My Running Era, Take 2

Back in 2011, my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to start running together.

Running was the movement practice of the moment (yes, movement practices go through trends, just like clothes). Almost everyone I knew was a runner, too. Fancy stores exclusively dedicated to running gear started opening in our little town.  Running was the THING.

So we decided to run.  We bought the Couch to 5K program, and got running.  

And immediately, my left hip started to hurt.  But I thought, “maybe it will feel better later”, so I kept going.

But it never got better.  It didn’t feel good during a run, and it didn’t feel good afterward.  It hurt so badly - that as Sam and I progressed through the program - I often had to stop because my hip just couldn’t do it.

But I kept trying.  I tried all the way through October of 2012 before I gave up.  I’m not sure why I held on that long.  I didn’t like it, and I didn’t feel good doing it.  

This year, I decided to try running with my oldest son. He decided to join the cross country team at his school again. He wanted to start training a few weeks before school started, but he didn’t want to run by himself.

The first day, we decided to try running for just ten minutes.  Short and sweet.  We took a brisk 5-minute walk to warm up, and then we went for it.  Immediately, my right hip felt weird.  It sort of felt like my hip shifted out of place.  And then, my right quad got really loud.  Five minutes in, I had to stop.  We walked, and then ran for five more minutes.  

When I got home, I stretched.  I took a shower.

And for the rest of the day, my right quad would not relax. I rolled it, I stretched it, and it just would not calm down.

The next day was a little better, but it was still aggravated.  

So, I reached out to my private yoga teacher, who is also a physical therapist and a runner herself.  

She suggested I foam roll BEFORE my run, and gave me a dynamic warm up to do at home first.  And, I bought Couch to 5K (again), because while my son can easily run for long periods of time without stopping, I don’t think my body is quite ready for that.

And since then, my runs have been feeling good!  No pain in my hip, no quad problems.

In my work as a private yoga teacher, I find more often than not, it’s not the pose itself that is the problem.  Maybe we need to tweak the position of the feet.  Maybe we need to tweak the position of the shoulders.  Maybe a prop or two helps.  Maybe the student needs a longer warm up to achieve the shape without pain.  Maybe the warm up needs to be a little more focused on specific muscle groups to prep the body for the pose.   Maybe we need to change the relationship to gravity.  For instance, in Downdog, does it feel better with hands on a wall?  Or with their back on the floor?

Sometimes your body isn’t telling you that a pose or movement is off-limits. It’s telling you that it needs something different to get there.

And that’s one of the things I love about working with students one-on-one. We have the time and space to figure out what your body needs, rather than just deciding that a particular pose “isn’t for you.”

Sometimes a small adjustment makes all the difference.

-Mary