Frustrated

When I woke up this morning my hip was feeling pretty good. I had a different pain that, in my lack of an equally accurate word, was in my left butt cheek. Since it wasn't a pain associated with a joint, I decided a run would be a good idea; and it felt great to get out there!

The weather this morning was around 55 degrees, which is a rare treat after this summer. My hip never had a horrible pain during the run, but a very dull pain was present. One rather strange detail is that when I run faster, it hurts less. The only explanation I can think of is that when I run slower, I could be putting some of my energy into vertical motion which results in landing harder on my hip. When I go faster, more energy goes into horizontal motion so there is less up and down pounding. Anybody have other ideas?

Immediately after my run, my hip wasn't feeling pleasant. I stretched, iced, and massaged it as soon as I was done. Right now, it feels worlds better than it did a few hours ago; it isn't painful but I can tell it isn't exactly appreciating the 4 miles. I'm hoping putting it in motion at least loosened it up a little bit, but that could be dumb of me.

Tomorrow is going to be played by ear. If it feels absolutely amazing in the morning I will go out for another run. Otherwise I'm going to hit the demon-spawned exercise bike for 90 minutes in place of my step back long run. Yeah. 90 minutes. I better get some really good music on my iPod.

This hip problem is getting very, very frustrating. If it persists much longer I'm going to just call it a 4 week taper before the marathon and hope it works on race day, then still functions well enough to drag myself onto the plane to get back to school.