What's Wrong With Me
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Ok, all you smartasses reading this, stand down for a bit.
For a while now, or more specifically, since the Green Bay Marathon on May 20th, I haven't been able to run. The weekend after the marathon I was scheduled for ten easy miles. I got in four (and walked the rest). The weekend after that, I attempted a sprint tri and ran one mile out of three. Over the years, I've slowly learned that there is pain that you can and should run through, and then there's the kind that you can't...and if you try to, bad things happen. This last kind was the type of pain I've had in my hip whenever I ran during and post-marathon, or whenever I stood for too long, or slept on my left side. So, I decided to cut myself off from running until I could get in to a specialist. The problem, as it turns out, is trochanteric bursitis -- inflammation and irritation of the fluid-filled sac that allows smooth motion between the bony prominence over the outside of the hip (the greater trochanter) and the tendon that passes over this bone. When the bursal sac becomes inflamed, each time the tendon has to move over the bone, pain results.
The bursa. Mine gets getting really, really mad any time tendons or muscles touch it.
I have to say that only once before have I encountered such a great doctor as the one I saw at UW Sports Medicine. Or, I should say, doctors -- a sports medicine specialist and a resident DO. Not once did I get the whole, "Just stay off of it and see how it feels, and we'll go from there." They took my situation as seriously as I was, and talked about solutions in terms of getting me back out there as quickly as possible. I appreciated that. The DO found that my pelvis was way off kilter and the physician diagnosed bursitis, although it was a chicken-and-egg situation. The DO adjusted my off-kilterness, and the physician referred me to a physical therapist who has done three Ironmans herself. At the top of the referral sheet he wrote "Ironman -- ASAP" and told me that if she didn't fit me in soon enough, to email him and he'd call her personal cell. I was blown away by all of this, and remembered why I loved seeing sports specialists. They just get it.
Tuesday I had my first appointment with the PT. She, too, is wonderful. She asked me to tell her about the marathon and I recounted the easy-breezy first 19 miles, and then the cramping and pain, and hobbling and pain, and the cold and the pain. "Why didn't you stop?" she asked. I said I really, really had wanted to break four hours, and she just shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Oh, right. Of course."
So, she has me on a regimen of IT band stretches and Iontophoresis, which I've never heard of but am hoping like hell that it works. I have four more treatments of that, and if it doesn't have the desired effect, I go back to the specialist for cortisone injections. As I was leaving the other day, the PT told me, "Just be patient and hold off a little bit, and we'll get you fixed up so you can go out and start hammering again." Did I mention how wonderful she is? Love her.
I'm on a "bike/run as tolerated" program, but it's a really fine line to walk. On one hand, I don't want to back off on my training. I only have two more months to get through and if I can just tough it out, then I can rest properly. But on the other hand, if this injury worsens because I didn't rest enough, to the point where my race day is compromised, it's going to be hard to forgive myself. I'm telling myself that racing a little undertrained is a lot better than racing injured, but it's hard and frustrating. Hard because it's an easy excuse to train less, especially now that my volume is really going up. (I have three hours scheduled tonight? Well, if I get two in and my hip is starting to hurt, that'll be good.) And it's frustrating for obvious reasons, but one that I recently discovered is that I really, really love to run.
A two-hour run for some reason, isn't nearly as daunting as a two-hour bike for me. The bike, I dread -- making sure I have all my gear; constantly coming up with new, interesting routes and planning routes that don't take me through intersection after intersection; worrying about being picked off by an inattentive motorist, or hitting a pothole, or falling off the bike. It's just requires so much preparation, so much thinking, so much concentration. But running? Running is therapy in motion. It's relaxing and cathartic. In five minutes, I can be out the door and lost in my thoughts and/or music. I love the rhythm of it, the solitude, and the way my body feels both during and after a good run -- energized and tired all at once. Depending on how I feel, I can take a nature approach and run along the lake or in the woods, or if I want to be in the middle of things, right down state street or past the Terrace. And man, do I ever miss it.
I'm more than happy to bike and swim. But I need a good run sprinkled in now and then to really enjoy the other two, and to feel most like me.
I've resigned myself to the worst-case scenario that I might not get to run like I have before (a quick 12 or 15-miler in the middle of the week just for fun) for the rest of this summer, and perhaps the year. But I just hope this isn't a persistent, nagging, permanent injury.
So, back to the PT tomorrow morning, and then WIBA ("as tolerated") this weekend. I just. want. to. run!
Posted by Erin 9:13 AM
Did you just call up sports medicine, or did your regular dr. refer you to them, or how did that work? Comment at my blog if you get a minute and let me know, if you don't mind. And I really hope you're able to nail this down in the right way for you. You're doing great.