Relentless

Holt - it's good to have a lazy day, and you deserve it. Look at the miles you've put in this year so don't be hard on yourself. I hope your Thanksgiving was good?

Ya I agree with Kory it is good to be lazy once in a while, but very hard not to beat yourself up when you do take that day off.

I hear you, sometimes we need it! But then you look back at it and say, "Why did I do that?"

Josse, question for you (and I'll post this on your's to, in case you don't look here) - what kind of exercises or whatever can I do to work on my hips, specifically the hip flexor (way deep inside the leg - feels like almost to the joint)?

My first question for you is do you stretch? I have a rule for my self that if I run I must stretch. This discomfort is due to you muscle and tendons/ligaments being so overly tight they are pulling on your joint. I have a little routine mostly yoga poses that i do daily. I will be very painful at first but the more you do it and the more regular you are the less it will hurt. These are some good links to help with how to do them http://health.yahoo.com/fitness-videos/everyday-yoga-with-rodney-yee-3-hip-openers/lime--RYHip.html

http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_1936_yoga-hip-stretches-openers.html with these I like triangle and pigeon pose the others are good too. With the pigeon you need to stay centered over yourself and not sit to one side, she is very flexable so you can't see that. Vinyasa's are very good to open up the back, hips and hamstrings. http://www.yogacards.com/Vinyasa.html I hope this helps but remember you have to do it every day:) Or the problem won't go away.

The routine I do daily is to start with down dog and then really get a good calf stretch while i am in this position stretching one at a time by pushing the heel into the floor and raising the toes. I then go into a lunge pose to get the hip flexors. I do another down dog and calf stretch and then do pigeon then i pull up the leg that is extended behind you to get a really deep quad stretch and back to down dog and calfs. do the other side and hold each stretch for 5 deep breaths.

Thanks Josse - I do a bit of stretching and this summer I really started to incorporate yoga. But now my time is cut back and I haven't been spending as much time on it as needed. But I still have been doing about 3-4 yoga poses(?) after my runs and that is what seemed to help it out. But since this is still bugging (and even getting worse) I will MAKE TIME to bring all this in. Thanks so much for the info.

I find if I slack my hips/sciatic really bother me. All I do is about 10-20 mins a day. Sometimes at night I will do some extra while I read or watch TV.