A new challenge

On the morning of June 29, I went out early and ran a comfortable, pain-free 10K. But by that night my back had tightened up severely, to the point where I could barely move. A few days later, when I consulted a doctor, he put me on a regimen of Aleve and ice, and referred me to a local physical therapy organization. I made good progress with the therapists, whose conclusions were somewhat complex. They found that a muscle in my back (the "QL muscle," or quadratus laborum) had tightened up, thus "hiking up" my right hip considerably higher than the left. This, in effect, shortened the leg, and altered my gait, compressing and weakening the joint between two lower vertebrae. I could not run for most all of July, only beginning with a short, easy 3-mile run on July 31, and since then have kept to short runs (at their recommendation), but am making gradual progress, and ran 3 miles again on each of August 11-14 to mark the first time I've been able to run four consecutive days since June 23-26.

Running again!

Having been laid low by back pain, I just yesterday was able to return to running (with the approval of my physical therapist) for the first time since June 29. I only did a short and slow run of 2.1 miles ... but it felt good to be out there again! The consensus was that my right hip was hiked up way higher than the left (due to a tightening of the QL, or quadratus laborum, muscle), thus shortening that leg and altering my gait. This caused a weakness in the joint between two of my lower vertebrae. We're now working on it.
This picture shows my running form at a MUCH younger age - doing the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday, September 30, 1984, when I was just a whelp of 27.