Well, Rats.

I'm afraid my running 'career' might be ending before I even came to think of myself as a 'real runner' ...

a few weeks ago I ran on the treadmill, and whether that started things or whether there were hints before ... I've had some hip joint pain, since.

It wasn't something that happened while running ... at least, not in the sense of "Wow, I just broke something in my hip!" ~ no instance I can point to where I became injured.

But after those runs my hip hurt and I lurched around like frankenstein. And after a day or two it would seem mostly better. So I ran again. And repeated the cycle. The last time I ran - last Saturday - I only ran 2 miles. I felt like I was "pulling to the right" and that my center of gravity was over my right leg. I also felt like my gait was uneven, like I was spending more step-time on my right leg than my left, like a slightly syncopated gait.

So I decided to give it a few days to rest and recover.

But ... I'm not really getting much better. I mean, the first day or so I had some moments where it REALLY hurt, and that's not so much there. But there's an underlying issue that doesn't seem to get better.

My gut feeling is that it's an alignment thing. I'm not in alignment, so I'm compensating, and in so doing I've messed things up more. I checked out a book from the library on alignment, but am having trouble finding/making time to "lay around" for an hour in various body-alignment positions to adjust. It DOES seem to help, but hasn't yet FIXED it, and it doesn't FEEL like "real work" to fix anything while I'm doing it. I think I need to try a little harder to make time for that.

So in the meantime I'm stuck in this limbo. I'm not actually in pain most of the time. But I certainly am not back to normal. I am still lurching slightly when I walk, and I have some *issues* with lifting my leg when it's bent. When I sit at my chair with my knees bent 90 degrees I can lift up my left leg fine, but my right leg hurts right at the inner hip joint, and just feels weaker, it helps if I use my hands to manually lift my leg. Weird, eh? Almost weird enough to go running to the doctor, but not quite. Because I don't really feel like it's a big deal serious issue. I think if figure out the alignment thing and maybe some stretches and what-not I'll get over this without the whole medical intervention blah-blah. I don't know. Meh. But I figure continuing to try to run when I can feel I'm not really walking *right* is out of the question.

But what it really means is that, unless something BIG changes, I'm not going to be able to run in the race this month. And I'm not going to be able to run the Nike 10K that I hoped to do. And ... I'm afraid I might never become a real runner.

Which discourages me a lot. I don't want to give up on this new found thing just yet. I don't want an injury or alignment problem to defeat me. But I was already struggling to make time to run once school started. And winter is coming, with it's cold and snow and ice. How will I make it through the winter and into spring as a "real runner" ??

I just don't know.

Rats.