Training lately...

I haven't managed to post a training update for the past two weeks. Unfortunately this is because things have not been so great after the half marathon. I'm sorry for the radio silence and for the excessively long post you are about to read.

In the week following the race (September 21-27) I was pretty worn out. I did my best to listen to my body and took a few extra rest days and, when I did run, I reduced the mileage. My total for the week was 30.48 miles. The worst run was my final 20 mile run. After some moderate discomfort/pain in my glutes for the first 13.5 miles, my right hip flexors cramped up and refused to relax. Feeling defeated and discouraged I walked the rest of the way home (about 2 miles). Weekly total 30.48 miles.

Not an ideal final week by any stretch, but finally I had reached the taper! The next week (September 28-October 4) was complicated by the fact Thursday-Sunday would be spent in Toronto. I was planning on front loading some mileage, but after cutting Sunday short, I thought this sounded stupid. My body definitely agreed because on Monday and Tuesday my lower back/right hip was in complete agony. I needed to rest.

I looked through Advanced Marathoning and was relieved to discover that missing up to 10 days of training within the final 8 weeks of training should not have any negative affects on my goals. Hooray! I took full advantage of that fact by taking almost the entire week off. When I got home Sunday night I went out for an easy 3 mile run. I'd be lying if I said it felt great. It merely felt okay and didn't seem to make my pain any worse. Weekly total 3.1 miles.

Which brings us up to this current week (October 5-11). I tried to run on Tuesday and made it less than a mile. Too much sharp, stabbing pain in my hip. That night I realized that rest alone was not going to get me through the race. That night I booked an appointment for a sports massage for Thursday morning and hoped for the best.

My biggest concern is that once the pain reaches a level that I can not run through, even walking becomes excruciating. My I'm-not-a-doctor conclusion is that something in my right hip is messed up/out of place. It seems to have varying levels of messed up. When it reaches too far out of place, it starts pinching my sciatic nerve. The only thing that will relieve the pain is keeping weight off of my right leg. I don't know what I will do if this happens during the marathon.

That said, the sports massage really, really helped. I feel like I could write an entire post about the massage. I'm planning to book another couple appointments before the marathon. So hopefully I will have some time to talk more about the treatment! Chris, my massage therapist, said that my right hip was rotated forward (anterior pelvic tilt). He worked on fixing that and gave me a list of exercises/self massage things to do twice a day as well as before and after each run. He also suggested that I try running again that very day, which I guess is what happens when you see a guy with a background in running.

I was able to run 2 miles last night. The first mile felt completely normal! The second mile slowly slid downhill, but I stopped before the pain got too high. Once I did my new post run routine, things were feeling better, but still tender. A couple hours after the run I felt completely fine!

I was originally thinking that I would take today as a rest day; no reason to push myself right back into the pain. However I woke up this morning with absolutely zero pain (for the first time in over a week!). So now I kind of want to run! I've hardly run at all in the past two weeks and I miss it!