Say What?

I woke up Tuesday morning with a pain in my left shin. I can't say that I really recall having a pain in my shin like that before. It was on the inside of the shin bone, up toward the knee joint. So, I asked Diane if she had ever had shin splints. She made a face. And said something like they can be quite painful and hard to get rid of...

Never one to panic, I started to notice that if I didn't move around, it really didn't hurt. But it is the week before Christmas and I had some shopping to do. So off to Target, the pet store, then the local mall. All the while, noticing that my shin was a bit on the sore side.

When I got home, I decided to pull out my copy of The Runner's Repair Manual. I'm sure there are more current books with just as good, or perhaps better advice, but TRRM has never let me down. I thumbed over to the "Pain in Front of Leg" chapter, and sure enough, they were talking about shin splints. I was optimistic, because the symptoms had just appeared and so I was hopeful to get this under control without having to rest.

I read what I already knew - almost all lower leg problems are due to calf muscles that are too tight. In addition to stretching, there was an exercise to strengthen the anterior leg muscles. The exercise is call Furniture Lifts, and is pretty much what it sounds like. Sit in a chair, facing a couch, put your toes under the couch, and lift. Hold for ten seconds. Repeat.

So I stretched several times and did a couple of rounds of Furniture Lifts, and sure enough, the pain faded. I knew at that point that I would need to be diligent with stretching and exercise to keep this at bay, but if I did, I could beat it.

Tuesday's workout was scheduled to be 2 x 1200 followed by 4 x 800. I was looking forward to doing intervals based on Greg McMillan's Pace Calculator (link to the left), rather than the paces from the FIRST program. But I had this nagging feeling that it wouldn't exactly be smart to push myself with speed work with the first signs of shin splints. On the other hand, if I didn't keep at it, I wouldn't make the progress I was supposed to be making. But then, if the shin splints got real bad, the only way to get over it is to rest.

The answer is easy. The process not so much. I want to do the work because I want to achieve my goal. But every runner knows - you have to listen to your body. If you don't, you will end up sitting on the sidelines with injuries while others are out running. You can pretty much bank on it. I was pretty sure I heard my body saying something, but I had to strain to hear it. Not really. My body was screaming at me to take it easy today. I was reluctant to hear because I didn't want to jeopardize my goal.

I suppose it ultimately helped that I felt I was doing more speed work than I needed to achieve my goal. This is one of the artifacts of using the FIRST training program (you can read about my thoughts on FIRST here). So, in the end, I decided to bag the speed work and do a nice easy 6 mile run. A few rolling hills, a nice easy pace. I noticed a little pain in the shin later in the day, and kept at the calf stretches and furniture lifts.

Today is Wednesday and my shin is still nagging at me. I'm still stretching and exercising. But I know one thing for sure - if I would have done the speed work yesterday, I would be in much worse trouble today. As it is, I'm pretty confident that I will get through this as long as I don't try to ignore it.

And so here is another story that reinforces what you already know. When your body talks, it's time to listen.