I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I'm just trying to give as much information as I can.
I've been out for about a month now with some sort of groin or hip flexor injury. The pain has never been that bad, although it does vary in intesity, but the thing is that it just won't seem to go away. And the weird thing is it popped up at a time when I wasn't doing much running at all, during a 2 week "break" after the end of my track season in which I was only running about 4 times a week, 3-6 easy miles per run. As soon as it started to affect my form I took a couple days off, but when I tried to run again it was worse anyway.
I have no idea what triggered it or what I did to aggravate it. Since then, I've alternated between taking time off and attempting to run again because it feels like it's nearly gone, only to have it get worse again after a few runs. Now I've pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I'll have to go purely without any running until it is completely gone without any trace of problems. This is frustrating because like I said the pain isn't that bad, often to the point where I hesitate to even really describe it as pain, but it definitely affects my gait and I won't be able to train effectively until it's gone.
The pain is hard to describe. It's on the inside of my thigh/groin area, but also sometimes feels like it hurts in the very upper part of the quad. Left side only. Sometimes it's more of a feeling of weakness or tightness than pain per se, almost like it feels like it may give out (but it never does). The way it throws off my form is more detrimental than the actual pain; even when it's not bad, I definitely limp when running. It used to also hurt when walking and when lifting my knee up, and at some points caused me to limp when walking as well, but it's been a week since my last run and now I'm fine when walking. I visited a chiropractor and found that my pelvis was torqued/twisted, so apparently that's the cause, but I don't think he was sure what the actual condition was. I had something very similar to this, but more severe, a couple years ago, but it was brought on by a sudden and obvious pull that time, whereas this time it seemingly popped out of nowhere.
I can train on the elliptical just fine without any pain, so it seems that weight-bearing movements are the problem, but it feels like a muscle/soft tissue thing to me.
All that to say, if anyone here has had a similar experience, has an idea what this may be or what caused it, or has advice on what I can do to rehab it, please share! I miss running a lot and want to get back to training full time really bad:)