Gait deformity

I know that I have always been a very uncoordinated person. I was never good at any sport, I cannot dance, I cannot do anything well that requires me to move my muscles in a certain way. Remember, I'm the girl who kicked the soccer ball over her head and into my own goal? I just knew my inability to move my body was a fact of life, and instead of spending my school years playing sports, I focused on getting a 4.0 and practicing the piano everyday. I wasn't upset about my innate lack of coordination; I simply did things I was good at and left those things I am not good at alone.

And then I started running last year. I knew my running form was not ideal. I read many books and articles about proper running biomechanics, and I tried to implement what I had learned. But I still had problems. Every race I've been in my IT band started hurting around mile 10. Last year I had a stress fracture in my right tibia right before my race in Las Vegas. This year I thought my training was going really well for the Seattle Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon. I knew this was my time to do a sub-2-hour half marathon. And then about a month ago, I learned I had problems. Big problems.

When we were in Newport for Mark's race, I was having some pain in my left hip area that I attributed to possibly a strained hip flexor muscle. I took the following week off of running and the pain progressively got worse. By Saturday, I went to the Urgent Care because I could not even walk or lift that leg. I knew it was not a muscle issue, but rather a skeletal issue.

An MRI determined that indeed I had a skeletal issue. A stress fracture/injury on the left femoral neck. Not only was there this issue, but also another stress injury on the pubic bone, moderate bursitis of the greater trochanters, sacroiliitis, and muscle tears to the hamstrings and gluteus medius at their attachment to the ilium, all greater on the left than the right.

Pretty much, the way I run is beating up the left side of my body. And it's all because I am completely uncoordinated. Or as the physical therapist nicely says it, I have a "gait deformity." My left hip had no muscular strength, and there was nothing to take the pounding of running except for my poor femur. I underuse my quads (which normally power any runner) and overuse my hamstrings and gluteus medius. I had virtually no quad strength. Basically, I run backward. I use the wrong muscles at the wrong time. I also do this when I walk. I also learned I use the wrong muscles to breathe. I use the breathe-in muscles to breathe out, and vice versa.

I had to sit out the Seattle race, of course. I found a great physical therapist who is doing a fabulous job of putting together all the pieces of my puzzle and figuring out exactly what I was doing to cause my troubles, and what muscles I need to strengthen to make sure it doesn't happen again. Lunges, squats and the Bosu ball are my new best friends. In two weeks, he will get me on the treadmill and try to help me get over my gait deformity and start engaging the muscles God intended for me to use while running.

Last weekend in Seattle I thought I would be really sad to see Mark, Abram and Jacob running the race without me. But I was fine. The rest of that story will be in the next post.