Hop - I spoke to my FIL (physician) about the leg length discrepancy and he said the vast majority of people have different length legs and it should not be the main cuase of the physical issues. Unless of course its say and inch or more.

 

Do you do any weight bearing exercise? Especially that which isolates one set of muscles. So for instance single leg presses or the sort. This would give you an idea of the weak side theory as far as say quads, calf and hams are concerned.

 

One thing to consider is that past injuries heal areas differently and can impact their performance. In my case a major calf injury on my left leg caused me some serious issues for many months until I finally determined a way to fix and strengthen the area. I now have to pay closer attention to it so as not to repeat injury or resulting post-healing action.

 

I guess this is realated to a recent injury? Sorry if I missed this part.

 

I know its not much help but then again I'm not much of a physician. Just a simple engineer.

 

BTW - nice of your husband to watch your running. I would bet he always follows you. Make sure to tell him to keep his focus on your gait.

Thanks C-R.   It is helpful, and questions are good to get me thinking about it all. Interesting about the leg length, thanks for asking.  I think if I do have one it must be very minor, plus this is a new problem, and I'm assuming my legs haven't changed length in an uneven manner in the last couple of years (barring any weird pelvis kinks or something). 

I used to do a lot more weight-bearing exercise through climbing, just because with that you end up doing lots of squats and presses in order to climb.  However I don't do anything specific, and am not climbing very much at all right now (in fact haven't climbed since September, and haven't climbed much since 2010...I used to climb most weekends and one day in the week).    So yeah, I think I do need to do some weight-bearing exercises and actually train my body to know to use glutes, quads etc.  I've been told I have weak glutes before, and I also don't think I use them much when running.  Apparently I am also quite stiff in my upper body when I run (hardly any movement from the waist up). Working flexibilty, strength and I think learning to activate the muscles in my legs/glutes makes sense to me...and I do need to do it.  I've been finding recently that my right leg doesn't want to really move, it feels like I need to turn at my waist to get it to land right.

My right leg is the bad leg (at the moment), but the left one is the one that had the ligament ruptures.  The left leg is less flexible and is weaker than the right leg (even when the right leg is painful like it is now). I actually wonder if the issue is with the left leg and side of body in some ways, and my right has been trying to overcompensate to such an extent that the right is painful and sore (but the left is in need of strengthening, and it's own form of treatment)

No recent injuries really (well apart from the fact my leg hurts at the moment, so it's injured, but no obvious cause to it).  I had a fall on some stairs last year, and that set off sciatica...but that was in the left leg.  The right shoe was already showing uneven wear even before that though.

The pain itself is changeable.  There doesn't seem anything wrong with the leg in that the bone seems  fine to various hitting etc (and the bone doesn't actually hurt), no obvious swelling, no obvious muscle injuries (although the calf is a bit tight at the top, behind the knee) when people palpate the  sore bits...but the whole leg is basically messing around with back of  knee (to the extent I thought I had a popliteal or gastrocs  strain), front of knee (either lateral or medial, both often feel like there is a tightness/bruisedness there, not classic ITB style pain though), medial side calf, lateral side, ankle, ham, butt,  sometimes it feels like it locks mid stride (when my foot is off the  ground combined with  sharp sort of spasm in my calf) then kind of wobble drops its way to the ground in an awkward way...everything can feel irritated...but mainly around the calf...I  feel like I want to uncruch my leg and rip it into something that  moves freely...it feels tight and weak but actually it moves when  someone else moves it for me and it's stronger than my other leg, and sometimes I get those classic shooting pains down the leg when I start weighting it, other times it's a more continuous pain, sometimes a dull ache in the back and butt, other times I can have a really tight calf that sends buzzes down my leg, and makes my cankle feel tight and buzzy.   MTA: Something I've also noticed for a while is that after some runs I really struggle to get my right leg to allow me to do calf stretches...I do stretch after a run and the gastrocs stretch where you have the straight back leg is often a bit hard, but the one with the bent back leg (for the soleus?) is often really hard and I can't flex at the ankle at all (plus it feels buzzy, clicky and just strange...sometimes with pain down the medial side of the calf too)

Heh, he does tend to run behind me as it is...I'll be sure to ask him to focus on the feet.  Although he's not running much right now and probably won't go out with me tomorrow, so maybe I'll approach an unsuspecting person and get them to tell me!

