Hip Check

Today was good. After driving for 9 freaking hours yesterday, and not getting much sleep last night, I somehow woke up at 6:30am energetic and ready to go!

The 5K this morning went really well. I helped with registration and handled the timing of the race. There were some little mishaps, such as clicking too many times or not enough when runners cross the line, but all was resolved in the end. The race went off without a hitch, and age group results printed as soon as the last finisher crossed the line; like clockwork. Tell me, does it get any sweeter than that?

Being at the race this morning was great. Its wonderful to see all the familiar faces when I go to races near my home town. People who understand how nerve wracking it is to go through injury this close to a race, appreciate my views on training, and have given me tons of advice as I've progressed as a runner. I saw Charlie today; he's an older guy with more marathons and ultra marathons under his belt than I care to count. When I was 9 years old and ran my first road race, he told me to have my dad buy me new shoes. I finished my first race in my humongous basketball shoes!

But the big news for today isn't the race. Nor is it the fact that I meant to get a lot of grading done and didn't even look at it. Its not the freaking amazing rib dinner I had with my family either. Although all of that is absolutely wonderful, the news for the day is my hip!

While helping at the race this morning, I would jog wherever I had to go. It was mostly to build my confidence up that I was actually ready to run. By the time I watched the race, I was pumped up and ready to run! Afterwards, I went out for a short run. Just enough to test things out.

I forced myself to only run 2 miles since anything more might do damage at this point. But during the run, it felt pretty good. I won't say it felt perfect, because it didn't. Afterwards, it felt not horrible. Tonight it doesn't hurt. I don't feel like I did damage to it today, which is a step in the right direction. Because the run went good, me and my dad decided against the injection in my hip, and went with a different solution to finish the healing process.

I'm not sure of the official spelling, but it sounds like a 'medrol dose pack.' Its worked wonders for me before when I had trouble with my heel. I take 6 today, 5 tomorrow, etc, down to 1 on the last day. I might take more if my hip needs the extra juice. I'm hoping this will one of the things that will push my hip back to being normal.

As of right now, I'm planning to run 4-5 miles tomorrow. I will also base this on how I feel in the morning because I don't want to push it and undo all the healing that happened this past week. I am remaining optimistic, as usual. The key thing, in my opinion, is it felt worlds better after my run today than it did after my run last weekend. Healing is happening.

Tomorrow I drive back to Kentucky, too. Lets hope the drive back goes smoother than the drive here. I'll just say it was a hectic trip. I hope everybody's training (or tapering!) is going well!

Happy running,

-Doug