Running Roadblock and Back On Track

I had finally gotten the courage to run outside and I can say that I actually enjoyed it! I was not nearly as self conscious or overwhelmed by the natural landscape as I thought I was going to be. I did notice that I was running faster and was also getting some major cramps really early on in my runs. I worked on pacing myself, warming up and stopping to stretch as needed. After a few of these runs I started feeling my right hip the next day. It was the pinchy, uncomfortable, achy, not so great feeling. Unfortunately I think I had aggravated an old dance injury from freshman year. I have been pretty lucky that I have never had any major issues with the injury and at the time we were able to treat the injury with a non-surgical option.Granted everything I read about the injury back then and even now says that you will have an increased chance of arthritis and then since there is a lot of scar tissue that forms there are times that there will be discomfort.

Discouraged from the pain, I took a break from running. I figured no point in aggravating something that hasn't given my problems for years. After a week or so of zero running, I finally noticed that I wasn't having  pain anymore. I did do some reading and there are other people out there with my injury and they all had some advice on how to continue running safely. The key point being that if it hurts- stop. So listening to that I have moved my running back inside for the time being and really slowed down my pace. I have done three runs now under those conditions and I have had zero pain which is great! My idea of running in an actual 5k my be thwarted if running outside is causing some of the pain, but I will take this compromise so I can at least keep challenging myself in the gym. At some point I am sure I will need to reevaluate if it is time to possibly have the surgery and clean up the hip joint, but luckily for now I am feeling 100% better and my runs are still continuing to improve.

Image found via Diana S Pinterest