Well, I didn't start a blog with this title to publish stories about things going smoothly.
I have been running better than I have in years. I felt good. But we know this does not last when 2020/2021 continues into 2022... After two months of consistency, base, and improved pace, I have hit a roadblock.
Thursday - March 3. A 10-mile workout. After a 2 mile warm-up, it's 3x2 mi at half marathon pace. I cruise them in 6:40-6:30s, but I feel a clicking in my butt. It is uncomfortable, but it doesn't hurt and doesn't stop me from running well, so I persist, that is until the workout ends. The second I stop, BOOM! I cannot walk. There is a pain up my leg that cannot be good. I limp home on the cool down but when I change to shower, I cannot stand. I am on crutches that night and know this is a big problem.
Was it too much volume? (Doubtful). Was it the new shoes and a footstrike issue? (Probably not since it didn't happen with the new shoes and didn't hurt Mon-Wed on different runs in different shoes.) Am I getting old? (Yes, but that's irrelevant). It is possible that with this increase in training, my weak right ankle has led to an imbalance and it has created this problem. Maybe not (due to accute onset), but I'll work on it just the same.
A visit to the doctor Friday and then an MRI Saturday. The pain which was radiating all over my back and ass Friday has subsided and is now localized directly behind my right kidney but on the bone. I fear stress fracture, just as I had back in about 2006. Alas, the MRI is negative, but I cannot run. The pain is oscillating between my pelvic bone/sacrum area and deep in my ass cheek, like where the leg plugs into the pelvis. One time it hurts there, then later it hurts on the pelvis (back). It seems to change daily and over the day itself.
I go to the physio for a 2nd opinion, and he stretches and cracks me in 50 different directions before sending me to do a series of strengthening exercises. I am free to cycle so I put in an hour a day on Zwift, wanting to kill myself out of boredom. Monday (10 days after the injury) I am back in for more stretching and strength. The pain is no better. We decide to back off the cross-training and exercises to alternating every other day. I was supposed to be back running by this day so I am devastated.
There is no fracture. There doesn't appear to be a tear (I can do explosive movements). He thinks I have a problem with the pubocapsular/pubofemular ligament. This puts pressure on the sacroiliac joint, which explains the floating pain. I'll buy that. So with no break, tear or inflamation, what do I do? He says recovery should quickly.... I took Celebrex for 6 days to no effect. Icing shouldn't help (but I do it anyway). I then sat on a hard massage ball for hours a day, trying to release this stress. Improvements came. So I started running. After 15 days off, I tried and failed. The next day was better. I struggled the following. So I booked an appointment with the city's best sports medicine doctor. He thinks it is a muscle strain, gives me topical rubs, and says we do a shot in the sacrum gap if it doesn't clear.
Now I am a week of jogging in and looking like I might be past it. I have lost endurance and speed.
At the new year, I had more than a training plan's worth of time to prepare. I was solidly moving toward a fast time. All that work gone. Cardiovascular fitness lost. Consistency. I will have to build back now in less than 3 months, and do the most significant distances and workouts in the highest temps and humidity. We have hit 90 degrees in March with humidity never to abate. I don't have high confidence in my ability to do what needs to be done. There's no excuses, only this time to get it done. But it will be a challenge now, moreso than ever before.
They lured the men away
They promised wealth and riches
A thousand miles from home
Fifty-seven men on the hardest mile
Murdered for their troubles, left to die
Immigrant sons from Donegal, Tyrone & Derry
Their numbers were few but they did the job of many
