Date: 10/16/21 – 10/17/21
Training Day: 33 & 34
Miles: 2.7 (running) + 14 (backpacking)
Shoes: Altra Paradigm 5 & Chacos
Weather: Warm and sunny

How It Felt: The run felt pretty good, the first day of backpacking sucked balls, and the second day was alright.

Commentary: Friday afternoon I had my first PT appointment for my hip. I rambled on about all the aches, pains and weird feelings I had associated with my hip. I also included other random tidbits of knowledge that I wasn’t sure was relevant, but decided to tell my PT doc about anyway. It went something like this…

“My hip hurts, but not really painful, just more uncomfortable. And when I stretch a certain way, my hip flexor hurts. My quad and glute get sore and fatigued sometimes just from walking normally. But all this stuff doesn’t happen all the time, just sometimes. I’ve also noticed that when running my ground contact time balance is off when I go faster, like I spend more time on my left foot than right foot, if that makes sense. And there’s also this tweaky feeling at the bottom of my spine and the top of my butt.”

Somehow my PT doc used all that babbling to figure out what was likely wrong with me. The pelvis is made up of multiple bones, and it’s possible for one side to tilt while the other remains in place. After noticing that my right leg appeared longer than the left, he thought the right side of my pelvis was probably tilted.

So, we did an exercise that’s hard to describe, and after doing it a few times my legs appeared to be equal length again and my right hip felt heaps better. He seemed pretty excited about it, and so did I. Perhaps this has been the underlying problem with my right side this whole time!

Anyway, Saturday morning I did my PT exercises before my run, and my hip and right leg in general felt a lot better. Then my husband and I got all our stuff together to go backpacking with friends to a hot spring.

Remember how we got a big snow around here early in the week? Well, it was mostly melted, and that made the trail muddy as hell. We slipped and slid through the mud almost the entire way to the hot spring. Mud caked our footwear. And we were all getting sore and tired from trying to keep our balance as we walked.

I was absolutely fucking miserable.

At one point I felt beyond whooped, like I hit a wall. I realized I probably didn’t take in enough calories or carbs on Friday to make up for my carb-depleting run. I scarfed down my fig bars, and a friend donated a Cliff Bar to my cause. The mud still sucked ass, and I still bitched way too much, but I felt better.

The hot spring was awesome, just like the last time we were there. The company was good, the water was hot, and our group had it to ourselves.

The hike out this morning was infinitely better than the hike in yesterday. We also took a different route. It had more water crossings, but it was flatter and had a lot less mud. By the time we got back to the truck I was in good spirits.

And I talked my running coach into making Mondays off days again so I can recover from the weekend. After the mud fiasco, I am beyond grateful I have tomorrow off.

Adventures Training Journal backpacking cross training exercise garmin hiking hot springs journal physicaltherapy running strength trail running training