Of interest only to me: injury report

I've decided to "log" this injury (butt? piriformis?) to track its cause, how long it has affected me, and what works as far as recovery.

I do not pretend that this will be of interest only to me; these are intended to be "self notes".

What it is: I've had some pain deep in my left gluteal cheek. It started off as a somewhat dull ache that I mostly ignored. This was about in the first week of May, 2006 and coincided with my trying to add some speedwork.

I felt it a bit during the Ice Age 50K on the 13'th of May. It got noticably worse during a 10 mile training walk a week later. I layed off 6 days in a row; during that time I had mild, restless pain when I stood in one place for any lenght of time.

On June 3-4, I managed 83 miles at a 24 hour race. It hurt early on, but stretching and naproxyn allowed me to finish the race.

The next week it was ok but things came to a head on 13 June when I attempted to walk 3 miles to a meeting and back (normal walk). The pain became almost unbearable.

The next day, swimming was painless; walking 3 miles with my Building Steam group was painless, so long as I used a racewalking style and took short, quick steps. It hurt a bit when I used a longer stride hiking style.

That evening, my wife put her elbow in my butt and found a huge knot; it lessened.
The next day, I was able to walk 11 minute miles (3 miles, one at a time) without pain. Later that evening, standing in one place was uncomfortable, but no where near as painful as a week earlier.

What I've been doing: yoga, especially the frog and pigeon poses.

Frog pose

Pigeon Pose (I try to get my front leg perpendicular to the long axis of my body)

Related to frog: the woman on the left is in the "entrance to the arm pressure pose"

Your basic squat; this one helps too.

I've also cut back my walking and really focused on keeping a short stride in front of my body.

What brought it on? My guess it is a combination of too many long races with bad technique. My miles on the trails has made my technique very "hikish"; long stride in the front for stability. Still I was ok, until I tried to put in some faster road/track walking. My hiking style was not suited for going fast. The reason I say this is because walking with a short stride is painless.

What is wrong? The knot that my wife worked out seems to suggest that I had a mild gluteal strain. See:
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/sma/sma_gluteal_sma.htm

or

http://healthlibrary.epnet.com/GetContent.aspx?token=c969dc7d-0aa7-43de-ba12-bfeedab0944f&chunkiid=11829

Or it could be a piriformis issue (this issue affects many walkers)
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/sma/sma_piriform_sma.htm
or

http://sportspti.com/e_topics13.htm

As far as what I wrote in the past:

http://blueollie.blogspot.com/2006/06/pain-in-butt.html

http://blueollie.blogspot.com/2006/05/day-three-cold-water-and-tight-butt.html


As an aside, some yoga poses I do for my walking come from here:

http://www.ywbf.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=17589&start=31&posts=56