Denial

I signed up for bag-watch duty at speedwork the other day. While I was sitting there in the school cafeteria, watching the runners file in and get ready, I was chatting with Flygirl, saying that my back was giving me some problems lately and I needed to get it checked out. "Yeah", she replied, "it seems like a lot of people lately are getting injured and going on the DL."

"Well, I'm not really injured. I've just been having some discomfort that I want to get checked out in case it becomes worse."

Duhh...

Truth be told, I've only run twice since my marathon. On Sunday (my last post) my left hip was still giving me grief, and oh, well, did I forget to mention that my right hip had already started to hurt, too? Well, the next Monday morning, I woke up with this discomfort in my lower back, some minor pain, as if I'd just slept the wrong way. I figured that if I gave it a day or two, it would go away. I ran again last Tuesday. Both hips were giving me trouble, and my back still hurt. I figured I'd take a few more days off. I stretched and iced (my hips) over the next few days, but my back was giving me more and more pain ("just some discomfort", my ass!). In fact at one point earlier this week, I reached over to grab something, and the pain that shot through my lower spine was tremendous, and I almost buckled over! My IT bands felt like iron rods, my hips like a pair of rusted ball-in-sockets, and now even my glutes were feeling stressed. I must have really wrenched my back or something, because this couldn't be from running... could it?

I finally went to see the Good Doctor in nearby Chelsea on Wednesday. Same old orthopedic tests, but this time they went more like this:
"Does this hurt?"
"Ow! Yes!"
"This?"
"YOW! Yeah!"
"How about This?"
"Owww!! Stop that!!"
"Not good. You're lucky you came in. Your knees would've been next."

No I'm not kidding. He made it sound like I had cancer or some incurable disease eating away at my joints. What the hell was wrong with me?

Well, apparently I missed National Ab Month, that's what. According to both the Good Doctor, and (yes, yet another) physiotherapist that I saw today, I have virtually no core strength, and my lower back and upper legs are compensating for weakness in (mostly) my abdominals. My hamstrings are fiddle-string tight. It's the stupidest thing.

And it's stupid because I really can't wrap my mind around it at all. I mean, I can understand how strengthening your core can make you a stronger runner, and how not doing core exercises could make someone a less efficient runner, and therefore more vulnerable to getting an injury. But this doesn't seem logical at all to me: How can running and not doing core training lead someone to a downward spiral of a progressively weakening core, giving that person back and leg problems, when they aren't even running anymore???

There's nothing on this stuff in Wikipedia, so I guess I have to believe what they say.

My PT asked, "Do you do any ab-work?"
"No", I replied.
"Well, you're gonna start."

He gave me my exercises to do this week. They're very complicated. He said, when I'm sitting around working at my computer, to tighten up my abs once in a while. When I'm standing on the street waiting for the light to change, tighten up my abs. And when I get up in the morning, for a few minutes before I get out of bed, tighten up my abs. You get the picture. In his words:"First we need to get those things firing again. Next week we'll get into the fun stuff." Oh joy.

"And can I run?" I asked him. He told me to hold off for another week. So much for my 10K PR this weekend. Oh well.

But I still plan to pick up that Healthy Kidney Race shirt tomorrow. They always give away good tech shirts for that event, and besides, my kidneys are apparently the only things that are healthy these days anyway.