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Early signs
I had returned to running for about 6 months following a stress fracture in my left femur when I started noticing pain high up in my right hamstring. It got to the point where I knew something was wrong, but it didn’t hurt to run. My massage therapist/strength coach and physical therapist said that if I could run without pain, it would be fine, so I continued to run. A lot. Six months after the pain began, I was doing a ton of volume leading up to the 2016 Boston Marathon. It still didn’t hurt when I ran, but the pain after training continued to worsen. By this time, I was worried I had a pelvic stress fracture. I saw an orthopaedic doctor, who told me that I didn’t have a stress fracture and was okay to just run through the discomfort. In addition to the work I’d done to return from my femoral stress fracture, my husband and I also wanted to start a family, so I viewed this as my last chance to run marathons pre-baby. When I ran a marathon in April 2016, then another in May 2016… it wasn’t a good decision, but I thought it was at least an informed decision.
Looking for answers
By the fall of 2016, my hamstring tightness had gotten …