I ran four miles on Sunday, which I normally wouldn’t be excited about, especially since my marathon training schedule had me down for 17 that day. We’re now nine weeks from the New York City Marathon, and I’m running without pain (fingers crossed) for the first time since the spring. Over the last few months, I started noticing some soreness in my left hip when running, but with enough stretching, it always seemed to go away.

After running the Mayor’s Half Marathon in Anchorage in June, though, it was clear something had happened. I was in a lot of pain after the race, and couldn’t run for a few weeks. Since Mt. Marathon was mostly a lot of brisk walking uphill, I wasn’t bothered, which was lucky, but by the time we moved and I started running in New Haven, I was able to go shorter and shorter distances before the pain would become too much. I’d get ambitious and run out into East Rock Park only to get lost somewhere around the construction on State Street and have to limp three miles home.

Once we got our insurance coverage back at the beginning of August, I set up a physical therapy appointment and started getting some help. Lots of stretching and targeted exercises, and with them came the realization that I’ve been pretty lucky so far with my all running, all the time regimen. It’s a minor miracle I haven’t run into something like this before, and I really need to diversify my training. Hopefully I’ll escape with a warning this time, and will take the hint in the future.

I’m way behind on my initial training regimen, and won’t have enough time to get in the miles everyone says you should before November 3. I’m not worried about my pace at this point, but I just hope I’m able to start, and run, and finish, and I’ll engage in an experiment to see exactly how much training is really needed before a marathon.