When this party is over it will start again
What have I been up to since the London marathon? Well I took a week off and ate a lot of junk food. Speculoos on croissants was the highlight.
The following week I started running again. 5km, 6km, 7km, 8km, 9km, 10km and Sunday off. Last week I ran 144km. Starting back up was brutal, for the first three days I couldn’t run properly. My psoas and groin had seized up and I couldn’t run a comfortable stride. With time it got better but it’s still lingering.
This is an injury that I’ve had since after Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 2011. Every time I start back up I think I have a bad injury, but it gets better. I never felt that it affected me much. When I broke my collarbone I thought the silver lining was that my injury would finally have time to heal. Even after 6 weeks on the bike it was bad starting back up. That time I went to the doctor thinking it could have been a sports hernia. It wasn’t.
After mid-Spetember it didn’t affect me at all training for Fukuoka 2013. Once again it was tight and sore upon returning to training after the marathon. This past build-up for London 2014 I felt it affected me somewhat. Especially since it got uncomfortable on long runs. I think I was able to get away with it with all the extra core work I do around that region.
Starting back up this time it’s even worse. I made a doctor’s appointment (scheduled for tomorrow) and want and MRI to get to the bottom of it. On Friday I came to the conclusion that I can’t train with this pain anymore. After the Speed River manure sale (Friday afternoon we shovel and bag mushroom manure compost and on Saturday we deliver it all over Guelph to raise money for the club) I went running again and it was much better. This morning it was almost non-existent, we’ll see how it goes when I do a little fast running this afternoon…
I have two main worries. The first is that time-off alone won’t cure it. Taking extended time off is no problem if I know it will be better. My previous time-off included stationary bike, so maybe it will have to be total rest. The other thing that worries me is that over the years it’s gone from an annoyance to impeding me. Maybe I can get away with it for another marathon or two but I don’t want to find myself needing time off when I try and qualify for the Olympics. So now is a good time to get it sorted out.
Other than that I’ve been hiking, house hunting, dealing with haters on trackie.ca message boards, HotDocs film fest in Toronto, Dylan’s wedding, 2048, watching a lot of bike racing and the Payton Jordan track meet.
Mouton sent an email to watch the Payton Jordan at his house with PJ being the email title. His wife thought PJ stood for pyjamas remembering how late I was over the year before. Once again there were many huge performances at Stanford. Lots of PB’s from the Speed River crew. Basically if you take off and leave shovelling manure to your teammates you better run fast!
Dylan’s wedding. Lots of fun!
Guelph hike.
Hamilton hike.
There was still lots of snow/ice at the bottom of Tews falls at the end of April.
Not a WWE fan but the Iron Sheik’s documentary was great. And Q&A with his was cool.
A highlight while delivering bags of manure: We saw this car dodge another car, skid, hop up a curb and come very close to the fire hydrant.
Chicken dinner.
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FLOAT ON 
Just two, likely useless, thoughts I feel compelled to share.
1. I eventually traced my PSOAS/Groin problems to *increased* core workouts. Hard (for me anyway) to find that perfect balance between running and strength training. Maybe try decreasing or tweaking your core work? For me, it was avoiding any training that involved my legs being extended, during a core move.
2. I found an amazing massage therapist who provided me with a PSOAS-specific treatment. It was one of the most painful and uncomfortable experiences I’ve had. But it worked. I mean…really, really worked. She also showed me how to find the right spot to massage it, at home, when it flared up.
That combo effectively destroyed my lingering, frustrating, painful PSOAS/Groin pain. Just my experience, but I’d feel remiss in NOT sharing it.
Good luck. 🙂
Thanks for the info Jennifer, greatly appreciated.
Sport’s hernia (athletic pubalgia) is very hard to diagnose, often requiring exploration surgery to understand the damage, since it can be so many things. There’s a huge thread on letsrun about it and all the things people have been through and references for experts. Had it for two years, stopping never helped, core workout hides a bit, running more and improving makes it worse, cycling doesn’t affect it and even helps a bit. Hope you can sort this out, good luck.
“dealing with haters on trackie.ca message boards”
Really?