22 days to go! I completed my morning run, testing the limits of my hip pain. I have slowed my pace and backed off the mileage. But I have to see how my body reacts to running, and see if I can condition it to account for the new hip issue.

I am happy to report that the run went well. Nothing like cool, fall-like temperatures to keep the body from overheating. And I developed a new strategy for dealing with the hip injury.

My theory is that the injury on the right side of my body is a result of my left leg being tingly and numb-like during my runs. I think I unconsciously hit my left side harder, since there was less resistance. If you can’t feel your toes, then what harm is there in putting more weight on the left side during a run? It takes the pressure off the fully functional right leg, after all. It helps stretch the endurance factor. And if you can’t feel the pressure, there can’t be pain, right? Sure.

While you would think this could cause problems with my left leg, it seems (maybe) that it threw off my balance, my posture, and my stride, putting stress on my hips. Resulting in (you guessed it) pain in the right hip.

I tested my completely unscientific, non-medically-verified hypothesis this morning, by doing the opposite of what my body wanted to do. Instead of hitting my left leg harder, I made a conscious effort to hit the right side harder. If my body wants to give in to peer pressure and force me to lean left, then I’m going to train it to do the opposite: to lean right.

Now, if my hypothesis is right, I won’t actually be leaning right–I’ll just be returning to normal balance and posture. I will return my body to the position it should be in when I run.

Now I’ll be thinking, “Just Run…Just Run…and Lean to the Right….”

Seemed to work well this morning. Fingers crossed that both my hypothesis and proposed solution are right.