Welcoming shin splints

Shins have been hurting something fierce all week, but I've gotten in my miles thus far. Shin splints are much better than the shin pain I had on-and-off for 18 months.

Tuesday, July 7 - After taking Monday off, I was hoping to feel pretty good. That wasn't the case, but I got through the run at a little quicker pace than most of my runs last week. Did 5 miles including 4 strides on grass in my Speedstars.

Wednesday, July 8 - Took me forever to get out of the house tonight. I wanted to do a Fartlek similar to the one I ran last week with maybe a few more minutes of hard running tossed in. After warming up for 2 miles, I switched into my Speedstars. The Fartlek didn't go too well. I don't know if I was starting out too fast or just drained from the work day, but after 4 x 1 minute hard, 1 easy and a 2 minute hard effort, I was drained. Jogged it back home, got a granola bar and stretched a bit, then cooled down for a little more than 2 miles. 6 miles on the day.

Not satisfied at all with how I was feeling. Need to get morning runs going.

Thursday, July 9 - Felt a bit better than the last couple days, but not great. Started out on trails with Paulie. Started slow around 7:45 pace the first mile or two, then probably dropped to around 7:15. After about 4 miles on the trails, Paulie was done and I stopped to talk for a couple minutes. I then took the roads over to the high school for maybe 5 minutes on the grass before heading back for a total of 7 miles.

Friday, July 10 - Waited till late to run and had a good one. Ran 5 through my neighborhood. Shins were still pretty bad and my breathing wasn't great, but didn't feel as labored as earlier in the week. Had a pretty easy day at work, so I'm sure that helped.

Thoughts on the week so far: I need to run mornings next week. It's a bitch trying to wake up, but it'll be better in the long run. I also need to cross train. I've been tired as hell after running, and that has discouraged me. Moving the runs to the morning will help that. I'm also adding in a 7th day of running next week which means I won't be upping daily mileage more than a fraction of a mile on running days. Hopefully it will allow me to adapt just a bit and be able to hit some evening rides or swims.

I'm about to take a nice Saturday afternoon nap, and then I'll run 6. Maybe try to throw in some faster stuff if I'm feeling okay. I need to try a tempo next week. Goal is 2 miles at 6 minute pace. I know I can run that without a problem, but I don't know if I can run it how I want to. I need it to be somewhat controlled, and I maybe haven't run enough faster miles to be able to do that. I'd like to add in a mile each week to that tempo run so that I'm running 5 miles in 30 minutes the first week of August. Not sure if that's realistic or not.

8 miles tomorrow to cap a 37 mile week in 6 days of running.

I'm running on the roads a bit more than is ideal, but that's not without reason. I feel that a lot of my shin pain is coming from overworked calves. They work even harder on soft ground. So there are tradeoffs. I think over the next week, I'm going to hit my calves really hard with ice, massage, and stretching in an attempt to ditch the roads for the most part.

More thought on my calves/shins: I'm a forefoot striker, and I'm overweight. Not a great combination. But as I'm trying to look at the bright side of everything, I have found a silver lining. As I lose weight, it could be even more significant than if I were a heel striker. I could just be talking out of my ass with that, but I don't see too many big guys forefoot striking, and I think the potential gains in my calf strength could be significant come late August when I'm 15 pounds lighter than when I began the summer. But "every silver lining has a touch of grey." I worry that my running form (which was so great when I was in race shape) leaves me more suceptible to injury at 175 pounds.

Anyway, off I go for my nap.