Brittany Arthur, a senior cross country runner from Arcola, suffered a severe injury last year at the end of the 2010 cross country season, but is back as the women’s main motivation on the cross country team.

Arthur suffered a labral tear to her hip, which caused her to have surgery.

She said her hip started bothering her at the Ohio Valley Conference championship meet last year, but then got worse at the NCAA Regionals 6K meet.

She said she went to the doctor in January and had the surgery in late March.

The doctors not only had to repair the labral tear in her hip, but also shave her femur bone and do a release of her iliopsoas muscle during her surgery.

Arthur said the doctors had to take a huge chunk out of her muscle when they did a release of her iliopsoas muscle because it was too tight. The iliopsoas muscle is important for standing, walking and running and is the strongest of the hip flexors.

Arthur said women cross country runners typically have hip problems more than men.

“It is a fairly new surgery procedure and not a lot of doctors knew what to do,” she said. “I had to go to Indianapolis to get it done.”

Arthur was not able to run again after her surgery until three months later, at the end of June.

Recovery from a hip arthroscopy usually depends on the extent of work the doctors complete during the surgery.

“At the end of June, I started running and that was earlier than I was supposed to; I was ahead of schedule,” Arthur said. “It was only five minutes every other day, it was a really slow process and I am still working my way up to get back in shape.”

Arthur said she struggled with being unable to compete.

“I have a strong passion for cross country and I have never been injured before, so losing something you do every single day and strongly love was really hard for me,” she said. “Once I got the surgery over with, everyday my goal was to get back so that I could run cross country.”

Arthur said she was able to put weight back on her hip after the surgery, but had to use crutches for three weeks.

Now she is doing rehab with the trainers before every practice to strengthen her hip again.

Arthur said she feels as though her teammates and coach do not look at her differently because of her surgery.

“If anything, they look at me stronger because I overcame this really serious injury and I feel that I have been pretty positive which was hard to do,” Arthur said. “I feel like they respect me a lot more for going through it and overcoming and still being able to run again.”

Arthur said she feels that she has to prove herself with this being her senior year and coming off an injury.

“I definitely feel like I have a lot to prove just because it is my last year and I want to finish on a really strong note,” she said. “Every day I am working harder and getting even better; it’s a slow process, but it is coming along.”

Arthur is looking to end her Panther career as a cross country runner by being All-Conference again and is looking forward to getting back on the track after having to red-shirt last season.

Olivia Sloss can be reached at 581-7942 or oesloss@eiu.edu.