Tuesday, June 1, 2010 – I don’t know if the Durolane has finally run its course, but the pain in my hip is excruciating right now. As advertised, Durolane is supposed to last about six months, which, without going back and checking my notes, I believe would have taken me to right about the marathon, almost exactly a month ago.
On Sunday I did nearly 27 miles over Prospect Point, across the Lions Gate, up the Cap Valley and Nancy Greene Way and over to Mosquito Creek along the Powerline trail before heading down and making my back across the Lions Gate. My hip was a little stiff at times on that run, though I still felt I had decent lift. I did get the sense that the stiffening around the joint was slowing me down a little, but considering I was running longer than a marathon including running halfway up Grouse Mountain, it wasn’t the only thing.
Yesterday I ended up running about 11k including a climb over the Queen E Park hill. I wasn’t planning on running that far but after running up to Hamber to watch my daughter’s track meet and finding out they’d cancelled it, I decided to take the long way home. My legs were heavy, but my right hip didn’t seem noticeably worse than the left.
Today was a different story. I ran up to the school for a parent-teacher conference and kind of hammered it because I was running late. No problem. I then ran some errands and then back to the school to pick my daughter up after track practice. I got there in time for relay practice and got talked into filling in for one of the boys on the fast team. Well, Mr. Show-off had to relive a little of his youth and probably overdid the 25-30m bursts a little too much. Still, the hip was a little sore but wasn’t alarmingly so.
It stiffened up over the remainder of the afternoon and by the time I had to head up to meet Tim for the run up to the Point Grey track for speedwork, it was reminding me far too much of its pre-Durolane condition. It loosened up a little on the way up to the track and was still a little stiff by the time we got going with our strides. I had to be back earlier than usual, Brian’s still away after running the Ottawa Marathon on the weekend and Tim just ran the Calgary Half, so I suggested we just do some 100m strides on the straightaways with 100m recovery in the corners. The hip was stiff though I did get some solid reps in as it loosened up. It was feeling pretty shot by the time we ran back.
Maybe I’m trying to do too much and I would be feeling this way on a healthy hip, but the pain is much too similar to what I was feeling when I finally booked that appointment last year. The hip has got that familiar, but temporarily-forgotten tightness and deep pain that carries from the groin all the way around to the back of leg, and up the front of the hip deep beneath the hip flexor. Glutton for punishment that I am I slowly ran the half mile or so to pick my daughter up from Guides later, to hit about 21k for the day, and had some really odd clunkiness that really concerned me. The joint didn’t feel like it was moving freely and what mobility I did have was uncomfortable. This is mild osteoarthritis? Yikes! What does the severe stuff feel like?
Wednesday, June 2 – Both hips and groin tight this morning, though the pain seems to have gone. The right side is a little stiffer and I have a bit of that ‘pinchy’ feeling in the right groin. Had some shooting pains doing some side leg-lifts and it feels a little rough and makes some clicks in the joint when I rotate my right leg.