In my last post, I talked a lot about how I've been focused on stepping back from running to rebuild a better foundation through cross training. Through November, December and January, I had found a pretty consistent pattern of strength training, yoga and swimming.



February was kind of crazy for me and a lot of that fell by the wayside, as I juggled other responsibilities. Even after just a few short weeks of no strength training, I could tell things with my hip were on the slippery slope to a backslide.

So I decided to make a better effort in March, and once I got back from my Japan trip, I feel like I did a good job of that.

As I try to gently begin increasing my running mileage, I'm shuffling a few things in my schedule and trying to figure out which workouts fit best on which days.

I don't have it figured out perfectly yet, but the last several weeks have looked something like this:

• Monday - Strength training
• Wednesday/Friday - A short run
• Saturday - Swimming
• Sunday  - Rest day

Tuesday and Thursday are toss-up days. Sometimes I do a yoga or barre class or sometimes depending what's going on that week, I just take a walk or a rest day. These are the days I'd like to try to be more strategic about when it comes to my workouts. But I'm still trying to figure out what works best each week.

I'd eventually like to bump my running back up to three days per week, but for right now, two days seems to be where my hip is happy.

So that's where I am as I slowly rebuild and try to get my running back. It's a very humbling journey.

It was just about one year ago that I was out in Las Vegas with my best friend, squeezing in some long early morning runs on the Strip. During our long weekend there, I did runs of six and eight miles.



I was still in fairly good shape coming off the half marathon I did in March, and I was looking forward to carrying that fitness into Chicago Marathon training that was set to kick off in May or June.

My Vegas runs felt great, except every time I finished, my left hip was insanely tight. It hadn't yet reach a point of full on pain, and it didn't really hurt when I was actually running, but the post-run tightness made it uncomfortable to stand up and sit down.

I was trying to stretch it in hopes that it would go away, but when we got back from the trip, I decided to call my friend Dan, a physical therapist in the city.

I wanted to nip any early soreness in the bud before it developed into a full blown thing and totally derailed my marathon plans.

If you've been following along for a while now, you know that even though I started going to PT twice per week after that, my hip got worse, not better.

Despite all the stretching and strengthening, the injury exploded. It hurt to walk, so my commute to work became incredibly painful. Running was completely out of the picture. Spinning was a non-starter and even yoga wasn't comfortable.

I benched myself for a lot of my summer softball league because moving was painful.

Every time, we felt like we were making a tiny bit of progress in PT, I'd have some annoying backslide. It got so bad that I willingly let them try dry needling. I almost passed out the first time because I don't get along with needles.



My primary care physician on the recommendation of my PT sent me for an MRI. The scan wasn't conclusive, but it suggested I could possibly have a torn labrum, so I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon.

My orthopedic surgeon ran me through similar tests that I had been through in PT. Nothing he saw convinced him that I had a torn labrum. He put me on a super strong anti-inflammatory medicine, which meant I spent basically all of August not able to drink.


Going on a beach trip with friends and not being able to have a single drink was a bummer.

The medicine didn't help, so we tried a cortisone shot and hip arthrogram (basically a special MRI with contrast).



The cortisone helped a bit, and the second MRI said there could also be a torn labrum. The only solution for that is surgery, and my orthopedic surgeon was pretty against it. Every time he tested to see if I had any pain in movement that would have been consistent with a torn labrum, nothing hurt. He felt strongly that surgery wasn't a good option, because he might get in there and not find anything wrong.

I was not eager to jump into surgery, but I was eager to solve the problem, so I had mixed feelings at his reluctance. I had spent the summer miserable and frustrated and now we were well in to the fall and nothing seemed to be getting better.

My doctor decided to put me on an oral steroid to see if that helped.



I'm pretty certain it was magic because all of a sudden my hip pain was pretty much gone. I had much larger range of motion and basic movements like walking and getting in and out of my car didn't hurt anymore.

I went for a run in the fall for the first time in months and I actually cried happy tears because nothing hurt. I think I only went about a mile, but I was so happy.

I tried to incorporate some more running here and there throughout the late fall and early winter. I realized that while my hip didn't hurt, I was still having major issues with my glute and hamstring. My left foot would basically flop around like a dead fish at the end of my leg before hitting the pavement.



I'm pretty positive the glute, hamstring, hip stuff was all related, and it took a pretty aggressive steroid to knock out the inflammation so I could get a better sense of the whole picture.

Since my runs were not overly productive and I was worried about causing my hip to flare up again, I decided to put myself on a running hiatus through the winter. I don't love running in the cold anyway, and I'd sort of gotten used to not being able to run, so this wasn't as hard for me to cope with as it might normally have been.

I decided to spend winter focused on cross-training. I very specifically wanted to have a good mix of swimming and my barre3 classes that basically mimicked my PT exercises. I also threw in some yoga from time to time and a really rare spin class.



