Despite all the craziness with my schedule in September, I decided I wanted to try to rebuild my running base. So midway through the month, I started slowly adding more regular running back in to my routine.

I was setting my alarm for 5:45 a.m. and getting up to get my miles in before work. My plan was to start slow, increasing speed and distance as time went on.


Washington Monument in the morning fog.

In the first week, I did three short and slow runs with lots of walking mixed in, and by the end of the week, my hip was feeling a bit wonky. It wasn't hurting quite as much as it did last year, but I was definitely feeling something.

I dialed it back a bit the following week, and I think I only ran once or twice and mixed in a lot of walking. But man my hip flexor was really nagging at me.

It wasn't the same hip pain I was experiencing last year. This definitely felt perhaps like it was more muscular and less torn labrum-y (at least that's my hope).

One thing that I really noticed was that my hip joint felt much more stable and I had much less pain/irritation in my hip flexor after I did a Barre3 workout. I know I've mentioned before that I picked up Barre3 through my ClassPass subscription last year after I realized a lot of the exercises were similar to what I was doing in physical therapy.



So I'm hoping this most recent episode of my hip flaring up is a result of muscle weaknesses and imbalances -- something that I can "treat" on my own with barre classes and doing my old PT exercises at home.

I'm trying to avoid going back to the orthopedic doctor because pretty much my only next step from a medical perspective is surgery, and honestly, I'd like to avoid that if possible.

I'm currently trying to figure out what ratio of barre classes to running I need to have to give me the strength and stability in my hips to not cause pain. Right now, I've done 2.5 weeks of zero running and 2-3 barre classes per week. My hip feels good now, and my hope is to try to do one run later this week to see how it goes.

From there, I think I'd like to target 2 runs and 2 barre classes for the next two weeks, with the goal of eventually getting back to three runs per week. If I can get to a place where I can comfortably do three three-mile runs per week without pain by Thanksgiving, I'll consider that good progress.

There's a 5K I'm eyeing in early December, not necessarily to race, just to run for fun, and I'm hoping that with a focus on balancing running and strength training, this hip flare up will go away and I'll be able to do it without a problem.