Friday run, hip flexors

This week's Friday run: 30 minutes. Equipped with my mp3 player I set out to run the subdivision. Mmm, yeah, I need some advice.

For the last week or so I've had noticeable soreness in my right hip. It's the outside of the hip over the hip bone. Every time I get up after sitting for any period of time it hurts. It hurts when I sleep on it. It hurts a little bit when I walk. I thought it would work itself out or loosen up on runs, but it never did loosen up today. I'm starting to get concerned about it.

I Googled my symptoms and found something called Hip Bursitis, which is an inflammation of a fluid sac in my leg. Apparently this is a common injury among runners. I have no idea if that's actually my problem or not. I do know that what I feel matches what I can find about it online. Fortunately it looks like I can try to treat it with ice, aspirin, and stretching. Since I have an 8-mile run in the morning I think I will ice it tonight before bed and stretch again in the morning. I'll definitely ice it again after my run tomorrow. If it hurts too bad while I'm running I may cut the run short. If anyone knows anything about this please let me know!

Wholly unrelated to my hip, I want to go back to the topic of Jelly Belly Sport Beans. Someone told me earlier this week that if you eat them as a snack when you are not engaged in serious exercise they taste strongly of salt. This makes sense. I know (because the package says so) that they are high in sodium content. Runners' gels are high in sodium too, to help you retain fluids. When I ate the beans last Saturday they just tasted delicious. I wonder if I didn't taste the salt as much because I was 8 miles into a 10 mile run or if my taste buds are just that bad. It would be really cool if taste sensation changed according to the body's needs! Meg is bringing some beans tomorrow, so I have another chance to experiment.