Wednesday, January 24, 2007

BitterSweet

No, I'm not a Stephanie Popsicle - it did snow up in the great white north while I was there - I had no idea just how many different "colors" they spray on a plane during the de-icing process.

200+miles. I've run 200 miles since I started running at the tail end of last year. Can you believe it? Not too bad, if I do say so myself! Unfortunately, it appears I may have overdone the training - since coming back from my trip, I've been plagued with shin splints on my two recent runs. At first I was hoping it was simply a failure on my part to warm up properly - but it seems they're here for the time being. Looks like I'm going to have to visit the gym again and make friends with the equipment *sigh* I've not yet decided what this means for my race schedule, but if any of you have advice, I'd love to hear it :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey! I've been reading the blog for a while, but never commented, but I'm on my high school's cross-country team... and as much as I hate shin splints, they love me. so yeah. About those shin splints. Basically you have three options. 1, take a couple of days off from running, like two or three. During these days, constantly stretch out your calf muscle (use a wall and place your toes about 6 or 8 inches up the wall, and your heel on the floor, maybe 2 to 4 inches from the wall. The base of your shoe should make a triangle with the wall and floor. Then lean gently towards the wall, keeping your knee straight. You'll feel the stretch in your calf. I love this one- it feels really good!) There are also some pieces of equipment that can help with this, there is some blue rocking thing, prostretch, that you put your foot on and can use to perform different stretches... its like fourty bucks, though. I bought it and really, its not that neccessary. you can do these stretches without it. I hardly use mine. 2, get new shoes. How long have you had your shoes for? If its been 200 miles, you need new ones. When I hit 200-300 miles, I start getting ready to get new shoes. While this is rather expensive, because it means I need new shoes every three months or so, its really neccessary. And finally, 3, just run through it. This is pretty much what I end up doing, shin splints hurt at first but eventually you just get used to them... and the pain is part of the run, right?? Just ice your shins after your run. Shin splints, if you ignore them, really don't affect your running. But really thats not the greatest thing to do because eventually you could get a stress fracture. Try the first two options before doing this one. Mkay well sorry for the long comment, but when you are a high school xc runner, you know a thing or two about shin splints! ;) good luck!