Thursday, September 16 — Feeling a bit tired. Legs heavy. Wasn’t sure how my body would react to speedwork with the marathon clinic, in the rain, but it was a lot of fun. I had a decent 4 x 1600 workout including duking it out with Shoeless Mike to a 5:27 on the final rep.
I could feel the hip and groin on the run back to the store, but it’s certainly improved in the past couple of weeks. Two speed workouts a week is certainly going to test the hip and I’ll surely be stronger for it if it doesn’t kill me.
Friday, September 17 — It was a year ago that my doctor broke the news that I have an osteoarthritic hip. Happy anniversary.
Sunday, September 19 — Not a great day for the hip. Did 35k with the marathon clinic and felt stiffness almost the entire time. I could feel it early, but it felt more like muscular tightness. It loosened up briefly after some leg swings when we stopped at the Denman Running Room about 5k into the run, but never felt totally fluid. It tightened up again on the climb up Ontario and to the halfway point of the scheduled route atop of Queen Elizabeth Park. It was fussy the rest of the way and was stiff and painful enough that I couldn’t find a higher gear toward the end like I did last week… but it wasn’t so bad that I ever considered not running the extra 3k at the end. It’s 9:50pm and it’s still sore and kind of throbbing. Is it too early to say this round of Durolane didn’t work?
Monday, September 20 — Well at least one thing seems consistent about this round of Durolane: mornings are less painful in spite of how bad I felt the day before. I’ve got my usual assortment of aches but the hip isn’t too bad. Went for an easy run and it was a little tight, but I won’t whine too much about it. Too late for that?
Tuesday, September 21 — Speedwork. Legs were heavy but the hip was fine after a creaky start to the run up to Point Grey. Out the door, my hip was tight and ‘pinchy’ especially as I extended the leg back in the push-off phase and it felt like it was limiting the length of my stride as a result. It warmed up on the run up and after a couple of kilometres I didn’t even notice it. Sandra was later coming home than usual so I missed the first mile rep and I could feel the hip stiffen up a little waiting for the crew to finish their final 400m and recovery lap. Once I got going my hip seemed fine and fairly stable. It was a little sore after the 4 x 1600s but not so sore that I didn’t consider doing some strides. I say ‘consider’ since I kinda had to bolt in order to ummm… catch the season premiere of Glee.
Just as an aside, I must say that Henry is looking like a world-beater out on the track these days. If he keeps his head in the game and doesn’t do anything crazy over the next two weeks, he’s going to have a breakthrough marathon on October 10.
Wednesday, September 22 — Hip felt a little creaky running up to the school earlier in the day, and was still stiff for the first part of the run out of the Running Room. Pace was pretty relaxed for the first half and then something about the slight downslope from David Lam Park kicked things up a notch. Brian and I ended up pulling away over the next km and all hell broke loose on Burrard Bridge. The good news was I didn’t feel the hip over the second half of the run. A little sore afterwards but not as bad as my achilles. Ouch!