Lower back, left buttocks, all the way down the left leg. At the time the disc actually ruptured I was in bed, and went to move my leg up-and-over so I wouldn't disturb the cat who was sleeping with me and lying between my legs. I felt a "ping!" and drowsily thought, "oh, I pulled a muscle," and went back to sleep. The next morning when I got up there was pain in the left buttocks area and over the next two days it progressed down the leg. When the toes went numb I realized this wasn't any pulled muscle, it was obviously more serious, so called for an appointment with my doctor. She did the usual leg-lift test and referred me for an MRI. Sure enough, it was pretty clear on the MRI that it was a ruptured/herniated disc. I tried physical therapy for a couple of weeks but that didn't help, only made the pain worse. I didn't like taking the muscle relaxants that were prescribed, as they knocked me right out and I had Things to Do, Life to Live. I instead popped Aleve, the OTC version of Naprosyn. That helped, at least enough that I could do what I needed to do, such as go to work.
Eight weeks after the initial herniation I had surgery, which took care of the problem for many, many years, and that was such a relief!
What led up to this was that I had spent the previous couple of months getting ready to move, which involved a lot of pushing, pulling, lifting, moving things around, including furniture, packing stuff, transporting some to a storage facility, etc. It was about a week after I moved into this condo unit that the disc finally had sustained enough and that lifting the leg at apparently just the right angle added insult to injury and the disc ruptured. This was some years ago now -- back in 1994.