Hello everyone!

I recently had a long awaited THR for my left hip on June 26th.  Healing has been going really well and post op X-rays on July 22nd looked solid.  I previous to my slow down in running and the realization that I would need a hip replacement in 2023, I was quite active in the trail ultra running community in Southern California.  I truly enjoyed all of my trail running adventures and the community that I found.  My last ultra running event attempt in Idaho (IMTUF 100) in 2021 was a DNF, and it was after this race attempt that the hip pain really became apparent.  I continued with running up until about late summer of 2022, at which point the running was too painful.  I continued with hiking as I was able to and I was scheduled to get my surgery in June of 2025; however, life events (like moving cross country and losing my health benefits in May of 2025) prevented me from getting my surgery until this past June.

I was walking around crutches/cane free about day 3 and went for my first outdoor walk on July 6th.  It was a nice and easy, flat walk of 1.9 miles.  (All of my walks/hikes since my surgery are on my Strava account).  Since then I have slowly increased my walking distance and I have started to introduce some trail, uneven, and incline conditions.  Today was my most intensive hike of 5 miles on the AT with some good incline and uneven terrain.  I have zero pain in my repaired hip.  I have been working on reestablishing a normal gait to undo the limp that had developed over the course of a year and a half of chronic pain in the old hip.  Overall, I feel great.  The hardest thing for me is to have the patience and discipline to not rush back into running too quickly and to allow everything to heal well.  This is my time to work on my core strength and other areas that will improve my running when I do get back to it.

I am really hoping to be running again by early spring.  I plan to continue to work on strength training and increasing my hike lengths slowly and include incline and uneven terrain weekly.  Though I may never run another 100 mile trail run, I do intend to have trail running back in my life full time and maybe do some shorter less technical runs.

I am grateful that this community exists and I am looking forward to any advice that others can offer based on their own personal experiences.  I will continue to share my recovery progress for others who are heading into their own surgery.

Here is to happy and healthy running for life!

Greg