No Run Mama: the tale (tail) of the broken butt

Weekend contained both heartbreak and side-splitting laughter. I had every intention of racing Shamrockn' half marathon this weekend and planned my days accordingly.

Guzzled water like it was going out of style all week. I was drinking nearly 70 oz of water a day, which although it doesn't sound like much more than the 8 8 oz glasses recommended was a lot for me. Did a second test run of 4 miles on friday and the hip.felt.fine. Went to bed early on friday night but tossed and turned because a dog on the next block was barking. All. Fkng. NIGHT. At 3 a.m. it was still barking. For a sample of what I heard all night, click here.

Saturday continued on my waterfest while I took RugRat #1 to the crackhouse fleet feet and bought her some brand new running shoes. About a month ago, she suddenly announced that she wanted to run a 5k. I asked her, "Are you sure???" she was emphatic in her reply, "YES!" so I signed her up for the Run Rocklin 5k. It was after I clicked, "PAY" and printed out my receipt that I asked her, "You know how far a 5k is, right?" She replied, "1.3 miles." I shook my head and twisted my fingers and said, "Almost right. It's 3.1 miles." RugRat#1 lost color in her face and said, "ohhh...." but I encouraged her and said, "No worries you can do it. I will help you." Reminder: RugRat #1 does not have a history of being athletic. RugRat#2 in order to differentiate herself from her sister is a "jock." So off to the fleet feet we went on saturday. They had shoes for her in.her.size. This is no small feat as she has no small feet. Size 8.5. NARROW.. While waiting for her to pick shoes, I drank 2 20 oz bottles of water. Then I decided I needed new trail shoes as my other pairs are over 3 years old. I present to you, the Asics Trabuco 14, the newest in the TriKaren collection.

After fleet feet, we went to Costco to buy such necessities as a 7 lb jar of olives, 20 kiwis, and enough tampons to last me until menopause. I continued to drink water while running over old people and small children pushing the cart through Costco.

I got home, unloaded car, put away all groceries, admired my shoes and put my feet up on the ottoman and dozed. I only got up to pee. I made a carb-rich dinner, set out all my clothes, set the coffeepot, confirmed with a friend that I would meet at her house at 0:dark:30, set my alarm and went to sleep.

I had nightmares of running the race. Actually the nightmare was that my hip was in stabbing pain and I was limping through the race -- I was only at mile 4 in my dream and I kept being passed by other people and kept thinking, "oh god I have 9 more miles to go..". I awoke at 3 a.m. with a horrific pain in my hip. It wasn't the stabbing pain of my dream, but it was a definite pain. I got up and walked around and it seemed to go away. I climbed back into bed and at 4:50 my alarm went off. My hip felt almost swollen it was in so much pain. It was at that moment I realized that running a half marathon while still recovering from an injury probably wasn't the best idea. I texted my friend and told her I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I got some ice, put it on my hip and crawled in bed to let the ice do its magic.

I woke up at 8 a.m. The ice pack was flaccid; my hopes of a PR dashed. I got up, ate a little breakfast and realized that my.hip.felt.ok. I suggested to RugRat#1 that we test out her new shoes and take them for a spin around the block. She agreed and we all got dressed and laced up. RugRat #2 decided to accompany us as well. So here we were, one happy family (minus hubs) gimping our way around the block. After one mile, RugRat #1 was finished. So was RugRat #2. I felt great so I decided to try for 4 miles.

I ended up doing 6 miles. My hip never hurt while running. I was glad I skipped Shamrockn' since I could FEEL the decline in my performance after a 10-day hiatus. I was huffing and puffing. But it was cool that my hip. never. hurt.

Today, I never even noticed my hip at work. I did notice a weird, bruised feeling near my sitbones on the right side, but no sharp pain, no hip pain. Just a little ischial tuberosity pain while sitting.

I emailed Dr. B, medicine woman (Sports Med Doc) to see if a broken butt feeling is normal part of the healing process.

For fun, Sunday night I went to a local comedy club and saw Russell Peters. I don't know if it was the $9 margarita or what, but I could not stop laughing during the show. He was trying out new material for his 2012 world tour so some of his jokes seemed out of the norm of making fun of indians and chinese people. But it was a good laugh and I certainly needed it.



later!