Argh.  I'm meant to be running 30 miles on the 18th...it's taking a lot of focus and concentration to run 6 miles at the moment (the most I've run all week), and I really think it will be impossible to run 30 with this level of weirdness and pain.  I don't like the word pain, but I think it now is pain (it makes me wince and my heart feels like it is missing a beat when some of it hits)...I did think I had a good pain threshold too.

I see. It's not unusual for the non-injured leg to also get a knock based on trying to subconsciously protect the injured limb. It doesn't usually seem to happen right away but rarther over time and creates a bad habit or ingrained error. At least that was my personal experience. I had to actually focus on first fixing the root cause of the injury and then actually on proper running technique as it were.

 

I don't have much advice medically and frankly I would be frightened to take any of this advice if I were to give it. I do however swear by trigger point therapy (self). There is a great book on self trigger point therapy. I can't find it right now but it is on Amazon. I used it to fix my calf/achilles and it also took care of the opposing leg knee issue.

 

Good luck on finding the solution. Being injured just plain stinks.

+1.  Compensation injuries are a real bitch.  By definition, you can look for a root cause all you want but there won't be one to be found.

No advice either, other than to focus on recovery and not all that whiskey you have in the house...you need to keep it until you can get it shipped off to me.

Thanks for the healing wishes. 

Yup, I keep meaning to try trigger point stuff.   I do some self massage (yeah, yeah, guffaw)....mainly on calves and ITB, but also piriformis and any other tight points, however trigger point seems a bit more "intelligent" than simply trying to roll or ease out the bits that feel knotted or tight.

It's definitely frustrating not knowing what is wrong, and I think you could all be right with it being a compensation injury and therefore not something I can directly treat.  I guess both the right and left need to be looked at both individually and in relation to each other.  I do feel I need to use the left more, but I really need to stop the pain in the right.  I will focus on getting better though, miles will take a backseat (although they are because they are too painful right now), and I'll work on strength, flexibility and recovery.  Still not sure what to do about the 30.  I really want to run it (mainly because of the side purpose of raising money for Sands), but I guess I can delay (even if that makes me feel like a failure).

Today's run brought less overall pain, but a tight, clicky right ankle that has only now let me rotate it fully.

Ah, we had a dusting of snow.  No husband to run with, but I looked at my prints at the end of my very slow run, and feet point outwards a bit (bad form I guess, tight and weak glutes seems to be what I've read in the past to cause that, I assume others have more forward-facing prints...I wouldn't want to show sports jester that's for sure).  I have some pics, I guess I could upload...but it was such a slow run that my foot spacing probably looks like I was walking.  I don't know how similar my running in snow is to that on normal hard ground, I'd think spacing between footfalls is closer, but it's unlikely my feet turn that differently.

Sod it.  Pics.

+n to compensation injuries being a PITA (sometimes literally!).

To my eye, your left foot looks slightly more outward-angled than your right.  Which isn't itself cause for great alarm -- none of us are perfectly bilaterally symmetric, so we're bound to have discrepancies if we look hard enough.  Might that account for the different wear patterns on your shoes?  Dunno if your feet always landed like that, or if it's "drifted" in the more recent past.

What's with the clicky ankle?  I've gotten that from time to time, and I chalked it up to it having tightened up from a recent tweak/twist.

Last, on trigger point stuff: I got the Trigger Point Therapy kit for my Achilles injury last year, and I heartily recommend it (the kit, not an Achilles injury).  A year later, I'm still fairly diligent about doing the lower-leg/soleus routine.  They have them at Running Warehouse, and you can use the Facebook code to get 15% off their already-discounted price.

Trigger Point Performance Technology website

TP products at RW (I have the Hip & Lower Back kit)

ThunderV2 recommended it highly, too.

Rest up.  You had a very recent monster month; the benefit will not be soon lost.  

Wish I had some advice to offer Sarah Just hope your leg heals up ASAP!!! Looking forward to running 30 "with you" 

I took a bad spill on my morning bike commute. Hit some black ice...went down hard.

 

My left arm is pretty much useless. Can not get my elbow away from my side. No strength, shards of pain. My fear is that I tore my rotator cuff.

 

Ride home was pretty miserable. Did a 10 mile run...no arm swing.

 

Just finished a Fat Tire 1554...popped the top on an Old Thumper...Ice on the shoulder. No advil in the house.

 OMG I sooooooo hope it's not a rotator cuff injury those SUCK ASS!!!! Rest up and hope it's not as bad as you think!