My ass

Watching Sunday's running of the London Marathon, in which Britain's darling Paula Radcliffe blazed to her third victory, I sighed and gazed down at this useless appendage known as my "left leg". I also thought of Snowy Cat and Roggles running in the 2005 Vancouver Sun Run. I remember what running in Stanley Park was like, especially on those days when I was cruising along in the sea air, feeling strong, fast, and elated.

I'm not a stranger to running injuries, but I've always found that they can be resolved expediently with stretching and rest (and having the proper shoes, which in my case include orthotics). But here I am, suffering a 6-month old throbbing pain in my left hamstring/butt area, that hinders me every time I run slow and maims me when I run fast. I've had this pain before, not when training but often after a hard race. It beleaguered both of my legs for the final 8km of the 2003 Victoria 1/2 marathon, after which I didn't run for a month. But it resolved. In the Spring of 2004 I was training without pain, but in races (SunRun, Squamish Tri, Sri Chinmoy Tri, Langley Run-in-some-sketchy-Forest) the mysterious "ass pain" returned. It usually went away in a few days.

Not anymore, I'm afraid. I haven't been able to run without suffering since October of last year, despite regular stretching. My left leg is gimped and constantly sore. The pain is under my butt on the left side, sometimes aching down into my hamstring. The right side is totally fine. What to do? It's amusing to read advice about "cutting your mileage down to less than 50km a week..." Ha ha! I've never run more than 30km in one week, I would venture. I run maybe 2 times a week, 3 at the most, and I always warm up and stretch. I try to run on forgiving surfaces. I have proper shoes. I swim. I cycle. I do yoga. I pray. But something is still amiss. I'm spending lots of my time doing strange stretches like this:



This is known as the ass-twisting-mantis-pose (at least by me).

I'm finally seeing a physiotherapist under the British NHS. She's been helpful, but we're uncertain what my diagnosis is. Since the pain goes down my hamstring, the standard assumption is that I have sciatica (messed up spinal disks causing woeful nerve issues down the legs), but for various reasons I doubt that diagnosis is correct. A more likely cause is "piriformis syndrome", where a small muscle deep in your butt called the piriformis gets inflamed/torn from running and ends up jamming against your sciatic nerve, resulting in sciatica-like symptoms. But I think the most likely cause is a chronic muscle-tear (also known as a muscle knot) at the high end of my left hamstring. A fantastic book that Ms Muppet bought for me (T Noakes & S Granger, Running Injuries (Oxford Uni Press, 2003)) describes well the symptoms that I'm struggling with. One rather depressing element is that "the pain will not pass with rest ... the only effective remedy is cross-friction treatments". I understand that such treatments consist of deep massage and deep agony. Give me the agony, I say!

Running without pain is a beautiful thing. It's transcendental in a way that swimming and cycling are not. On the positive side, my swimming and cycling have improved while I've been away from running. My 500m swim time is getting close to sub-9 minutes, which for me is a stellar achievement! I'll be part of the Oxford Uni Triathlon team competing on May 1 at the British Universities Sports Association Triathlon. It's sprint distance (750m swim, 22km bike, 5km run) so I should be able to limp through the 5km in 25 or 26 minutes. My goal of a sub-20 run will have to wait for another year... or perhaps forever?

For now, the people of North Oxford will continue to be disturbed by random cries of "my ass!" echoing from our apartment.