Hello, hammy.

What I thought was my groin talking to me yesterday was actually my left hamstring.  It might sound strange, but I'm terribly relieved at that.  Groin strains are HORRENDOUS and take forever to heal.  Hamstrings can be much easier to deal with.  I had Tim beat the crap out of it (as in massage/Graston) last night, so it was quite sore today.  It's the inner hammy and up close to my butt.  I still have to watch it...but I jogged about a half mile earlier (sorry, couldn't help it), and it felt fine...just a little sore but no sharp pain and nothing changing my stride.  But I'm listening to it, don't worry.  At this point, I will not push through anything.  I have a double run tomorrow of 7 and 6.  If I'm at all concerned, I'll scrap the 6.

I saw Dr. L again today.  Two more cortisone injections.  I found out you cannot have your diaphragm muscle injected (that whole thing about being too close to the lungs...).  And that is right where my problem is.  Now, I still think I need to have surgery.  However, I was thinking that if he injected the area I might get temporary relief.  He got as close to the diaphragm as he could (up under my ribs, even) and injected an entire 10 ml of cortisone/lidocaine.  He did the same on the spot on the left where I have the most pain.  I'm not at all expecting it to work.  I had the appointment so I decided to try it one more time.  We'll see.  I will say that, in my half mile test run, I didn't even notice it...but the lidocaine is still working.  I have an appointment with a general surgeon (Dr. Hadad) on Monday--simply to discuss my case.  He knows about my situation, and has offered to talk about surgical options as far as at least exploring what's going on in there.

Tim is having a scary issue with his foot.  He's had a pain on the left outer edge for about a month, but it came and went and he usually didn't feel it while running, just after.  However, after his tempo last night, as he was cooling down he got a very sharp pain in that area.  So sharp he couldn't keep running.  He had to get a ride home.  It's one specific spot on the lateral side of his foot.  Doesn't hurt to move his foot around as far as fanning the toes, etc., but hurts with weight bearing activities.  Of course, you can imagine what we're fearing:  a stress fracture.  The good news is that the metatarsal, the 5th one, is not commonly fractured via repetitive stress.  I've massaged it, and it does feel a little crunchy (as in tendonitis), but I'm not taking the butter knife to it just in case it's a fracture.  What's concerning to me is that it's one very small area (dime-sized) that is painful.  He'll call tomorrow for an appointment. Fingers crossed.