by Kara Goucher | Aug 11, 2011 |

Well, as you might already know, I suffered a bit of a blow a couple of weeks ago. After three weeks of great workouts and altitude training, I was a week away from what I thought would be a PR effort in a 5k in London. Unfortunately, nothing in life is ever guaranteed.

I’ve had a sore left hip/TFL/IT band since Colt was born. I’ve been running 120 miles a week on it, ran a 2:24 marathon with it, and qualified for the World Championships with it, so I haven’t worried about it too much. I foam roll a lot and get massage and ART to keep it under control. It has been annoying and irritating, but nothing serious. Until recently. After USA’s I threw myself into speed work. Lifting my knees and sprinting all-out is something that I haven’t done since 2009. It was exhilarating and I started to get aggressive in workouts and started to really dream about big track goals again. All the while, my hip was getting a little bit more sore. Nothing to stop me, but it took longer to warm up, took more effort from the massage therapist to loosen it up, and I went from a foam roller to rolling on a hard ball.

About two and a half weeks ago I started to develop a new pain on the front of my leg over a few days of hard speed work. By the time Alberto came out to Utah to watch my last hard session before flying out to London, I couldn’t warm up my hip at all. It had switched from an annoying tightness to something that was clearly not right and too serious too keep running on. We flew back to Portland and I got an MRI. I was shell shocked with the results: a stress reaction in my femoral neck.