Re: My Ass

I've been joking for over a year now about my Pain in the Ass...

PITA has taken up residence in my piriformis and is hanging on like a pit bull.

No one is 100% sure what caused it (although "child birth" has come up the most) the tough part seems to be getting rid of PITA and all of the secondary chaos she caused. She is one tough chick, my PITA, but it really is time to say good bye to her.

Unfortunately, like the pain of first heartbreak, she keeps showing up right when I think I've gotten rid of her for good.

So it goes that I find myself on the "recovery" roller coaster, good days and bad days and I'm finally understanding what people meant when they said "muscle strain?, oof, you are going to wish you had a broken bone"

But the good news is that things ARE improving... For example...

Most days I can stand up without pain down my leg and into my heal - although embarrassingly I still find myself massaging my psoas at inopportune times, anything to try to take the strain away, even if for a little while.

I can use both legs when I wake up in the morning AND stand up straight!

I can walk up stairs and even do squats and lunges without having to yell at myself to "suck it up!"

I ran 1.1 miles last week (that .1 is really important haha) - first run since April 16th - and I could walk after! Maybe not the next day when everything tightened back up, but hey it's progress!

After my run! SO RELIEVED to run again! No more limping gait!

I have a bike workout on my schedule this week and I'm so excited! Even if it's all zone 1, because I haven't ridden my tri bike in probably 6 months or so. And really anything to break the monotony of PT/Core that's been my workout regimen as of late.

The improvement has also helped my massage therapist extraordinarre, Eileen Steil, unravel some of the mystery... and it's really just as I thought, this PITA that showed up about 18 months ago, that we couldn't get to go away, wreaked havoc on the muscles of my left side. Or as Eileen says, the hips went out of alignment, PITA was the first indication of it and everything followed down hill after that. 

Lesson learned - if you have a PITA (even if it's small) get her the hell out of your life! :) Truly words to live by both figuratively and literally!

Throughout this entire process, I've been doing a lot of reading (a lot for me anyhow) to try to figure out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. One book kind of spelled out for me what most likely happened and lo and behold some exercises to include from here on out to keep it from happening again. My friend Dani recommended it and I recommend it to any triathlete that is struggling with IT band, hamstring, glute, even foot issues (as my foot issue seems to be the result of my changed running gait that was caused by the hip alignment/glute/hamstring etc FUBAR that is my left side.

The book is Wholistic Strength Training for Triathletes by Andrew Johnston

It's got a lot of great information, although being a non medical person I had to look up almost every muscle reference in the glossary in the back, but the info was all there.

I would have liked the exercises in the back to be organized differently or have the page number of the exercise description in the copy where the exercise is first introduce (I took sticky note flags and wrote the page #s of the exercise description - the pictures that show how to do the exercise) and stuck them to the pages where the workouts are outlined).

Also, the pictures are good for a chuckle, as the author is wearing black vibram five fingers in the pictures and, possibly because they are in black and white, it looks like he is wearing ballet flats.

So there it is, the update on my PITA... I've served the eviction notice and she's starting to take the hint and let go... I've cleaned up most of the mess she made, now it's just that last final push. Keeping hope of a PITA free future alive!

I can't say enough about how much I appreciate all the support that you all have given me via FB and Twitter whenever I post any progress.  It helps to know that other folks are going through injuries and issues and it keeps me motivated to keep woking through it when I hear about everyone's races and training.  Thanks for that!!

In other news, my 7 year old completed his 2nd triathlon this past weekend.  He was nervous before the event, which surprised me because I always tell him they are just for fun.  But I do believe he did end up having fun and was very proud of himself at the end, which is all I really want for him to get out of triathlon.

Heading to the finish line!

Awesome Finishers Medal from Lifetime Fitness Kids Tri

If he ever sees this in the future he will probably kill me.  All I said was "smile!" and this is what I got!
 and a great idea from Kiersten - CAPTION CONTEST ANYONE???