There were times when I was extremely consistent with my cross training, and then other times when I wasn't so great about it, but I think the last several months have helped me build a shaky, but at least sort of existent foundation on which to gradually re-introduce running.

I have run a handful of times in the last two weeks. All the runs have been short -- between 1-3 miles (except for that one day I did five on a whim because I felt good), and all have included lots and lots of walking.

One of my friends that I used to race with asked me about doing a 10K sometime this year. To me that seems like a good goal to work toward. I'm nowhere close to that right now though, and that's really hard for me at times. My running fitness used to consistently be at a point where on any given weekend I could run a half marathon.

I am a long way away from that now. It's not all this injury's fault. My couple of years in grad school definitely decreased my fitness levels, but now I'm truly starting at square one. There are days when running just a single mile feels impossible.



Now that I'm hopefully moving beyond this injury, I'm trying to find the positives: I didn't have to have surgery. I've been forced to focus on cross-training, which is good for helping with muscle imbalances and preventing future injuries. I found that swim class that I'm loving.

But I'm also nervous. I'm nervous that as I add mileage back in my hip will hurt again. I'm nervous that we never really solved the problem and that this is still a temporary fix (even though it's been almost five months since I took that oral steroid). I don't want to go through another year of all of this.

And while those nerves and that fear bounces around in my head, there's not much I can do about it. I mean I guess I could never run again, but that would make me pretty sad. So really all I can do is try to add running in slowly and smartly and then cross my fingers and hope for the best.

So as I mentioned in my February books post, I lost my Kindle on the flight to Japan, which means I lost many valuable hours of reading time on the remainder of the trip and during the long flight home.

I was trying to be zen about it in the beginning, but by the end of the trip I was pretty antsy to be able to read a book.

Perhaps that's why I was still somehow able to read five books in March. I clearly made up for all the missed reading once we got home.



First Comes Love by Emily Giffin
I used to be a huge fan of Emily Giffin and couldn't wait to get my hands on her newest book. But the last several of been meh at best. This one sort of rebounded from that. The plot was OK. I enjoyed reading the story of Josie and Meredith, but I also didn't find either of the main characters super like-able. So just meh I guess.

Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America's Favorite Guilty Pleasure by Amy Kaufman
The Bachelor is my guilty pleasure TV, and this book took me behind the scenes and got the nitty gritty on how the show is produced and how the producers create the situations they need to have happen for compelling TV. Kaufman's reporting was excellent and thorough. The only reason I didn't give this five stars is because I thought the ending was a bit rushed. After such thorough, in-depth reporting, I sort of felt like she decided she was done and didn't quite know how to end, so took a cop out. If you can get past that, this book is worth the read if you're a fan of the franchise.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
This book pulled me in right from the beginning, and I couldn't put it down. Though it was long, I just felt so invested in the outcome of the characters. I think I was also fascinated by the idea of family moving to the Alaskan wilderness and trying to survive. Highly recommend. I'm sure this will be one of my favorite books of the year.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
I remember reading this book as a kid, and I picked it up again since the movie was being released. I thought overall this book held up well over time. The story was fantastic when I was a little kid, and it's just as far-fetched today as it was then. I didn't remember there being so many God references when I was younger, but they were definitely more noticeable now. Not in a bad way, just one of the things my adult brain picked up on that my childhood brain wouldn't have. I'm glad I picked this book back up.

Lion: A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley
This was my book club read for March, and I just thought the story was so gripping. It's about a young boy who gets on the wrong train home and finds himself miles away from home. He's living on the streets India and is eventually adopted by a family from Australia. The language is simplistic, as if you're experiencing exactly how that small boy felt when he got lost. I didn't love some of the random asides, but I also couldn't put this book down. I'm glad this real life story had an overall happy ending.

We wrapped up our trip in Japan by spending our last day and a half wandering around some neighborhoods in Tokyo.

We started Tuesday morning at the Tsujiki Fish Market -- it was the last major thing we wanted to check off our Japan to-see list.



We meandered through the stalls and made a breakfast out of super fresh fish and other street food from the various vendors.

My stomach can't really handle sushi first thing in the morning so I stuck more with some of the grilled options. We stopped at my favorite stand from last time and got those delicious barbecued scallops again.



We finished our stroll through the outer market just in time for the inner market to open to tourists. The inner market is where the fish are taken and then cleaned, chopped up and sold to the highest bidder. By the time it's open to the public, most of the work is done and the fish guts have largely been washed off the floors.

You're not supposed to take pictures inside, so just picture lots of really small walkways lined with vendors and giant ice chests to hold all the fish for transport.

Seeing the inner market was definitely way more fascinating than the outer market, so if you go to Tokyo before the market moves, I highly recommend making sure you walk through the inner market.

After our morning at the fish market we headed across town to meet Scott for lunch. He took us to this tiny little place that served the most excellent set lunches.

I only mention this because if you look closely at the picture of my lunch, you'll notice I was given a pair of scissors to cut the meat because they don't uses knives and forks in Japan.



