hip soreness and half marathon

Question
Hi John,
I was just reading a question from Helen about sore hips and wondering if you could give me some similar advice. I am training for a half-marathon on a 10 week training schedule. I was running before the half-marathon for about a month, but I'm only on the second week of official training. My hip has been sore when walking so I don't want to push it an injure it seriously, but this is also a critical building point in my training, especially since I hadn't run in 4 years before starting the training. The half marathon is on May 1st. Would it be best to do bikes or cross training until my hip improves and just pick up where I left off, or will I not be able to run it if I've missed a week of training? How much biking or cross training should I do until I can run again? Thank you!!!!

Answer
Well, if you are on week 2 of a 10 week plan and the marathon is less than a month away, you have some issues there.  First off, I don't think its proper for me to advise anything to help you get half-marathon 'ready' with so many issues and such a layoff from running to begin with.  With a 4 year layoff from running, to just jump right into a half-marathon plan isn't the best idea.  A 5K or 10K perhaps you could get ready for, but when you factor in the short time you have and the hip issues, there is just too many red flags there to recommend some heavy-duty training for a race that's within a short amount of weeks from now.  I'm afraid I can't help you much here if you're looking for a plan to follow, because I'm not a running coach for marathon/half-marathon runners, and I wouldn't know what to advise because I would need a lot more one-on-one consultation information to determine a full-out plan.

So, I politely advise to seek someone else for an answer.

Thank you,
Rick Karboviak