Hello all,
I started running rather late, at age 42. That was last summer. I enjoy running but I don't race often. Raced a 10k last october, when I had been running for around 3 months, and raced a half marathon (Montreal) a few weeks ago. I plan on continuing to race once a year, probably at the Montreal marathon event. Maybe I'll try other races in the future, but that is not my plans for now.
All of last winter I was running 40-50 kilometer weeks with a hockey game for cross-training, and this summer, after hockey season, I was logging in 65-75 km weeks. Although most of the areas of my legs hurt at one time or another during this past year of running, I stayed pretty healthy. But this summer, leading to the race, I realized that when I want to lenghten my long runs to say 25 km, my hip joint starts hurting a lot, and I have to stop running. It's not normal dull aching like what I'm used to in my legs, but acute pain. So I cut back a lot in my training about 5 weeks before my half marathon and had a loooooong taper period (much too long). I was able to run the half-marathon at my goal pace. My time was 1:38:47. My hip hurt after, but it didn't slow me down.
2 weeks ago I hurt my ankle playing hockey. I stopped running for 6 days and decided to use this time to try and fix my hip problem, so I started to do streching exercises for my hips. Now I'm back in my training, my legs get tired a bit faster than they used to after too much time off. Another month or so of getting back into 100% shape (cross my fingers) and can't wait to test if my hip stretching exercises will have solved my long run problems.
My goal for next year's half is to run it under 1:35:00. And if my hips get better and I can up my long runs, maybe run a marathon in 2015.
Well, this was a longer hello than I intended
Eric
Welcome, Eric! I am pretty new myself, so don't have a lot of advice, but have you considered hip strengthening exercises in addition to the stretching? I had an issue with my knee after my first HM, and I think it was the strength exercises that helped me to come back.
Hi, nice to meet you, and congrats on the half. That's a great time! Take your shoes off and stay awhile, this is a great group to be part of.
Thank you for the welcome.
That is sound advice Zelanie. I bought a kit of elastics for that purpose exactly not long ago, but never use them. I should do very short strength sessions with the elasticsand then stretch. That would probably be more beneficial. I just have to fit these exercises in my routine. Maybe if I make the sessions short enough...
As for my 1/2M time, thank you Hog. It's subjective though: I'm faster than some and slower than others. I've always been very thin (skinny) so that helps. I think I'd look better 20 pounds heavier, but at least my shape is helpful for running.
Welcome Eric. Pretty new to this thread myself but have picked up some good tips. Very impressive HM time. Could it be an improper shoe fit? I used to get hip pain and would wake me up at night. Once I had a proper fitting it has gone away.
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bonjour a Toronto!
'kay, actually, that's probably the extent of my French but I am trying to relearn.
Anyway, hello and welcome.
First or last...it's the same finish line
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Barbs, yes it could be an improper shoe fit. But I think I'd need special insoles if that is the problem because I have 4 pairs of running shoes and I alternate between them. 2 pairs of Asics and 2 pairs of Mizuno. So I can't see the problem coming from one particular pair of shoes.
Redleaf, although my english is far from perfect, it does beat your french, lol! I appreciate the effort though
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Greetings from the Canadian Prairies!
I will add in that when I was having some hip pain last winter (and only during running), I finally figured out it was the camber of the road. I wasn't varying my routes as much as I do in the non-snow and I was always running with the same angles on the road. It helps if I do some stretching with the yoga strap as well as some hip opener poses every day if it starts to crop up again. Hope you figure out what your issue is and how to correct it.
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an amazing likeness
Bonjour Eric. Bienvenue à RunningAhead et le groupe du demi-marathon, nous sommes heureux de vous compter parmi nous et nous espérons vous trouver et de partager beaucoup de bons conseils. (That's probably really poorly done French and not even close to Quebecois...so back to English....)
1:38 is a fantastic first half marathon time and means you have natural speed in your legs. That's impressive. As you know from your hockey, training through aches is ok, but acute pain should make you stop, find out what's wrong and get healed.
Welcome to HMT, glad to have you join us as we share all the challenges of training for half marathons.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
Thank you all for taking the time to say hi and to try to help me out with my injury. My intent was not to ask for advice about the injury, as I've read a lot through it and read Noake's Lore of Running's chapter on injuries, but I do appreciate all the input from you and am really considering every tip from you all. My intent was to expose my "life as a runner" and the injury is part of it.
CanadianMeg the camber of the road certainly doesn't help and I've been very cautious about that for the past month and a half or so.
milktruck that's very good french. It is not grammatically perfect but I could understand easily what you were writing. And yes, I know that training through aches is different than training through acute pain. As Noake's book is my bible, I try to figure out what causes the pain (camber of the road, improper shoe wear, imbalance in my leg muscles, etc). Because if I stop the pain will go away, but if I didn't find the cause, it will come back when I start training as hard in the future. As my intent is not to race often, I don't mind it so much to do just base training in the winter. Slow, steady mileage, week after week. In the meanwhile I'm trying stretching and other things to fix my hip.
As for my race time, thank you. I started running last summer to pass time during my son's soccer practices, and because of all the kids in hockey that are way more in shape than I was. At 42 I couldn't just rely on my natural fitness anymore, I needed to train. So running was at first just to train for hockey. When I realized I was training at better times than some friends I know that had been running for years, I realized it comes rather naturally to me. I'm not trying to brag here, I'm just saying that in most sports I'm not very talented, but am very determined. In running, I need less skill, and my determination is really counting. So I figured "hey, I'm pretty good at this, why not keep doing it during winter". And to be quite honest, in the spring, I couldn't wait for hockey season to be over so I could run one more day per week.
From browsing the different parts of the forums, I came upon a post from milktruck that had a link I followed and after a couple of hours of reading and watching videos, I decided to start doing some strength training this winter by the way of the Lunge, the Pedestal and the Myrtl routines. There are more but I'll start with these three. From watching that guy from Colorado in the videos I realized that strength exercises are helpful to prevent injuries.
Thanks everyone for all the advice.
Cyberic- Good luck with the strength training!