Semitendinosus

My sweeties and I met Jim in the Stillwater Dome today (the Bubble), where Jim and I and ran for 50 minutes at a pace just slightly slower than 9 minutes/mile. That’s a little over 5 miles. I wanted to work my left hip/buttock before going to see the sports doctor in the afternoon. The pain was there, soon after the beginning, but never became a limiting factor. I quit at 50 minutes, though, because it felt like I had done enough damage. Jim is such a good sport - he ran with me the whole way even though he could run three loops of that dome in the time it takes me to do two.

After a shower and lunch, Sunshine and I went to the doctor.

I have had this pain in my left buttock since the Tulsa Marathon ten days ago, and possibly before that. Dr Ronald Yee, new sports doctor at SMG, examined my left hip/buttock and determined that the pain is in the medial hamstrings, likely the semitendinosus muscle. Really, that is a word and it is spelled correctly! The pain is near the top where the muscle attaches to the "sitz bone." He thought it most likely that it would heal without intervention, even if I continue to run, because it has improved over the last few days. His recommendations:

• Avoid painful running.
  
• Use ice for pain control, and Tylenol if necessary in a race.
  
• Avoid ibuprofen or naproxen because:
  • It may inhibit the healing process,
    
  • It can mask the true nature of the injury, increasing the risk of a more-severe injury,
    
  • It may injure the stomach, which is especially vulnerable in a long race, and
    
  • It may harm the kidneys, also under stress in a long race.
• Come back soon if it gets worse.
  
• Come back eventually if it doesn't heal.

If I come back, he may take pictures of it and possibly prescribe some kind of therapy.

I asked whether it could be piriformis syndrome. It was a reasonable thought, he said, but there is actually some debate in the medical community about whether piriformis syndrome (irritation of the sciatic nerve by the piriformis muscle) actually exists or if it is a symptom of something else. I think that's what he said; anyway, he was content with the semitendinosus diagnosis.