Hey everyone.
I'm totally frustrated. I feel like I have done everything right, yet
I can't stay un-injured.
I was training for a Memorial Day marathon but had some ITB trouble in
April, so I backed off, cross trained, etc. for a couple of weeks. I
have stayed at 20 mpw or so since early July (I also had a shoe
adjustment), with no run longer than six miles and have felt great. My
dad signed us up for a December marathon, about which I was totally
excited.
So then, two weeks ago I ran 8 one day (kind of spontaneously on a day
I planned to run 6) and felt awesome (that week, probably ran 4, 8, 6,
4). Then, the week after, I ran 8 again, felt good, probably ran
another 6 and 4 that week, but then that next Monday went out and had
to stop and turn back after 2 because of excrutiating pain in my left
hip/pelvis. I had been kind of ingnoring what felt like just like a
tight inner thigh muscle thing, but I realized it was more like the
old ITB thing )not just pain, but more like "give" or like a
collapse). Now my knee is swollen like a balloon, and when I try to
stand up afer sitting for a while the hip takes a few seconds to
respond 🙁 The new problem is on the oppostite side as my old ITB
problem, which I thought was kind of weird (and sucky), because I kind
of always thought that I just had a general right-side-of-the-body
problem, maybe like different length legs or whatever.
Anyway, the reason I'm totally frustrated is because I feel like I've
been so careful and not made the training errors I did before. I warm
up, stretch after running (hip, ham, quad, calf etc stretches), lift,
didn't increase too fast (for the love of Larry, 8 miles is
NOTHING!!!), ice, rest and elevate liberally 🙂...
Also, I am a pretty severe suppinator (sp?). I wear Asics Gel Cumulus,
which feel great, and I never have any foot pain while running, but I
have a pretty nasty sharp pain in the outside bottom of left foot when
not running. This alone wouldn't really bug me too much, but I kind of
associate it with the new left knee-hip thing.
At the first sign of this new/recurring hip/knee thing I made an
appointment with a sports medicine doc, but of course he can't see me
for another 2 weeks (4 weeks from when I made the appt). I feel so
tense because I am getting off track for training for December (and I
don't even know if I can run the bloody 5k portion of the sprint
triathlon in two weeks), and I just want to be able to run 🙁 I love
swimming, which I have been doing 3-4 times a week when I can't run,
but the elliptical (which I've been doing almost every day, and I hope
it's not making whatever problen I have worse--it doesn't hurt, and
when it was the other side it seemed fine, I dunno) makes me want to
barf.
Yeah, so I don't really think I'm asking for any advice, but if anyone
has any comments, I'm willing to listen. Any expressions of sympathy
or pity are also welcome. 🙁
Mandy