Feb 22 2009
Pretty sure I’m getting shin splints.
Never having been a runner, I’m not all that familiar with the attendant injuries. For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to learn to distinguish between all the different sorts of pain that come with this sport. Sure my legs are going to be sore, my calves feel like they’re on fire about 60% of the time now. My upper leg muscles weren’t used to anything more strenuous than walking up a hill or an occasional bike ride. So there’s a certain amount of just shutting up and getting over it that I have to do. But the past few runs have had me worrying. All the info I can find points to shin splints, but fortunately at this point it’s not bad enough to warrant real recovery time.
I’m pretty sure that it’s my shoes’ fault. I’m running on neutral trail shoes when I definitely need at least a stability shoe, more likely a motion control, in the road variety. Maybe this week I’ll hit a few specialty running stores and get gait analyses and shoe advice. Until I can afford new shoes though, I’ll just have to back off on the running and maybe substitute biking. If it would just stop freaking raining all the time I’d put some miles on the ol’ Cannondale, but until that happens I’ll be on the stationary at the gym (ugh). Now’s as good a time as any to start swimming, I suppose, but I want to swim even less than I want to run.
2 responses so far
Shin Splints are of the running devil. They are a indicator that you are pushing yourself beyond your conditioning, further than your developed stress level can handle. I have had them and it takes longer to truly recover from than you think; to recover to the point of your training to resume. Need to give yourself a couple weeks of no running…perhps a bit more. To resume too fast or too soon will ONLY delay true recovery and cause considerable lost training time.
Reply
Colin Reply:
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Yeah, I’m sure it’s a result of never having run before and suddenly hitting the treadmill 4-5 times a week. Anyway, I don’t think they’re really shin splints yet, just early signs of them… I’m cutting back big-time on the running this week to see how that helps. I really don’t want to get to the point where I can’t run at all!
Reply