Yesterday I went to a free injury screening at Fleet Feet Nashville. They hold 15 minute sessions twice a month to see if your running injuries are serious or not.

I first spoke with Dr. Clarke Holmes from Impact Sports Medicine. I explained my two problem areas to him: my soleus strain (which seems to be doing better) and the pain in my upper thigh/groin area (which seems to be getting worse). He first told me to hop on my left leg (the side with the groin pain). I probably looked at him like he was crazy because it pretty much kills me to do anything with that leg. But I did it, grimacing the whole time. Then he had me lie down and he tried bending my leg in a variety of ways, none of which hurt. Then he poked at my soleus, which almost caused me to scream once.

He concluded that I may have a stress fracture in my hip causing the groin pain. He said that I should have an X-ray and/or MRI done to rule that out because if it was a stress fracture, then continuing to run on it would make it worse and I would need surgery. He said he thought there was about a 60% chance that I didn’t. Not very comforting.

Source: www.orthogate.org

He seemed to agree with my assessment of my calf and didn’t seem overly concerned about it, though he did mention the possibility of a stress fracture there too.

Next I saw the physical therapist, Perry Smith from Pro Motion Physical Therapy. He had me stand straight and poked at my hips a bit. Apparently they are misaligned and this is probably what is causing my injuries. Hearing that my posture was a little messed up was not a super surprise to me, since I’m pretty sure that carrying a heavy backpack on only my left shoulder all those years messed it up. (For example, I’ve never been able to carry a purse on my right shoulder. It just slides off.) I was a little sad that my Wii lies to me though.

Today I learned that having a perfect center of balance does not mean that your posture is awesome.

So I guess no more running till I see about my hip. Assuming that I actually don’t have a stress fracture, I will gingerly continue 10k training and then probably take some time off. Of course, if I do have one, time off is the only option.