Biomechanics - Long post, just venting... feel free to ignore!

Maybe I don't need to nag Kirk about seeing his GP but I do feel the need to nag to him about not wearing appropriate protection when dealing with mold. Having a father in the wind/fire/water damage restoration industry, I'm going to have to be hard on you for this one. Knowing you have a couple more years of renos ahead of you (at some point in your life), I do strongly suggest protecting yourself against the dangers of mold exposure. Our little Jewish mother might have something to add, but that's it from me. In all seriousness, your BP now seems much more reasonable and I really do hope you're feeling better!

Now for the "leaving food on the plate" conversation. I've been trying to do this consistently when eating out and when traveling for work. Because those are the times I tend to eat less healthy options, or drink with dinner, I have no choice but to cut back the portion size. At home I serve myself smaller portions, and the challenge becomes saying no to the second helping. I have been really bad when it comes to eating seconds in the past, going back even for thirds at times. Picture me at an all you can eat buffet in my own kitchen.

I didn't post yesterday after the long run because I was pretty bummed. We set out for 18 miles yesterday, the first 5 miles being sidewalk running, the next 9.5 miles on trail and the last 3.5 miles on road again. The first 2 miles or so was an uphill climb and surprisingly I felt great. My heart rate never came up above 162ish and I really felt that I could sustain the pace for a long time. We headed into the trail and things were still pretty good. The trail is all rolling hills, literally every quarter to half mile. My heart rate hovered around 139-145 and in the mid-high 150s for hills. Unfortunately the trail was really uneven (maybe I'm just a wuss) with lots of embedded rocks and such. Around the halfway point in the trail I started to get some achiness in my hips. Near the 7 mile mark I was running with Nancy and stepped off a little ledge in the trail and rolled on my left foot. It hurt a little, but my body kinda just caught itself and seemed fine.

Then the pain continued to set into my hip. It was as bad or worse than the pain I had when I was out for 5 months last year. Luckily it didn't sink into my IT band as badly as last time, but my hip felt unstable and had some sweet, sweet burning pain. Moved into my hip flexors/lower back and by the last two miles I couldn't really run. Walked out the last half mile altogether.

So here is my beef. Did I really just spend the last 4 months mountain conditioning, speed training, ice tubbing and working my ass off to get the same injury I had last year? WTF right? I have felt so good lately, getting used to my orthotics (which were supposed to help with the IT band pain), no real hip/IT band issues to write home about, and my cardio has been really good. My average heart rate this training season has been over 15 beats/minute lower than when I last trained for a marathon.

I started to think that this was going to be the end of the road for this marathon season and that my body just can't sustain that type of distance running. If this was indeed the same issue I had before, I was essentially screwed because it's a long, slow road back from that one. Just when you think you're cured, you run a mile and you're screwed again.

I sat in an ice tub yesterday, iced throughout the day and spent 10 minutes a couple of times during the day with my legs up against a wall. I felt better today, but not great and the achiness came back when I worked out on the elliptical with Allison this morning. I think I even made a comment about there always being another marathon in the future...

So, I booked an apt with the physiotherapist today and gave him a rundown of the symptoms and how it set it pretty suddenly yesterday, instead of over a period of time. He made some comment about how he may be able to "release" this or that and I might be able to get right back to it, instead of some long, slow recovery. Uh huh, sure.

Turns out that the difference in my leg length (7 mm between the two) combined with the unstable surface yesterday and the little foot roll popped my SI joint out of place. Literally, he was running his thumbs over my lower back and I could feel the gap in my joints (kinda gross now that I think about it). Anyways, a few tugs in this and that direction and I heard a loud pop and instant relief. I could do some things pain free that he had me do two minutes before, that hurt like a you know what. I have some residual soreness from being out of whack for 8 miles at the end of yesterday's run, plus general soreness but overall, much better. I hope I'm not being overly optimistic, but I hope with some icing and Advil tonight I'll be back to the same game. I have another appointment on Friday to check in and see if I need another alignment, plus he's given me some exercises to align myself every morning and night.

As for the leg length issue. The podiatrist will be adding a lift to my left leg to even things out. My legs are actually the same length, but my right ankle is 7 mm longer (1/4 inch) than my left which I'm guessing is from breaking it in two spots when I was a kid. I wanted to have him add the lift early this week but they refuse to make any adjustments until the orthotics have been worn for 4 weeks. So, next Thursday is lift day. I hope that makes things even better...

Biomechanics is an amazing thing when you think about it, especially in people who are active. 7mm wouldn't affect most people over the course of a lifetime while others feel the strain in a few months of training. Does anyone have a bumper sticker that says "I heart my physiotherapist, podiatrist and Carl"?