I, of course, fought injury while I was in high school. After graduation and the Europe trip, I had what’s called a bi-lateral release done on both of my knees. I recovered, but barely ran in college. Maybe 3 or 4 times during college at all? I had been schedule to run cross-country my freshman year but surgery obviously put a hold on that. I doubt I would have done it anyway – I was not a ‘runner’ at that point. My mentality was all gone.

But this is all beside the point. Since I started running again 5 or 6 years ago, I’ve had aches and pains. I’ve known when a new shoe is doing more harm than help (and hurt!). I’ve suffered through post-half-marathon and post-marathon soreness. But I haven’t been injured.

That changed January 10. Yes, I know the date. Because I did a great hill workout the day before, then I was just sitting there watching football and my hip hurt – very deep in the muscle. I took it easy for the next two weeks – 30 minute runs 3 times a week with cross-training on the other days. I took ibuprofen, I iced it. But it still hurt. It hurt all day long while I was sitting at my desk. Hurt is the wrong word for it – there was this pressure on my hip and butt that wasn’t comfortable. It only hurt occasionally. It just feels wrong.

So I stopped running. I didn’t run or workout at all for a week. And then I tried to run again. It was okay. I took a day off and then did another easy 30 minutes. During that run my leg tightened up all the way down my leg. The next day I went to the doctor who of course ordered me to physical therapy. I haven’t run since.

Before I made my first physical therapy appointment, I had to make about six calls to the pt office and my ‘insurance’ to see what would be covered and how much I was looking at if it wasn’t. That’s pretty scary, but I’m happy to say that if my ‘insurance’ decides not to cover it, it’s much less expensive than I was preparing myself for.

I had my appointment yesterday, which confirmed both what I had expected and what my doctor hinted at: piriformis syndrome. Basically the piriformis muscle and tendon, which are deep in your butt, put pressure on your sciatic nerve. To heal this, you do a lot of stretching, some strengthening exercises, deep tissue work, and other fancy pt things. I’ve only got one strengthening exercise at this point, but I’ve taken to calling it torture. The stretching is already doing great things. I felt much more comfortable sitting at my desk this morning.

My next pt appointment is Thursday morning. I’m quite looking forward to the deep tissue work, even though it’s likely going to cause some bruising. I told my therapist that I don’t expect my insurance to cover very many appointments, so I think she’s going to try and get me to doing the recovery on my own as fast as possible.

But my point in this? This sucks! I know a lot of runners, and I always feel bad for them when they’re sidelined with injuries. But now that I’m there again, with a new mature view of running (meaning, not my high school view of running and injuries), I really feel like I have a deeper appreciation for people who are continually plagued by injuries and keep coming back to running. I’m so disappointed every morning I wake up and think ‘I can’t go for a run’.