July 06, 2006
Runner's Woes
Back in the before time, that is before I went to college and got lazy, I did a lot of running. I missed state in Cross Country by less than two seconds, twice, because in my league around Portland a 16:29 5k just wasn't fast enough to get you there. I didn't exactly do badly at track, but 4:14 in the 1500 is pretty mediocre as far as these things go and my 800 time never got under two minutes. Anyway, I used to do that whole running thing. And I liked it.
Unlike Miss Vague whose relationship with that particular beast is a little more...complicated. She suffers a pain known only to hikers, joggers, and distance runners: shin splints. Most folks think of shin splints as any form of pain on the front of the lower leg below the knee. Not true! There can be localized muscle soreness from use like with any other muscle, but shin splints are a quite specific injury. Basically, the WebMD suggests ice, rest, stretching and strengthening. Interestingly, they give a pretty decent explanation of everything but the last. When I had this problem, thankfully only a couple of times, the following two steps worked for me.
1) Immediately after running and cool down, take a whole cube of ice out of the freezer and run it up and down your shin until it is completely melted. Repeat for the other shin. You will want to put a towel down, probably.
2) In order to strengthen the shin so that the muscle adheres to the bone better, stand on your heels with your toes pointed up as high as possible and walkd 30-60 meters a day. We always did this as part of our warm-up just to make sure it got done, and it worked wonders. Calf-raises also help, but they don't help nearly as much as the shin strengthening.
And that is today's random tidbit from my wealth of random knowledge. Go forth and do this in rememberance of me. Or something.