn't take any meds.  

      PM  Took my son  with me and went back where I left the elk this morning. We got right in close on the big bull. We had him within 40 yards for probably 20 min. on the other side of some trees and brush screaming and bugling at us but wouldn't quite step out for a shot until it was just a bit too dark to shoot. Then he stepped out right above us.

     After last nights excitement with the elk my son didn't want me to go back after them without him so I took him with me this morning and went back after them into the same area. We got out of there last night without spooking them so figured we'd be able to find them again. Sure enough we found them and had a good idea where they were headed. We were able to get ahead of them and hide up. It looked like a perfect setup as the first cow elk came around the hill 30 yards above us. Then five other cows all following the same path in good range as we could hear the bull bugling right behind them. We were just sure he would follow right behind them and I was about to get a great shot. When he finally came around the hill, he had climbed about 20 yards higher up the hill and came around just out of my range. I hunt with a recurve bow which is much more primitive than todays bows and my effective range is only about 35-40 yards so I passed on the shot but it sure was exciting. We hustled out of there and I was able to get my son back to school before 1st period was over. 

     I'm going to take another day off from running and hopfully my hip will be better tomorrow.  I've only run twice [more than 1 or 2 miles] in the past 2 weeks and as of Mon morning I had gained 5 pounds. The 3 day vacation eating restraunt food last weekend didn't help. I've been carfull with my eating this week and with a couple of good bike rides and all the hiking the last 2 days I've been able to drop 3 lbs back off.

     PM   Hunting again. More hiking.

     Elk hunting this morning and did quite a bit of  hiking over steep terrain. After getting home I tried running again after skipping the last 2 days. I made it past the 1.5 mile mark for the first time without having to quite but decided to quite at 2 miles to play it safe.

     It was time to test the hip again this morning after 2 days of no running and 2 miles yesterday without a flareup. I was really hoping to get about 4 miles and I felt so good for 2 and just ready to run, but at 2.4 the pain started to come back and I quit right away. Bummer. I took off on my mt. bike and went 30.3 miles. The route I took climbs almost 1000 feet over just under 15 miles [11 miles on dirt] from my house to the summit on the highway above Treasureton.  I've never made it from my house to this point in under an hour and as I was on the last 2 miles of the last climb I realized it was possible and really started to hammer. I was out of the saddle almost the entire climb and hit the top  in 59:57. I got off my bike and nearly puked. I was surprised that I had good energy for the next half of the ride. I expected to really bonk after going so far into the red at the end of that climb.