This injury is the one that finally convinced me to see the doctor. I head to that appointment tomorrow.
It started... oh... a month ago? I'm actually not entirely sure when but I know it's hung on longer than any of the previous injuries (aside from blisters which come and go).
At first I believed it was just a stiff leg. Really? Running since February, injured here there and everywhere, and now I get the stiff muscles? I believe it was right after I started adding more distance to my weekend runs. It could have been caused by the added hills along my path.... who knows really!
Anyway the stiffness/pain seemed to be located around my Sartorius muscle. I tried to google some stretches that would be good for that and most of them scared me. It looks like I'll pop the leg out of the joint if I try! So for the most part I just ignored it, tried some really deep lunges prior to runs, and hoped for the best.
The best didn't come. The more I tried to run on it, the more if felt like my leg just didn't actually want to support me. I was partially afraid I'd fall into traffic if I ran out along the main road. Well that's no good! My weekly runs suffered thanks to the pain and fear of falling. Ironically this was right as my 20 week training schedule was starting, so I started out training behind in the milage. Oh dear... 3 miles instead of 5? 2 instead of 3? Sure why not. But the leg just wasn't getting any better. I decided well, every other injury seemed to get better if I just took a week off. I started skipping week day runs all together, which wasn't very hard to do considering how darn HOT it was those weeks.
It didn't let up. In fact, some mornings the stiffness seemed even worse than on mornings after I'd run. I didn't know what to do and pretty much just decided to run weekends until it stopped.
Last weekend was the final straw. I ran on Saturday... or rather, attempted to run for maybe the first mile, then walked the rest as my leg felt like it was grinding in my hip joint. This time it didn't feel like a generalized Sartorius area, it felt like exactly where thigh meets hip. I pointed to the spot for dad and he said "groin pull"... so it could be that maybe but I'm not sure? Anyway I made the mistake of googling (again, who needs professionals?) "groin pain running" and came up with an article which said the lady in it had a femoral neck stress fracture. Of course, I then had to google that and goodness, the pictures were disturbing! They are mainly all artist renderings of fractures, and in my mind I know that can't be what is wrong with me considering I'm not in extreme pain, but it still scared me enough to say ok you know what? That's enough. I'll go see the doctor. It took them a week to have an opening but I finally get to see her tomorrow. Woo!
I did run on Wednesday (see previous blog about the blisters!) and though we ran for maybe .45 of a mile (I told you I suck, that's a lot for me!) straight the thigh surprisingly didn't bother me too bad. I did notice it but it was nowhere near the grinding I felt on Saturday. It's been hard the last couple of days to notice anything other than the blister pain but I do still notice a faint stiff feeling when I get up and down, shift my weight or try and roll over in bed. So as much as I want the pain to stop, I'm glad it hasn't disappeared before I get to see the doctor about it.
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