update

i started the 7 day course of steroids last week.  finished them up on wednesday of this week.  i can say this... my butt doesn't hurt nearly like it has.  there's still discomfort when i stretch but not like before the steroids so maybe i'm on the mend... we'll see.

in the meantime, i'm just going to run and try and build up my endurance.  i mean, i'm still walking when running 3 road miles so there's that.  its disappointing but i know what i'm capable of and with some steady training i should be able to run the high cliff 25K i've got coming up in august.  it's time to put together a training plan and get at it.

the pain in the ass - exposed!

PSA: just ignore my little butthole and look for the arrows. 

turns out that it’s MY BACK! causing the pain in my butt!  

i have swollen tissues squishing my nerves on the right side (see pic 1) in my lowest vertebrae (see pic 2). this back injury occurred on october 1st, 2016. 

at crossfit... 
swinging a kettlebell that was too heavy for the amount of time i was swinging it. 

i was fairly new to cf at the time and likely had poor, uncorrected form... so i got injured. 

the solution at this point is oral steroids and time. the doc also wants me to go to zero drop shoes so there’s that...

mystery solved i guess.  the good news is that i'm not hurting anything by running... my back is going to take time to heal and in the meantime the residual pain i'm experiencing in my butt on the right side is akin to sciatic pain... the doc thinks that it will go away as the swelling goes down and stops compressing the nerves.  so i'm running and it's awesome!

the challenge continues... one.day.at.a.time

running is proving to be quite the challenging endeavor.  i've had this pain in the upper part of my right hamstring connecting to my glute (literally in the crack of my ass) for over a year now.  i went to see my primary care physician, dr. bradley, in the beginning of may for this.  i thought maybe i tore something given how long it's hurt and no amount of rest has solved it.

so i see him and he can't find anything significant that is causing the pain.  so he sends me to an orthopedic sports med doc, dr. edwards.  i go see this guy and his assistant doc does all the work which is only notable because it annoyed me.  anyway... the helper doctor did the exam and then i had to have x-rays done because insurance won't pay for an MRI until that has been done.  so x-rays show nothing wrong... bones are perfect and everything is fine there.

last week i had the MRI, which incidentally made me feel quite icky, and now i guess i have to make another appointment with dr. edwards to figure out the treatment plan.  i have no idea what the MRI says so i'm going to try and make an appointment next week to get that going.

this is all, however, neither here nor there to this particular story... just background i guess.  i ran last week monday (only 3ish miles) and from the start of the run my left lower leg near my shin was shooting pain.  i didn't think anything of it at first but it didn't go away.  then the next day it hurt when i walked so i haven't run all week.  i've been doing lots of dog walks instead but it's not quite the same.  i need to run.  i need to run for my mental health as much as for my physical health.  the pain was in a weird place too so it isn't a shin splint... it's more to the inside of my foot before the ankle bone and then shoots up to about the middle of my leg but to the inside of where a shin splint would typically be.  today it doesn't hurt at all so we will see if i can get back to running tomorrow.

i read something really awesome on the facebook the other day.  a friend of mine, and fellow runner, that i admire posted the following:

this post happened at the exact time that i needed to see it.  i've been beating myself up because my pace is so slow and the runs are consistently difficult with no "easy" in sight.  i regularly mourn the days when running 12 miles was easy and fun for me with barely any walk breaks.  today i sometimes can't even make it a mile before i walk a little.  it's humbling at best and heartbreaking at worst.  i won't run with friends because i'm embarrassed that i have to walk and i don't want to be the damper that makes everyone walk all the time.  it's a hard pill to swallow.  i know it's all in my head (from personal experience) because when i would run with people slower than me or who needed to walk more than me it wasn't a bother.  it was a welcome reprieve from pushing myself.  i enjoy running with people and maybe would recover better if i did so.  i just don't want to be a bother to another runner.  

so i'm taking it one day at a time and hopefully the MRI has some answers.  

speaking of the MRI.  i experienced some really weird things during and after so i decided to research it and see if MRIs are known to effect people in a negative way.  i found some interesting articles on it proving that i'm not weird. lol!  if you like that sort of thing you can read the stuff i found: here, here, here, and here.  during the MRI i could feel it in my right wrist.  i have a permanent plate in that wrist and while there was no pain... it was weird cuz my wrist felt different than the rest of my body.  i cannot describe how it felt different... just that i could feel it and maybe it was achy sort of ?  besides that... when the scans were over, i was in there for about an hour for several different scans, i just felt icky.  i didn't feel good.  i don't know how to describe that either as i couldn't put my finger on it.  i went in feeling great.  happy, upbeat, ready to run afterwards... then when it was over and i was leaving i felt gross.  i was unmotivated, not happy anymore, and tired.  i also felt physically just icky for lack of a better word.  i went home and walked the dogs with my husband and talked about the ick.  so... keep that in mind if you're going to have an MRI done.  you might be effected by it in a weird way or you might not.  i can tell you this... i have no desire to have another one done anytime soon.