Also this lunch ranks up there as one of the best meals we ate while we were there.

We spent the afternoon walking around the Akihabara neighborhood, which is famous for all of it's insanely large electronics and anime shops.



We walked in one store that was seven floors of the most cutting-edge electronics, but also featured a full wine, beer and liquor section on the first level. It was the strangest combination of things in one store ever.

This was a fun neighborhood to explore without any sort of agenda in mind. We also stopped at one shop where two kids were playing old school Super Nintendo games on the sidewalk and watched for a while.

Because our flight back to the U.S. wasn't until the evening the next day, we had a little bit of time in the morning and afternoon to see any last minute things.

We grabbed breakfast at this big American-style dinner with Christine and then went to visit the temple dedicated to the 47 ronin, which I will admit I only knew about because of that movie from a bunch of years ago.



This temple was much smaller and way less crowded than any of the other super touristy temples we went to.





We took our time walking back from this temple, soaking in our last couple of hours in Japan.

On our walk back, we stumbled upon the Snoopy Museum. I'm not sure what the deal is with Snoopy in Japan, but people seem to like him a lot. We didn't go in the museum, but we had fun with the character cut-outs outside.







After that, it was time to head back to Scott's apartment, grab our bags and make our way to the airport.

This trip was great. We had such a wonderful time and are very grateful to Scott and Christine for letting us stay with them.

Fitbit stats Tuesday:
24,860 steps
10.52 m iles

Fitbit stats Wednesday
18328 steps
7.77 miles

The last time I was in Japan, Kamakura was my favorite place to visit. It's a small seaside town with a massive buddha and a couple of gorgeous temples.



I was excited to go back and do one of the hikes I didn't get to do last time and visit one of my favorite temples with beautiful ocean views. Plus we decided to throw in a stop to the island of Enoshima too.

Originally we had planned our Kamakura/Enoshima day for Tuesday, but after hitting some travel snafus we ended up bumping this up a day earlier. That ended up being a really bad decision since we were both so exhausted from our super long day of travel back from Miyajima that I don't think we enjoyed Kamakura as much as we could have.

I mean it wasn't all bad, we still had a good time as you will see, but there were just moments where I literally stopped walking in the middle of a street and whined that I couldn't take another step. (Yes I was very dramatic).

Anyway, after getting off the train in Kita-Kamakura, we made our way to the Diabutsu hiking course. This trail through the woods leads you to the giant buddha. It's about a 60-90 minute hike if you don't stop at any of the little temples along the way.

Since we had seen our fair share of temples, we skipped a lot of them, but I did want to stop at the Zeniarai Benten shrine about a quarter of the way through the hike.



A popular legend says that if you wash your money in the spring waters at this shrine it will multiply. I figured there was no harm in trying, so I took one of my yen bills and did what everyone else was doing. So far I have not won the lottery, but I guess it could still happen.



We continued on our hike through the woods (and I realized I didn't take a single picture of the actual hike), and eventually made our way into town right to the Giant Buddha.



I will say after seeing the massive buddha in Nara, this one didn't seem quite as spectacular as it did the first time around. I mean don't get me wrong, it was still huge and a really cool sight to see. That one in Nara is just so crazy everything else kind of pales in comparison.



We did get the chance to go inside this buddha's belly though, and while the inside isn't anything too gorgeous to look at, it's a fun experience walking into a buddha belly.



After the big buddha we strolled through the main drag in town, making our way to Hasedera temple. This is one of my favorite temples because it has a lookout point offering stunning views of the coastline.



It also houses a massive statue of Kannon -- you aren't allowed to take pictures of the statue, but they have this replica outside. Just picture this, in wood, about 50 times taller.



We also explored the caves at this temple which are lined with carvings and tiny little Kannon statues.





Our hike plus temple exploring made me quite hungry so we stopped for lunch and I indulged in what could really only be called dessert for lunch. These are pancakes topped with ice cream and strawberries.



It was delicious,  but as I realized about an hour later, not nearly enough food, so I supplemented with cherry blossom ice cream.

After lunch we made our way to Enoshima. This is a little island is said to have been created by the goddess Benten before she did battle with a five-headed dragon. The dragon theme is clearly evident all over the island.

There are little shrines with dragon statues guarding them and even the sink in one of the bathrooms is made in the shape of a dragon.





One of the things I really wanted to do on the island was explore the Iwaya Caves. But apparently they were flooded or damaged in a typhoon back in October so we couldn't. I was pretty bummed, since I'd heard they were pretty cool to check out.

We wandered around the island for a little bit longer, enjoying some of the pretty views before heading back to the mainland.





We made a pit stop at one of the beaches to stick our fingers in the ocean. It wasn't quite as cold as I expected for how chilly the weather was.





We then hopped some trains back to Tokyo where we met up with Scott and Christine for dinner.

Fitbit stats:
30,317 steps
12.83 miles