Catching up

Once again, it's been a while since my last post - and a lot has changed! Since the Coach Bubba 20k I've also raced a 5k (huge new PR), a sprint triathlon (report belatedly posted below), and a trail 8k (report also below). Through all that racing my weekly mileage fell steadily - proof that if one's goal is base-building, one should not race monthly!

Just a couple days before the RLAG 8k I started noticing a pain in my left groin, that felt as if something was being pinched, and a sort of burning pain was radiating down into my foot. I cut that run short, and hoped I wouldn't have any trouble for the race. The race went off without a hitch, but then that following Tuesday I noticed a different problem. The first couple steps of that run just felt wrong, so I stopped and walked. A few steps into the walking, I felt my left hip pop and it felt like my whole leg sort of shifted, and the strange feeling went away. The rest of that run was fine. Since then, I've had this nagging pain/ache in that hip. At first I thought it was muscular, but as time went on I decided it felt like it was more within the joint. I saw a doctor about it at the end of May, and he thought I might have femoroacetabular impingement, with a labral tear. The only way to fix that, of course, is surgery. So, one MRI Arthrogram and $200 later I found out that it is NOT FAI and I do not need surgery!

That said, I am free to go back to running, however I think I need to adjust my goals for the rest of the year. I was really hoping to run a PR in the half marathon this year, and was looking at the Detroit half for that attempt. I'm sure I could still run it, and I'm sure I could still PR - but thinking about my long term goals, I'm not sure that is the smartest strategy. After 3 weeks completely off running for that hip issue, I need to start back slowly and build up gradually, and that would compromise my training for that race and potentially my long term goals. Instead, I'm thinking of a half in April 2009 or somewhere around there. That gives me plenty of time to build back up from this, build a good base, and get in several weeks of good targeted workouts.