Hello All,
Delighted to join this fantastic community and soak up your wisdom, warnings and inspirational tales.
I’m a former competitive endurance athlete. The longer the better! I’ve done Ironmans, road running and ocean rows. But my absolute love is running. Was solid at 13.1 (1hr 20) and 26.2 (2hr 50), but much better at long trail ultras, normally podiuming at 50K to 100 miles. Last serious race was a win at Chester 100 miler in 2024. At which point, my left hip was declining quickly
Family history of arthritic hips, with my sister having a THR aged 44. Aged 45, I decided to go for it in June 2025. Whilst I could still exercise (uncomfortably), running once a week was no longer fun, and I couldn’t sleep through the night without pain.
Operation went well and initial recovery was steady (UK NHS). I invested in private sports physio (with physio not provided by NHS). Lots of band work, strength and resistance training. Might have hit the turbo training too hard and too soon (week 3), but it’s difficult to know with an experiment of 1.
Started very, very gentle jogging after about 12 weeks. Progressed slowly up to approximately 10k single runs by the end of 2025. At this point there was no pain, but the joint didn’t feel 100% natural, and there was a clear strength imbalance.
Set myself a goal of running a sub 20 5K and a 50K trail race in 2026. This is where competitive stupidity set in. Started doing my local park run in January. Initially 24mins, then 23, then 22, then…ouch. Hip started hurting after 2K and I decided to push through. Finished and limped very heavilyt to the car. This was the end of Jan!
Following my idiocy, I had to take a good month off running, focusing instead on weights and turbo. The set back to running was considerable and I needed to work back up very steadily. Fortunately I’ve had an English channel swim relay to distract me (completed last weekend).
In the last few weeks (12-13 months post THR) … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)