Bad day today. I had been experiencing some irritation since Tuesday in the vicinity of the ischium, but it was tolerable, not impacting my stride, and not getting any worse. Today it got worse, much worse. I ran from work to the gym, warmed up a mile on the treadmill, and then started my 8x1000m workout. I chose the treadmill over the roads after a lot of internal debate. The basic reason was that the roads are so slick and snow-covered that trying to run a threshold-paced workout on it would have been futile, or even dangerous. I don't like the treadmill for hard workouts, but the mill is flat (uncrowned), snow-free, plus I rationalized I needed to get used to heat for the Houston race. I cranked the puppy up to 12 mph for the interval portions, and ran that pace for 3:07...roughly a 1000m. Recovery intervals were just over a minute. Incline was set at 1% to help negate the lack of wind resistance. The first 4 intervals went pretty well. The 5th one had a little bit more pain, but nothing to worry about. But after the 6th one, I knew something was really wrong. I got off the treadmill, walked around a little bit, and got a drink of water. I then jumped back on the treadmill and tried to jog slowly. Not happening. I went from being able to hold 5-minute pace pretty easily to not even being able to jog at 9-minute pace, all within a few minutes. I finished up the last two intervals on the elliptical, just tried to work hard for 3-minute durations. After that I changed and went back outside, tried to start jogging back to work. Still not going to happen. So I ended up walking the mile back to work (fortunately Logan is a small town, and I both work and live centrally). For the rest of the afternoon, it just went from bad to worse. The pain had spread up my sartorius muscle (which attaches to the ischium, I'm told). It felt a little like the groin strain I had last year, but also a lot different. I was afraid I had a pelvic stress fracture, or something like that. It hurt to stand on my right leg when unsupported. It also hurt to raise my right knee while sitting or standing. An activity like putting on pants hurts a lot. Walking the half mile home from work also hurt a lot. My lifestyle relies on me being healthy and mobile, so something like this trickles down to my "commute" home as well. I wanted to get this thing diagnosed, or at least a referral, just for peace of mind. I'm a bit obsessive that way. Plus, if I couldn't run Houston, I wanted to let the USATF people know asap, so they could give my spot and my funding to someone else. After dinner Stacy and I went to the IHC Instacare, which is open until 9PM. I don't really like my family doctor, so this is as good as any place for me. Waited half and hour (which what I have to wait when I make an appt for my family doctor), and then got to see the doctor. I totally lucked out here. It turned out the doctor had a background in sports medicine, and she was pretty good. She thought that since the pain varied by what position I put my leg in, and since it came on quickly, it was probably not a stress fracture, and didn't recommend x-rays or anything fancy like that. She thought that it was more likely that the muscles in the area are messed up (my wording) and spasming (her wording), which was causing pain, inflammation, and weakness. Treatment: prescription-sized doses of OTC NSAIDS (which I have plenty at home), heat, and ice. I asked about deep massage, and she thought that could help as well, so I'll probably schedule an appointment soon with my LMT. Apparently inflammation is the big problem here, so the key will be to kill it. It probably wouldn't hurt to see my DC next week either.
If I can get rid of the pain enough to where I do a few short runs/day, I think I can maintain fitness and still run Houston. Elliptical can help too, but I need the pain to subside a little even for that. My only theories on how this could have happened: - Responding poorly to activities I do not frequently do
- XC skiing - went for the first time in two years on Sunday, then again on Tuesday. Perhaps something got pinched or torqued from the motions that my body is very much not used to. Pretty good timing correlation for this theory.
- Running in the snow and ice. Probably a little less likely, but people do get injured more when running on slick surfaces. It throws the stride off, which can lead to all sorts of things. I first really noticed some irritation on Tuesday afternoon, and I had done my first run on snowy roads in a while on Tuesday morning.
- Treadmill. Kind of the opposite of the snow/ice thing. Footing is good, but it does affect the stride and biomechanics. Injuries are known to happen from treadmill running. However, I've been doing treadmill running for a couple months now without any hint of discomfort, so I'm not too sold on this idea.
Anyway, hopefully the treatments plus relative rest will take of this. If it's NOT showing real improvement in a week, it will be time to see a specialist, and probably throw in the towel for a couple months.
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