Injury! Oh the humanity!

Sunday was my long run day and I decided to go ahead and do 9 miles rather than my originally decided 8. I've got 5 weeks until the Baltimore half marathon and I'd like to get my distance up to 10 miles or more prior to that. So, I chose to go 9 instead of 8. This was actually not a bad decision as I made it all 9 miles. The distance didn't cause my injury, but certainly running that distance wasn't good for it.

So I was about 4 miles into my run when I stopped at Federal Hill park for a water break. I rehydrated and then started running again. It was at that point that I had a fair amount of pain in my right inner thigh. It faded as I kept running, but was always there each time my right foot hit the pavement, it hurt. It never got excruciating or even bad enough that I had to stop early or slow down. So, somewhere in the early miles of my run I strained my right groin muscle. By the time I got back to the apartment, it had tightened up nicely and made going up and down stairs uncomfortable. I showered and iced it for about 15-20 minutes before tkaing some ibuprofen. That seemed to help it calm down, but yesterday morning it was so stiff I had trouble walking up and down the stairs at the office. I was limping down them! Yesterday was a rest day anyway, so no worries there. I took it easy and tried not to burden the muscle throughout the day.

This morning I woke up early to head out for my run. I didn't feel any stiffness or soreness so decided to go ahead and try running to see how it felt. As I walked down the stairs to the street, however, I could feel some twinges in the muscle. And when I started to run, I got about two blocks before I realized it wasn't going to happen. Granted I didn't stretch it out at all, and tha might have made it stiffer than usual. But each step I took sent a new zing of pain up my hip. So, rather than push my luck and risk making it worse than it is, I turned around and came back home. I showered and then got back into bed with my ice bag resting on my leg and slept for another 45 minutes before getting up for work.

So, on the good side, I can walk comfortably today (yesterday I was walking gingerly but fine) and stairs are no longer painful so the strain was minor and my body is healing as best it can. Another day off should help it heal up nicely. I'm hoping that by tomorrow morning I'll be able to run again because I have the Run to Remember 5K on Thursday morning and it would suck to have to not run until then. Even so, I don't anticipate being fully recovered for a week or so, and will incorporate some stretches into my routine to keep it loose and prevent aggravation. I just wish I could have my ice bag here at work to use during the day!