I ran my 9th annual Turkey Trot at the YMCA on Thanksgiving morning. Before the race I was helping set out cones on the streets for the turns and then I was assigned to help the high school runners and walkers get with their teams and get their bibs and shirts. There was a big competition of high schools in the county. Each High School had a leader who had the bibs and t-shirts for their kids and I directed them to the high school area and made sure they got to their leader. It was very strenuous work! (not really!) Then it was time to turkey trot! I ran the 10K option. I was zipping right along faster than I ever expected to. My first three miles were 8:41, 8:38, 8:48. That would put me at 26:something for the first 5K. I ran past the finish line (the 10K is two loops of the 5K) to start the second half of my race. I decided that I'd keep this pace as long as I could. My fourth mile came in at 8:57. I was feeling something in my inner thigh; I didn't know what it was. It wasn't hurting but it felt funny. Somewhere around 4.5 miles everything came to a huge halt. I don't know what happened but all of a sudden it hurt BAD. I came to a stop and walked about a half of a block. Crowds of people were passing me and people were saying to hang in there and keep it up and good job and stuff like that. I began to ease back into running but I was totally limping but it got better and I did eventually get back to a somewhat normal running stride again, although much slower. My fifth mile came in at 9:26. Then out of nowhere my friend, Gilbert, from Wednesday track workouts in the summer came up behind me and zipped right by me. I would have beat him if not for this pulled muscle. I rarely beat him, he is usually just a bit ahead of me. That last mile was a painful 9 minutes and 28 seconds. I finally finished.
After running, I helped with cleaning up the packet pick up/registration area which was right next to the food area where I removed full garbage bags and replaced them with empty garbage bags! (such glamorous work!)
When I got home there was no time to google inner thigh muscle pulls or anything like that. I had to get showered and ready to go to dinner number one! I wore compression shorts under my clothes. I had to wear a pair of corduroy pants that are a little big on me so the compression shorts would fit under them. It hurt pretty bad the rest of the day. We had dinner with my Mother-in-law and then in the late afternoon headed to my sister's house in Lansing for more food and desserts. My parents were there and they really wanted to see my kids. It was a total pig out day.
My brother-in-law is a professor at MSU and he always invites foreign students over on Thanksgiving. There were 5 students who were from China, Thailand, Russia, and India. Around 7:30 PM the students said they had to get going because the stores were opening at 8PM and they wanted to go shopping on Thanksgiving like the Americans do!! They were really excited about it! They were all very nice and very polite.
When I got home I was able to do some googling and came to the conclusion that I had pulled an Adductor muscle. There were some tests to do. One was to lay on my back and place a box or some object between my knees and push inward on the object with my knees. The pain was exactly where the article described for an Adductor muscle pull. The other thing was to lay on my sore side with my leg straight on the floor and the other leg (the top leg) over the lower leg with my foot on the floor. I then lifted the bottom leg off the floor. It took great effort to lift it which meant that the adductor muscle was weak. I then turned to the other side and was able to very easily lift my other leg off the floor with no effort at all.
Soooooo, what to do? I have a stretch to do but not until there is no pain. It should heal with rest within a week. This is bad - I can't run after a major pig out day. I had planned to run 10 on the following Saturday but didn't run at all. Hopefully I will be able to pick up where I left off this coming Saturday.
I did not run all week. It hurt for about three days and then didn't hurt anymore so I started the stretch. I ran tonight at the group run and it seemed to be fine, it didn't hurt at all. I ran 3.5 miles. This is encouraging. Now to see how it goes on Saturday. I think I will just do 6 miles.
Runner Nerd
pulled a muscle
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