This past week was quite a roller coaster, both physically and emotionally. Living in the D.C. area, there was the obvious emotional roller coaster associated with the uncertainty of whether a government shutdown would happen, and now we’re facing the first weekday of the shutdown. Physically, I dealt with some unexplained lower body pain during the second half of the week. I don’t want to say for certain until I visit my chiropractor this afternoon, but I’m thinking that I pulled a muscle in my groin.
Needless to say, last week was not that week that I had hoped for.
Monday, January 15th
I kicked off the week with a gym session, where I spent 35 minutes on the elliptical followed by 30 minutes of full body weight training.
Tuesday, January 16th
I had to talk myself into going for my first run of the week. It was one of those days when I really didn’t want to run, and would have rather curled up on the couch when I got home from work. But I resisted the temptation and was so glad that I did in fact go for my run.
Wednesday, January 17th
My groin pain didn’t start until almost the end of the school day, but by the time I left school I was in so much pain that I could barely walk. I cannot pinpoint an exact moment when the pain started, or if I did something specific to cause the pain. The only thing that I can think of that would have possibly caused it to start on Wednesday would have been slipping on the strap of a student’s backpack and rushing to catch myself. Needless to say, the pain was so bad that I struggled to walk around Target after work.
Thursday, January 18th
After a painful Wednesday afternoon and evening I woke up Thursday morning to find that the pain had gone away. I didn’t have to deal with any pain until the last hour or so of the school day, but since the pain came back I opted to skip my run that evening.
Friday, January 19th
Although the pain didn’t come back at all on Friday, I decided that instead of trying to make up my missed workout that I’d rest again in hopes of still being able to complete my long run the next day.
Saturday, January 20th
Another day of no pain, so I decided that I would still complete my planned long run. Although my energy and endurance diminished during the second half of my run, I didn’t experience any pain and was able to run all 6.2 miles that I had on my training calendar.

Yay for a beautiful morning for a long run!
Sunday, January 21st
Since it hit 62 degrees Sunday afternoon, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a 3.49 mile family walk. We all enjoyed the time that we got to spend outside on a very unusually warm January afternoon.

The entire family was so happy to be able to get outside for an afternoon walk.
Sunday evening I did 25 minutes of lower body and abdominal strength training. Unfortunately during the last couple of minutes of my workout I started to experience some groin pain again, though it was nothing like what I had experienced earlier in the week.
Total Weekly Mileage – 17.71 miles (8.00 miles less than week 4)
Total Princess Half Marathon Mileage – 98.68 miles
QOTD: How do you mentally and physically deal with unexplained pain?
I’m linking up with Holly from HoHo Runs and Wendy from Taking the Long Way Home for the Weekly Wrap link up. Be sure to check out their posts as well.
Great week of workouts! Sorry to hear about your groin pain 😦
I do hope that the government shutdown doesn’t last past today. It’s just all so frustrating.
Thank goodness they came to a short term agreement but I don’t have much confidence that this won’t happen again in 3 weeks.
So sorry about your groin pain but I’m glad it’s better! Sounds like you had a great week of workouts anyway! 🙂
All I could do was do my best, and that’s what I did.
Oooh! I wonder what you pulled? I’m having some groin pain and it comes and goes too. It definitely feels muscular–I’m hoping not a hernia. Ugh.
Hope that you feel better soon too.
You had a good week despite the groin pain–it does sound like the slip on the student’s backpack strap is the culprit. Hopefully nothing major. How great to have gotten out for your family walk in the spring-like weather!
We all enjoyed our time outside together in the absolutely beautiful weather.
That whole area- groin on the inside and outside hip- so tricky and problematic! Hope it gets better soon- so nice to get out and just enjoy these warmer days even for a walk, mid-winter isn’t it?!
Oh it absolutely is.
Ugh, the pain sounds horrible, sorry it came back. Hopefully the chiropractor can help out 🙂
The chiro was able to help provide some relief on Monday. Hopefully I’m on the mend!
Unexplained pain is the absolute worst! I feel much better (or at least, much calmer) about aches and pains when I know what I did to make it happen. The random ones make me so much more nervous and frustrated! I hope you’re able to get to the bottom of it quickly and that it will clear up as suddenly as it came on.
That’s exactly part of why I’m frustrated by this pain right now. I wish I knew exactly what caused it!
ouch! That pain sounds nasty! That’s a touchy area because it can affect every movement you do…hope it’s nothing major.
