On the Mend

Mike Place, 100 mile finisher, gives us
(and himself) the thumbs up.  Two days before
the race he was down with the flu.

So, it's been a week and a half since the initial hip injury (skiing) and a week since I last ran.  Oh, this last week has been a difficult one.  After having a locked up lower back (muscle strain, having run on the injured hip too soon after the injury) on Monday, I really was not able to do much besides walk the dogs on the leash down the block and back and lay on a heating pad in bed, so I started getting really bummed out and frustrated.  On Thursday, I was lucky enough to get a massage appointment with my "friendly muscle therapist" James, and by Friday morning was walking noticeably better (my friends at work told me so).

Maybe I was feeling a little too good on Friday, because on Saturday morning, at o'dark-thirty, I woke up to go out to Antelope Island and volunteer at the Buffalo Run races.  My hip was spasming right from the get go.  It spasmed most of the morning at the race, and I really felt like I was not very useful and wished I could have helped people out more than I did.

I did get sent on an errand in to Syracuse, Utah (the closest town to the race) to pick up more ice as the day was the warmest one we have had so far this spring, and runners were really starting to suffer.  Muscle cramps was the trend of the day, with a few cases of heat-exhaustion, IT band syndrome, and vomiting as well.  On my trip into town, I put the seat heater on high and was thankful to be off my feet for an hour and a half, even if a half an hour was spent in a line of cars trying to get through the toll booth back onto the island.  I had half a mind to pass all of those cars with my load of ice that was much needed by the runners (we went through close to 20 bags of ice at our aid station alone), but I reigned in my frustration and decided that we were all in this together (waiting) after all.

Great Salt Lake sunrise, from the causeway to Antelope
Island ~ headed to meet the night-time crew with
breakfast burritos from El Rancherito in Syracuse, UT
(highly recommended).

The rest of the crew was happy to see me when I got back to the aid station, as they were on their last bag of ice as I pulled into the Lower Frary lot.  Each runner (there were probably 200 through our aid station) got a minimum of 20 ounces of ice in their bottles or hydration pack, and I really fell like if it hadn't been for us (the previous station, the Ranch had run out of ice long ago) there would have been more medical incidents and more DNFs.  We were like an oasis in the desert and you could see the relief in people's faces when we offered them some ice for their drinks (in addition to cheese quesadillas, oranges, bananas, PB&Js, grilled cheese sandwiches, and other snacking items).  We seriously got a huge thumbs up from the participants.

So my hip was pretty worked at the end of the day, but a very slow dog walk this morning and a half an hour of home physical therapy, and it's starting to feel a bit better.  My back muscles are nearly normal after the massage from Thursday, so that is a huge plus.  I talked with one of the Sports Medicine residents yesterday at the race about my hip, and she kind of freaked me out talking about possible apophysitis and warned me against running or even swimming too soon after the injury.  I may be clear to start some biking by the end of next week, but I'm thinking about going to a Sports Med appointment and possibly starting some formal physical therapy if I'm not making a remarkable improvement by the end of the week.  Time will tell.  For now, I seem to be on the mend.