Healing Barbie Legs
I was feeling pretty good after my last two marathons, I was able to run the next day and work out the stiffness, however, that wasn't the case after this year's Bird. It beat me up so bad, I've had the worse case of Barbie Legs ever. Here it is Wednesday and I still haven't been able to run. I took a nice rigorous hike with the kids, but when I tried trotting a bit, my hip flexors screamed, holding me down to the ground. If you've never had the misfortune of having this condition, let me explain: It's when your hip flexors, the collection of three or four deep seated muscles that run around your hip and groin and function to lift your legs, get stretched tight as violin strings that you feel like detaching your legs from their sockets just to relieve the pain. It reminds me when my son used to piss off his sister by ripping her Barbies legs out of their trunks rendering them helpless legless torsos. I long to be a legless Barbie, right now, for relief.
I was talking to a non-running co-worker yesterday about the marathon. I guess, at one point, she tried lacing up her shoes and becoming a runner, but a case of shin splints soured her mouth for the sport and she never ran again. I told her I rotate my injuries--many of them, fortunately, have not returned, like my nasty case of plantar fasciitis I had a few years ago, or the dreaded I-T band syndrome that plagued me early on in my running days. The tight hip flexors have waxed and waned, however, like Nick Billock's Mr. Moon, leaving when my cross-training has been effective and coming when it hasn't..
Hip flexors are an extremely difficult area to work out on your own with free weights, but they were a lot better when I was going to the Lab. I may have to cough up some money and get myself back to the lab this winter to have Sean work on them. The Road Runner is an evil mistress that will expose your weaknesses, lay them out and shout them from the rooftops for all to witness. If there is the slightest weakness in your training, she'll let you know what it is. I continue to cross-train, on my own, but if I'm honest with myself, I've totally slacked on my home work outs. I still do them, but a once a week diligent one hour workout has eroded to a half hour work out, peppered with lots of Red just wandering around the apartment, many detours to my laptop to check something, or just minutes upon minutes staring into space trying to remember stuff. This is the downside to working out at home to save money and travel time--distraction everywhere. Sigh...
I was feeling pretty good after my last two marathons, I was able to run the next day and work out the stiffness, however, that wasn't the case after this year's Bird. It beat me up so bad, I've had the worse case of Barbie Legs ever. Here it is Wednesday and I still haven't been able to run. I took a nice rigorous hike with the kids, but when I tried trotting a bit, my hip flexors screamed, holding me down to the ground. If you've never had the misfortune of having this condition, let me explain: It's when your hip flexors, the collection of three or four deep seated muscles that run around your hip and groin and function to lift your legs, get stretched tight as violin strings that you feel like detaching your legs from their sockets just to relieve the pain. It reminds me when my son used to piss off his sister by ripping her Barbies legs out of their trunks rendering them helpless legless torsos. I long to be a legless Barbie, right now, for relief.
I was talking to a non-running co-worker yesterday about the marathon. I guess, at one point, she tried lacing up her shoes and becoming a runner, but a case of shin splints soured her mouth for the sport and she never ran again. I told her I rotate my injuries--many of them, fortunately, have not returned, like my nasty case of plantar fasciitis I had a few years ago, or the dreaded I-T band syndrome that plagued me early on in my running days. The tight hip flexors have waxed and waned, however, like Nick Billock's Mr. Moon, leaving when my cross-training has been effective and coming when it hasn't..
Hip flexors are an extremely difficult area to work out on your own with free weights, but they were a lot better when I was going to the Lab. I may have to cough up some money and get myself back to the lab this winter to have Sean work on them. The Road Runner is an evil mistress that will expose your weaknesses, lay them out and shout them from the rooftops for all to witness. If there is the slightest weakness in your training, she'll let you know what it is. I continue to cross-train, on my own, but if I'm honest with myself, I've totally slacked on my home work outs. I still do them, but a once a week diligent one hour workout has eroded to a half hour work out, peppered with lots of Red just wandering around the apartment, many detours to my laptop to check something, or just minutes upon minutes staring into space trying to remember stuff. This is the downside to working out at home to save money and travel time--distraction everywhere. Sigh...