Just walking was so incredibly painful for a couple of days.
Glad to see a fellow runner in training for Princess! When I have weird unexplained pain, I rest it and ice it. If it doesn’t stop, I go to the dr. if all else fails. Happy training!
Good luck with your Princess training!
Hip flexors are tricky. There are some core exercises I can’t do because they start to aggravate the hip flexor I pulled a couple summers ago. I hope your chiropractor can help.
My chiro was able to help relieve some of the pain, thank goodness.
Ugh! I’m so sorry you got hurt!
You did the right thing, though, by listening to your body, taking it easy and letting yourself recover. It’s such a hard thing to do, but I’m sure you saved yourself from things getting worse.
Me? I’m not patient. Nor am I even remotely reasonable.
Its so hard to listen to our bodies and take the extra rest that it sometimes needs.
Yikes @ the groin pain! Also, WOW @ the pain going away. Good on you for giving yourself extra rest!
Listening to our bodies isn’t always the easiest thing to do, especially when we’re very motivated to want to work out.
I’m sorry you have been having some groin pain! Great job on your runs as workouts for the week! Hope you are feeling better this week. I can’t beliver Princess weekend is right around the corner! I can’t wait!
Less than a month to go!!!!!!!!! 🙂
Great way to push through the week. Well, I’ve learned to NEVER look at WebMD when trying to figure out an ailment … LOL! I usually go through my checks of whether I’ve allotted enough time to foam rolling and mobility stretching before and after. I’m usually good with before … tend to brush past the after. Do you stretch your psoas muscle? I’m wondering if that may resemble groin pain. Great post, thanks for the motivation.
I’ve been taking extra time to work on stretching since the pain first started.
Random injuries really bother me and annoy me more than ones I can explain. I hope it doesn’t appear again.
Its so frustrating when you have no idea what the culprit was!
Oh yikes, that doesn’t sound fun! I’m glad it didn’t become anything serious, though. You did the right thing by taking a few days off for sure.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do mentally but I know that it was the right decision.
Oh no! Sorry to hear about the groin pain. That’s so crazy how quickly it came on. I hope it vanishes for you soon.
Its slowly getting better, and hopefully it’ll be 100% gone sooner than later.
oh no! I hope this groin pain goes away for you or you can at least pinpoint what is going on so you can correct it. I wonder if you tweaked something during your slip? Our students are not allowed to bring coats or backpacks to class. Now I can understand how they can be hazardous!
I wish that I could institute a policy like that, but its so hard when we don’t have enough lockers for every student at our school.
that happened to me once a few years ago randomly. Get some extra rest and heal up
That’s what I’m currently doing.
Glad you are feeling better! It sounds like you were still able to make the most of your week despite the setback.
I did the best that I could and that’s all that I can ask of myself.
That’s the same pain I have right now (hip joint pain). It’s horrible at times but getting it sorted out at physio.
Hope that you feel better soon as well!
I’m sorry to hear this. I’ve pulled my groin before. I was running with my dog and a kid came over to pet her. I did every move possible to avoid stepping on her as she crossed in front of me to get away from the kid. I can report it will heal with adequate rest. Thanks for linking.
Thanks for the support. I’m hoping that I’ll eventually be pain free. Fingers crossed!
I’m sorry to hear about the pain 😦 That’s happened to me before as well, and it’s never fun. Hopefully it starts feeling better next week!
It is, thank goodness.
Oh no! So sorry you dealt with pain last week!! I hope you’re feeling better this week. I imagine that’s the last thing you’d like to be dealing with.
Exactly!
Oh I hope the problem is cleared up quickly for you! I knew there was a reason I spend half my life telling my students to keep their stuff off the ground and on their hook!!!
Its so frustrating when they don’t realize the safety issues involved with just throwing their stuff all over the place in the classroom.
groin pain is awful 😦 I’m so sorry that happened! luckily it didn’t last long. I have good days and bad days with my foot but that’s pretty liveable. Unexpected pain is tough. I’m also a sport massage practitioner so I do a lot of stretching and use a lot of muscle cream if it’s something that might help (hard with the groin). But I’ve had groin issues from a step in a pothole whilst running and it really threw me for a loop. Fingers crossed it’s not something that will come back anytime soon!
Thankfully after a couple of visits with the chiropractor the pain seems to be well under control.
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