Is this April Fool's Day or what?

Well, I'm a little behind in my posting so I apologize for the delay, but I've been sulking a bit this week. I wish this was some horrible April Fool's Day joke being played on me, but unfortunately it doesn't look that way. Seems the hip/glute issue is not getting any better and may actually be worse today than it was last week. And the worst part is that it may be my own fault.

The crazy thing about it is that Sunday I went out for my last long run and had an absolutely awesome 20 mile training run. I started off just under 8 minutes for the first mile and worked my way down for 3 more until my 5th -20th mile were all sub 7 minute pace. I knocked out a 20 mile run in just over 2:16 with an average of 6:49 a mile. Cruising through it in pretty good shape all the while knowing that a taper for resting the legs and a huge crowd to get the adrenaline flowing would get me down into the sub 6:30 miles.

Monday's PT visit was a success as he tried something different and used some of his bodyweight and elbow in my glute area. Painful yes, but effective. By Monday afternoon I thought "this is it, I'm almost there". Then Tuesday morning found me at the track for a short workout including 4 800m intervals. That's when things went terribly wrong. After a 2:43 first split for the first, I felt some twinge in my left hip on the 2nd interval and then some pain that wasn't good. I finished the interval and shut it down. I probably shouldn't have done the intervals looking back, but that morning I was feeling pretty good and with all the pressure I was putting on myself to perform well, I wanted to stay sharp with my speed. Where's the rewind button on life when you need it?

So no running Wednesday, a PT visit this morning and a lot of icing, foam roller, stretching and ibuprofen in the meantime. I went out for a easy run this afternoon, but the discomfort was more than what I had hoped for so I turned around, headed back to the Y and jumped on an elliptical for an hour. Nothing like an hour on an elliptical for a little soul searching.

What did I figure out? Well, I decided I'm not running for the next week unless by some miracle I wake up one morning and have absolutely no discomfort in my hip. Until then, it will be continued self treatment, the PT and a lot of elliptical time along with the usual strength training and core work. My goal has all of a sudden gone from a healthy PR (personal record) to just getting there and finishing with a nice decent time and still being able to enjoy Big Sur 6 days later.

Of course a lot can happen in two weeks, but I have to live with the fact that these things happen and if I don't get to the starting line 100% this time, there's always the next race. Or in this case actually, the race after the next race. However, the important this is getting some recovery time for the hip/glute and still getting both marathons completed.

I still have a lot to work for and look forward to as I have this great Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge to complete on behalf of the the Rehab Center and I have about 15 or so friends that my family and I will be hooking up with in Boston that will be running as well. We've been talking about this for over a year and I don't want to miss it for anything. A double incentive to be abe to run the morning of April 19th.

Take care and have a great Easter weekend!