Hips and Knees

Today I found a great hip stretch/muscle building exercise on Runner's World:

Lie on your side on the floor. Bend the underneath leg up until the thigh is at 90° to your body and the lower leg at 90° to the thigh. Use the upper arm to stabilise your upper body by placing your hand on the floor. Prop your upper body up on the under arm with a bent elbow. Ensure that the upper leg is taken backwards so that it’s in line with your body or just behind it. Pull your foot and ankle up until it feels locked and straighten the knee. Lift the leg slightly and turn the whole leg inwards so that the toes are pointing down to the floor. Lift the leg until it is parallel with the floor. From this position lift and lower the leg, ensuring that the knee remains straight, the foot locked up and the whole leg is turned in with the leg in line with your body.

Lift the leg until you feel an ache in the side of the pelvis towards the back. If you don’t feel this ache after repetitive lifting, the leg is too far forward. Try starting with 20 lifts and build up by two lifts every two days until you can do 50 lifts comfortably.

This worked wonders!! I had a little bit of soreness in my hip after my four miles yesterday so I turned to the web for an answer and I found it! I feel so much better today than yesterday after my run and I don't feel sore in that spot anymore.

I am looking for some knee strengthening exercises if anybody has any great ones, let me know!

PS also almost injured myself when I saw a wasp on my window in my bedroom. I FREAKED out, plus I had just started changing so I was like half naked sprinting out of my room when I lost my footing and ALMOST fell. Whew...so scary, if only there was a bug on the wall...oh wait. hm.

Rest tomorrow, RACE Friday! I am dressing up as Forrest Gump in the running outfit...red bubba gump shrimp hat, yellow smiley tshirt, and perhaps a beard. I don't know if I'll have time.