Injuries, Injuries, Injuries

Since I started working out regularly last summer, I have managed to accumulate a lot of aches, pains and flat-out injuries along the way.  It all started with training for the Breast Cancer 3-Day - after my walks reached the 10-mile mark my right calf would cramp up and cause a LOT of pain.  Sometimes I could walk through it, sometimes I was just done.  I tried ice, rest, elevation, ibuprofen...but since I needed to keep training I would only take a week off at a time and never fully recovered - I just ended up learning to live with it.  Of course, as soon as the training was over I gave it a proper rest and it healed with no problems!

Then came the Achilles pain - I developed stiffness in my right Achilles and a tender knot just above my heel.  This injury never became unbearably painful, but it was always worse after sitting or lying down for awhile and I worried about the lump.  Rest, ice, elevation, ibuprofen, stretching...no real improvement.  So off to the orthopedist I went, returning with a diagnosis of Achilles Tendinosis and instructions for some exercises to help strengthen my calf.  The area is definitely on the mend now.

There have been lots of other aches and pains along the way, most of which flare up and then disappear, but for the past week my right hip has been bothering me a lot.  It's fine when I'm sitting or lying down, but as soon as I stand up there is stiffness and soreness between the joint and my pelvic bone, right on the side of my body.  It subsides a bit after I walk around, but I did a treadmill run on Thursday morning and by the end of my workout I was in pain and starting to limp.

I'm inclined to think that the root cause of these injuries is my extra weight, but I'm also seeing a pattern - everything is on my right side and it seems to be moving up my leg.  Could it possibly be related to with the way I walk or run - maybe something I'm doing to compensate for having extra weight to move around, or perhaps I'm compensating for pain elsewhere and throwing my gait off?  Today I'm going to pick up some new running shoes, in case that's the problem (my old ones are starting to wear out anyway).  I've also decided to take a full week off from my Couch-to-5K program and focus on non-weight-bearing cardio to see if that helps.

I've been so dedicated to my workouts and have been careful not to add running mileage too quickly, so it's REALLY frustrating to have this happen!  Of course I've got alternate cardio options and I'm working out with weights and doing yoga, but running is a really efficient way to burn calories so I'm anxious to put this latest setback behind me and move on.  Since I can't change my weight overnight I guess I'll just have to keep working around my limitations.  So it's off to the pool this morning to swim another 1000 yards.

Has anyone else out there encountered hip pain like this, or suffered from a string of injuries?