The return of Claudio

I went for my third test run on Monday.  I kept it at 3 miles and intended to do a run/walk again, but ended up walking only when the discomfort verged into pain as I felt better with more extended (and faster) periods of running.  Overall, the run  itself didn't feel terrible.

But then the run ended and, by the time I had walked the 5 minutes back to the house, my entire quad had seized up and I had shooting pains in my hip.  Stretching didn't help, but sitting in a cold bath did.  However, by evening, I was limping and was finding the stairs a struggle.  SO demoralised.

With Adam's 'We'll have to Pursue Other Options if things get worse' preying on my mind, I decided to be proactive and fired off an email to Claudio the Osteopath/Physio whom I saw last year after my calf blew up.  He phoned me the next morning and offered me an appointment for later that day, which I jumped at.  Metaphorically, of course.  Because jumping for real hurts.

Claudio did his usual thorough assessment and, as usual, tutted at how tight my neck and shoulders are.  He had me walk around the treatment room a couple of times and made his diagnosis.  Just as Adam and Mr Rocktape Physioman have said, the culprit is an extremely tight psoas (one of the hip flexors) combined with a very tight but very weak piriformis (one of the gluteus muscles).  Unlike Adam and Mr Rocktape, Claudio felt that the piriformis was the real problem and that this was causing problems with the psoas by making it work overtime to stabilise my hip, as well as by pulling my hip out of alignment.  Whatever.  Just fix me, please.

Yes.  This hurts.

You might remember that Mr Rocktape told me that there are two psoas releases:  the one that he did and a deeper, more painful one.  Well, Claudio carried out the more painful one.  I didn't even have the breath to whimper.  And then he proceeded to variously stretch, massage, manipulate, and/or pop my hips, glutes, psoas, quad, adductor, and lower back.  By the end of this, my pain level had decreased and my hips were working more appropriately.

Claudio showed me some new stretches for my glutes, one of which got me into such a tangle that I literally couldn't move, resulting in a look of disbelief from Claudio and a statement of, 'This is much too advanced for you.'  I couldn't even be insulted because he was right.  With a scaled-down version of the stretch agreed upon, I now have three new stretches to add into my daily routine.  I'm also meant to ice my glutes three times/day (frozen peas down the back of my trousers - such a good look) and refrain from running at least until the weekend so as to give my body a chance to settle down from the treatment.

Claudio is optimistic that this will work.  If it doesn't, then we will have to Pursue Other Options. 

And no, I still don't want to know what those are.