Pain in the Butt and Boilermaker CLOSED!

After the half marathon, my left leg was a mess.  I could feel the knots in the calf, hamstring, quad and glutes.  The worst part was that my butt actually started to ache and I couldn't cross my legs without pain.  So I decided I needed to take care of this before it turned into a full blown injury.

I turned to yoga first and found some great poses that helped to open my hips and stretch my piriformis.

1. Pigeon pose - This one works wonders! Just doing this for a few minutes a day helped my leg to feel much better.  I usually started in downward dog and then lift one leg and swing it trough my arms to start this pose.

2. Lying piriformis stretch - Not only do I do this one in my yoga class but also at home because it is so easy to do while watching television. There are many variations, but I found this one worked the best for me.

3. Foam roller - I also turned to my foam roller to help work out all the knots I felt in my pirformis muscles, IT band and hamstring.  Since it was my left leg that needed the love, I put most of my weight onto my left butt check on the foam roller and rolled back and forth slowly.  I also placed my leg similar to the picture to get deeper into the muscle.

4. Piriformis chair stretch - Since I was having pain at work, I  found a way that I could stretch without getting weird looks from my co-workers.  All you have to do is cross one leg over the other with your ankle resting on the knee of the opposite leg.  This helped to open my hips and stretch my legs.

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I found out some unfortunate news this morning - Registration to the BOILERMAKER 15k is CLOSED!  I have run this race for the last 6 years and although I have a wedding on the Friday before, I was still planning on running it!  I can't believe that 13,000 people already signed up to run it!  This totally stinks! I guess that is what I get for procrastinating.

Have a great Tuesday!