It’s always good to be told you have an ‘itis’ that you can barely spell, isn’t it?

A trip to the physio today for a routine sports massage to maintain my poor stressed calves turned into something a bit more sinister.

I told the physio I’d been experiencing small amounts of pain in the bit of the hamstring that goes right up under your bum where no foam roller will ever reach, and that I’d been stretching it but that seemed not to make a difference. I thought it might be a nerve thing but apparently it is (wait for it); Ischiogluteal Bursitis.

Which as far as I can tell, is Latin for ‘pain in the arse’.

Fun to learn new word for parts of your anatomy you didn’t know were there, isn’t it?

I immediately messaged Mr. Duff with the exciting news of my unpronounceable new condition and he wondered why I was being so chirpy about something which will cause me to need specific physio treatment (possibly including something to do with ultrasound and maybe even a steroid injection into my actual bum) with just 10 weeks to go until I am supposed to be running a marathon.

Well, for a start the physio said that I can keep training. This is not normal. Usually, physio appointments where they find even the barest hint of a problem end with the dreaded phrase ‘no running til it’s fixed’. They don’t usually mess about, physios, and this one didn’t raise any objections to me continuing to train as per my schedule, as long as I promise to keep stretching it (I promised, crossed my heart and everything).

Also, this appointment was coming off the back of a successful 18 mile training run yesterday – not the fastest, but fairly even and I got through the whole thing. In fact it went so well that I think I am still slightly on a high from it. Between 11 and 14 miles yesterday I finally found that elusive feeling again, when the running feels good, you’ve still got some acceleration in your legs, the view is nice, the sun is shining and all’s well with the world. The slight drop in temperature, the new iron supplements or both may have made the difference but it felt good and I enjoyed it.

Until we got to 16 miles that is, which is usually the point my feet start mentally accusing me of complete lunacy and begin to ask me very loudly why, precisely, we are still running. Fair enough, poor things, they’re bearing the brunt of the work.

Whinging feet aside, it was a successful run. Nothing went twang, nothing fell off, and apart from looking a bit like I’d been rolling about in a salt cellar at the end I was relatively unscathed.

So yes – following the positive attitude that yesterday’s run has fostered, I refuse to allow a piece of news which may well end with a large Greek man injecting unknown substances into my bottom bring me down from my place of running happiness.

I mean people pay good money for that sort of thing, let’s be honest.

Yes it is a problem, but as the physio said this morning it is a treatable problem and therefore falls squarely into the category of ‘niggle’ as far as I’m concerned. Noone makes it through a marathon training cycle without at least a few niggles, but you can learn to manage them. Much like a cute but slightly out of control puppy.

Obviously I will be sensible if it gets any worse, but for now since I finally feel like my little period of low mood and rubbish sessions is behind me I really don’t want to make this molehill into a mountain (disclaimer: my arse is definitely not the molehill in this analogy). I want to keep going, work sensibly but hard and continue trying to improve over the next 10 weeks til race day.

I’ve never let a pain in the arse stop me from doing what I want in the past, and I’m not about to start now.