I'm an Idiot and Other Thoughts on Running

So after recovering from the awesome flu of death, which sidelined me for 9 days (!), I started running again on Wednesday. Immediately after my little 4-mile jaunt downtown with Katie, she and I went to an inversion workshop at Lululemon. I can now totally do a headstand and a handstand, and yes, I would love to show you.

But then I went for my usual Thursday morning run and my hip HURT. Now, I've been having left hip/glute/hamstring problems for some time now--since about September of 2007. I've briefly seen a massage therapist and chiropractor about it, but mostly I just kept running and complaining. Hip pain that started at mile 9 played a big part in my MCM meltdown. But this is bad. I'm not sure what set it off--I don't remember falling on it when doing inversions, though I do tend to fall left. And for the record I do remember falling and hitting my back (twice, once on the door knob at home) and hitting my head once really hard. But my hip?

I thought I figured out the cause of the pain several times. I've certainly temporarily improved it, but now, after a year and a half, I've reached the point where all running hurts. And I just took 9 days off. Ibuprofen worked until it didn't (ahem, marathon day), weight lifting is making me jacked, but not in the right places, yoga has loosened me up, and all this has made me faster to the tune of a sub-47 minute 10k, but my legs still hurt. So I'm going to go to the doctor.

Of course I don't want any anti-inflammatories (very bad for your stomach) and God forbid a cortisone shot, and I'm not a huge fan of the natural remedy of not running, but maybe something can be done. Because I cannot crack 3:40 with this kind of pain, and if I don't do something now I'm not going to be able to run a marathon at all. Eight miles was torture this morning, and I'm supposed to do 14 tomorrow, but I highly doubt that will happen.

In other better running news, Jezebel had a post up about women marathoners, which led to some awesome discussion in the comments and a neato facebook group for Jezebel-reading marathoners. And at the risk of sounding like the creeper I am, Jezebel-reading marathoners are probably all my soul mates. So anyway, one of them writes a great new blog on running. Check it out.