Been following this thread a lot, lots of good points. I think, for me personally, the "just because you can doesn't mean you should", philosophy is the most sound. My biggest hurddle has been all the soft tissue damage. From dislocating the hip, to cutting through the glutes, detactching muscles, etc., six months would be about the recovery time if no incision and arthroplasty was done. Add that, well for me, its going to be at least a year before I attempt to run. Mostlly, I don't want to develop bad habits from running too soon, or doing anything too soon. My Dr. cleared me for full weight bearing from day 1 and said let pain be my guide. His stance on running, not so good but its my hip. Now that I have my new hip I find myself torn between returning to Ironman's and just being active. But I won't begin to attempt to run until one year post op. All that muscle damage has to heal, then it has to be built up, then it has to be stressed to prepare it to run. Now, two miles, I don't think that is going to be a problem for hipnhop. I know many others have done Ironman's post op 6,8 months. My thing is I've done plenty of Ironman's and I don't need to limp through a 14 hour ordeal. My next Ironman will be trying to qualify for Hawaii and it will be done when my body is going to be as good as it gets. my two cents worth.