Six weeks ago I came down with pain in the SI joint that crept in from nowhere. Everything was fine on Tuesday as I did a final tune up for the Tulsa 15K, but on Wednesday with just an easy run on the treadmill planned, what started as just a little tightness in my upper pelvis/lower back in a matter of a few minutes resulted in cutting the run short followed by a lot of pain. And that got real bad just three days later when I attempted to run the race to defend the championship age group title for both the race and the masters Grand Prix series.
I was severely hobbled for the next several days, until I got into a clinic where an osteopath did some 30 minutes of manipulations. It was still mighty sore for the next week but mobility improved and I could tell the healing was beginning. A week after Tulsa I started some light cross training on the elliptical trainer and stationary recumbent bike. I tried an easy run about 10 days before Thanksgiving but it tightened up 5 minutes in. So went in for another session with the osteo, but was able to increase the cross training workouts, from 3 to 4 to 5 and 6 hours, going 6 days a week. And two weeks ago I started to do some threshold level work once a week and a bit of fartlek at 10K effort. It’s hard to get your heart rate up on the elliptical, while at the same time not going so hard as to strain any muscles or joints, particularly that SI joint.
Finally, last week I jogged 2 minutes and felt pretty good, but the hip joint felt sore and week. Two days later I tried 3 minutes same thing. On Wednesday just under 6 minutes dodging some snow and ice, but it actually felt better. And Friday (yesterday) it was 1.2 miles in 11 minutes (at a blazing 9 minutes per mile) and I felt no pain before during or after. Plan is for 15 minutes tomorrow and some 20 minute jogs next week. If all is well, it will have been 7 weeks and any bone or ligament damage should be mostly healed up, and I’m hoping to up the frequency and distance of the runs and being winter and all, mix in some cross country skiing.
Going to take some time and no big races planned until spring time, but hope to tune up with some local events.
rrunnin234 