More adventures with Dr. Hilarious
After my total train wreck at the Seattle Marathon last week, I went to see Dr. Hilarious (now sporting the Daughtry shaved-head, full beard look...not good on anyone but Daughtry) about my Hip pain.
He asked me the usual question: "Why do you keep running?"
But then he very professionally launched into his 5 minute diagnosis, which involved torquing my leg around and pushing and pulling on my feet and legs:
Q: Does this hurt?
A: If does when you f-ing yank on it like that, yes. Yes it does.
Q: How bad is the pain?
A: It hurts just about as much as listening to Hannah Montana, but not as much as listening to Lady Gaga.
He poked around a little more and isolated the pain point, eliminating some other possible problems. He seemed satisfied that it wasn't some internal organ going on strike and that nothing was broken or totally destroyed.
You gotta love it when your doctor says, "This is the first time I've ever seen a patient actually manage to do this. Good job! You hear about this injury in med school, but you never see it. Awesome. You injured the iliopsoas muscle in your hip!"
He seemed very excited.
The iliopsis is one of the big core muscles that you use all the time. Sitting, standing, walking, running...everything. And like the hernia I suffered before, this is an injury that occurs late in training after the other muscles have fatigued and given up. The leg muscles get tired, the ab muscles get tired, and they all figure that big old muscle that is keeping you upright can take over and hold things together for a while. This explains why it was sore after training runs of 18 miles or more and why everything felt great in the race until mile 20 or so.
I'm getting a little sick of this whole injury thing, but at least this one doesn't require Dr. (Do No) Harm to cut into me. What it requires is resting the muscle (impossible unless you are floating in zero gravity, by the way) and some investigation into my running stride and my shoes.
And like I said I was going to do before, I need to actually suck it up and do some core strength training. I thought my rippling, chiseled six-pack abs were enough, but apparently I need to do more. We can all get together an bounce quarters off my stomach sometime this spring.
In the meantime, off we go to the podiatrist! I can't help but entertain images of clunking around in corrective shoes and leg braces. Run Forrest, Run!
So the good doc charged out of the room after writing me a referral and went to deal with his 30th patient with a cold who thought they were dying from swine flu. Awesome.
Useless Data Department
- In the past 365 days I have logged 965 miles of running, burning 74,000 calories.
- There are 8 pair of running shoes in my closet, but only really like 3 of them. One is brand new and will likely never see a single mile of running. Why do I keep them?
- Of the 90 students who started the term in my English 101 classes, 50 submitted a final paper.
- I have looked at the Fuji - currently hanging in my office - 24 times in the last week and thought: I should really ride that thing more often.
- I have taken the Fuji off the hooks and out for a ride 0 times in the last 4 months.
- I have recently noticed my speech habit of saying "I mean..." to start sentences and when I reach 5 instances of using the phrase in one conversation I punish myself by listening to a podcast of MathDude.
With Owen pushing, it looks like I might get some trail shoes and take to the mountains for some of my next training plan. Seems like a decent idea, and maybe it will keep me from injury? Who knows. But I don't mind getting dirty once in a while.
Also Upcoming...
Work has started on a new running club up here on the northend of the lake. Look for a website, a book of running routes, and some Facebook presence soon! I'll expect both of my readers to join us, of course.
Please Leave a Message
If you are receiving this message between June 19th and July 7th, 2010, GVB will be unavailable while he travels with The Colleague and several students in Kenya. Beeeeeeep.
4 comments:
Um ouch. What is recovery time like for this injury? Good luck at the podiatrist.
I am all for core strengthening and trail running. :-)
Tough break GVB. You still going to make the next marathon or will this take you out of action for a while?
@PuddleThumper: recovery time is a couple of weeks. The problem is that resting such a major muscle is nearly impossible. Even sitting in a chair puts pressure on it...I should be able to jog on the track 2 weeks after the injury and slowly slowly slowly add miles.
@RPD: Still planning on a spring race. LA might be a little to tight on the training (March 21) but Vancouver is definitely possible!
You know you love the 'couv! Great course, great organization.... oh, and great company! ;-)
Uh, which Fuji do you have? 'Cause your description sounds an awful lot like mine.... Just sayin'.
Take care of that injury and get back out there so I don't have to do these long winter runs by myself!
Post a Comment