Bad-Ass, and Not in the Good Way

Interesting feedback from my last post about my posterior pain from Piriformis Syndrome.  Apparently I’m one of the few runners who haven’t either dealt with this in the past, or aren’t currently dealing with some form of this issue.  It’s the Voldemort of the running world.  The injury-that-shall-not-be-named.  I’m now part of the secret society.  I even learned the secret ass-shake.

Had my first PT session yesterday to try to get the buns working again.  The therapist said it doesn’t present itself as decidedly as some cases of Piriformis he’s seen, but I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.  God forbid I ever came up with an easy to diagnose and easy to correct ailment.  Hip strength on my right side was decidedly less than my left side, which is not surprising based on my issues.  Did a little electrical stim, and went through a series of stretches I’ll be doing 2x daily for a week, at which time I’ll do another PT session and hopefully add some strengthening to the stretching.  I got his blessing to do some low-impact work at the gym (bike, elliptical, etc.) as long as it’s not hurting, so I’m going to drag my sedentary self to the gym this weekend and test out the leg.  Hopefully the gym is still there. It’s been a long time.

Assuming I get my assorted ailments sorted out, I’m debating what to do over the next few months when I’m not marathon training.  I’ll pick back up with heavier weightlifting, which I tend to greatly reduce during a training cycle, especially in the last 2 months of the cycle.  Having lifted pretty regularly for about 25 years, with some periods of pseudo-bodybuilding, I can put on muscle pretty quickly, which adds to the general unhappiness of my legs when I’m training and they have to haul around the extra weight.  At the very least I’ll focus on more core and lower-body weight training, to try and get some balance back between the major leg muscles.  Glutes and quads are way behind the hamstrings these days is terms of strength.  I’m giving P90X some pretty serious thought, but I’ve heard from several people how brutal it is, so I’ll need to get my legs fairly healed before I dive into that.  Maybe I’ll just find a monastery in the side of a hill and train to be a superhero.  Maybe just become a Ninja.  So many possibilities.

Run swiftly my friends.

New Year - New Pain in the Arse

Literally.  New pain in the ass.

Why no new posts about running in so long?  Can’t post about it if you’re not doing it.  My two main goals in my second marathon were to go under 4 hours, and not end up back in physical therapy.  One out of two aint bad.

As I progressed in my self-directed therapy to get my knee back in working shape, I was noticing increasing soreness on a daily basis in my right hip.  More accurately, I was having issues with my right butt cheek.  Most accurately, now I not only am a pain in the ass, I have a pain in the ass.

Spent some quality time with my favorite orthopedist today, and it appears I’ve added piriformis syndrome to my collection of running ailments.  A true pain in the ass in more ways than one, and it means I get to spend more quality time with my therapist buddy Jeff trying to get humpty dumpty back together again.  I had considered another Spring marathon this year, but instead I’m going to focus on properly rehabbing my assorted leg issues, cross-training and weight training my legs throughout January and February, easing back gradually into running, and hopefully be back building a mileage base again by March as the weather warms up.  Not going to let it get me down.  I shall return.

Thanks to my ailments I got my lazy on in a big way to close out the year.  One major upside to being out of a training cycle while on holiday vacation is lots and lots of sleep.  It’s a whole different world when you’re well-rested.  I haven’t gotten up before 5AM in nearly 2 months, and I’m not complaining.

In a strange twist of fate I managed to win the fantasy football title in my rookie season.  I don’t think the rest of the folks in the league are very amused by this, since this is their 11^th year as a league.  Apparently I earned some cosmic karma points by dragging my liquor-logged self out for my running workout the morning after the draft/drink/drunk day back in September.  I owe a fair share of the glory to Jeri at JerBear Shares, whose undying confidence in Greg Jennings and the Green Bay Packers convinced me not to trade him after a rough start to the season, and he was a stud down the stretch.  Another plus for the running blog world – fantasy football mojo.

I’ve been badly out of the loop in the blog world, not just in terms of posting but in terms of following.  Non-cyber life got a little too hectic as the year came to a close, but I’m looking forward to catching up on my virtual friends.  Planning to live vicariously through the Spring marathoners, and try to get out and spectate/volunteer at a couple of the Spring races.

Run swiftly my friends.