Rx

I'm Pretty Sure at Least the Pain is Real!
One thing I love is when I have an injury that the medical community can't even agree exists. That's AWESOME!

I made the trek to see Dr. Hilarious last night to grab his one open appointment for 2009. After confirming (via the handy chart on the wall) that my Body Mass Index results indicate that I am overweight (I know I'm not in my best shape at the moment, but I'm only 5 pounds heavier than when I ran my last marathon in November. Overweight? If I'm overweight, what do they use to describe actual fat people?) Dr. H confirmed that I likely have torn muscles in my abdominal wall. To the running world, as far as I can tell, this is called a Sports Hernia.

But don't tell the good doc this. Nope. Dr. Hilarious launches into a rant about what the word hernia actually means and how upset he is that people misuse the term to describe things they want a cool name for so they can charge more for rehabilitation and treatment at specialty sports rehab clinics, etc.

Imagine how upset I get when someone misuses the word "irony" and you have some idea as to the vigor with which Dr. Hilarious delivered this speech.

Anyway, there was much discussion about training and running and when it happened, etc. My best guess is that I have been running with some degree of this injury for several months, probably since late summer.

What I learned:

• Dr. Hilarious doesn't believe in Sports Hernias. Torn or injured muscles in the lower abdominal wall, yes. Sports Hernia? No. "Unless some of your guts are sticking out through the tear in the muscle, it's not a hernia." Thanks doc.
• Core strength is the key to avoiding this injury. So to all of you distance runners out there, hit the yoga studio and don't let up on the plank poses. Also crunches. Lots of crunches. I hate core strength workouts.
• The rough explanation of this injury-that-we-aren't-calling-a-sports-hernia-anymore is that the hip flexor muscles and the other muscles on the top of the upper thigh win a tug-o-war with the tissue in the lower abdomen.
  
• In runners this injury happens mostly at distance.
  

Rx:

• Right after his rant about sports medicine clinics charging more for cool sounding injury treatment, Dr. Hilarious referred me to The Donaldson Clinic, a sports medicine rehabilitation clinic here in town. Seems about right. Next lesson: hypocrisies.
• Core strength (with physical therapy), rest, and short runs. For the time being I am limited to 5 miles maximum and 1 minute slower than normal training pace, which means 9:00 miles.
• 6 month re-evaluation.

Note: Those of you who know me KNOW I am going to fuck this up by pushing too hard too soon, so stay tuned for the re-injury report. I am not canceling my plans to run Vancouver in May. If I can keep a decent weekly mileage number and stay in shape between now and April I think I have a shot of running at least a 3:45 up there while I watch Scott and Ron take off into the distance to get their Boston times.

Then what?:

• "Since no one agrees that this injury is even real, surgeons don't like to try to fix it. Maybe they just don't know what to call the surgery when they are out with their friends so they don't want to do it. 'Double bypass' sounds cooler than 'lower abdominal tissue repair.'" - Dr. Hilarious.

So here I sit, about to try my first run in a month and hoping against hope I don't feel anything go riiiiiiip.

I'll keep you all updated with the gory details. Keep an eye on my mileage and workout information in the right hand column over there. It's gonna be a slow start to the year for me.

Also:
The Colleague and I are going to Mexico. Cap'n Ron is going to Oahu, and RPD is off to Maui. What's up folks, don't like the shit ass weather?

Also Also:
We've been watching a lot of movies in anticipation of our sort of annual Oscar night wine binge, and I have to say, most of them suck.