Saturday, June 6, 2009

Better- but at what price?

Headed up to the University area this morning for the early (7.30 start) running of the King Tiger 5k. Resigned to mediocrity I had slept well the night before and the usual pre race adrenaline was strangely lacking. Had never run the course before so the warm up route was a gimme- check out the course. Weather was perfect, dry no wind, little humidity. Course was fair, reasonably flat throughout but a challenging long hill in the last mile.

Wasn't feeling all that great during the warm up, the hip was feeling kind of sore. As I was stretching while lining up at the porta potties the pain was pretty bad- to the extent that trying to bend my right leg past 90 degrees was painful! I was even considering pulling out of the race at this point, envisaging a potential first ever DNF if I did go ahead and race. Changed into my brand spanking new flats and did some striders and the pain had subsided, to the extent that I was confident that I'd be fine for the race.

And I was. The race went pretty well. I came 4th in 16.52 and actually felt like I competed, challenging for third for the first 2 miles and holding off a late charging fifth place runner. As soon as I finished I could feel the hip stiffening up and sure enough it was a very short and slow warm down that was necessitated. Since then the hip seems to be cooperating. I managed a couple of laps of the football field with the dog this evening, but we'll see what tomorrow brings. By the looks of it will certainly booking some time for some ART with Dr Duffy this week.

So a better, more promising race but concerns over an old injury flaring back up. Oh the ups and downs of running!

2 comments:

  1. Paul - great job yesterday. I was hoping to pace myself off of an "unfit" Captain, but your out-of-shape result still beat me by 20 seconds.

    As for the hip - can you explain the pain a little more? What is the pain like? What specific articulations cause the pain (push off, landing, flexing, etc.)? Having just undergone extensive treatment for a hip impingement issue I may be able to give some advice.

    Again, good run yesterday - definitely a step in the right direction.

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  2. Cheers Nathan, it was good to see you yesterday.

    As for the hip well I'm always terrible at describing injuries but the pain (when it's there) is right at the top, middle of my upper leg, where it meets the pelvis. If i bring my knee up 90 degrees as if I am marching on the spot the muscles there ache amd it's sore. It doesn't come when I do a particular action, it's just 'there'. If I stretch well, the pain dissipates.

    Anyway, hope your running is going well- it appears to be!

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