New Haven Road Race - 2007

I had a great time in New Haven again this year. I just did the 5K while the rest of the group went on for the 20K. Next year.

It was great to see Dianna, Danny, Beth, and Bill again, and I met Dianna’s mom and step-dad. It still all feels very surreal to me. Sitting and talking like old friends, when we’ve only seen each other 3 times at most. Strange world. We all ate far too much pizza apparently. Live and learn. :)

We had beautiful weather, as I think we have every year I’ve gone. The 5K was incredibly crowded. I was dodging people from the start to finish, but I found a young couple that I used as my rabbits and I tucked in behind them and followed them to the finish. My chip time put me in at sub-8:00 which I was happy with. About the same time as last year I think. But I wasn’t exhausted like before.

My right leg has some funky soreness today. If I straighten my leg and twist my foot only at the ankle like I’m trying to see the bottom of my foot, I get this sore pain up and down the back of my leg. I’m not sure if its from the race or from the 18 miles I ran on Sunday. Probably the combination, but I took today off from running to let it rest.

Ok, and the big thing that I was holding off on about the running is not so big I’m going to risk the jinx and post it. Here’s the thing, for the entire time I have been running there has been one thing that has been with me. One constant. I had it for my first 5K, I had it for my first half marathon. It killed my first full marathon attempt, and it plagued me for every single race, and most training runs I have ever done. Every race, every training session. Without fail.

Shin splints.

“There’s something I didn’t miss about running. Oh yes, we run more than we should sometimes and we get shin pain.” 8/18/06

“My shins (it always gets around to this eventually) hurt. Not alot. But they are sore and my calves feel weak.” 12/15/05

“When I walk around right now, my right shin is sore. Not surprising since my shins suck. They have no strength and no stamina. No matter what I do, they just fall apart. Sigh. The pain is there so much, I’m getting used to it.” 11/6/04

“Went to see my MD yesterday and she says its tibial osterotitus (or something like that). “Did you ever hear of shin splints? Well, that’s what you have.” 2-26-04

But now? They’re gone. I’ve run some of the highest mileage I have ever run in the past few months and not a whimper out of the shins. 18 miles on sunday and 5K the next day, and no shin splints. Nothing. Other aches and pain ofcourse, but the shins are good.

The cure? Mark’s minimalist shoes. After reading about Mark’s last marathon, I decided to take the plunge and buy me some FLAT shoes. With some advice from Mark, I settled on the Addidas Adizero PR. But be warned, if you go buy them at a running store, pretend you are going to run a 5K at the track in them and not do anything farther.  They seem to get very upset at that.  I think they’d faint if I said I ran as far as I have in them.

They weigh just about nothing and feel like you are wearing ballet slippers (not that I know for certain), but the big point is that they are flat. Just about no heal at all. The theory is that your feet don’t adapt well to running in high heels, and mine can’t adapt at all. So, when I ran in high-heeled shoes, my stabilizing muscles (calves, shins, etc.) worked overtime to keep me balanced, and ended up tearing themselves to pieces. So I switched to the flat shoes. It took a long time to get my calves stretched out to a normal length again (read: sore as hell calves), but even with all that, no shin splints. None.

So if you have shin splints and have exhausted all other options, you may consider finding a pair of minimalist flat shoes and giving them a spin. Start slow, expect slow progress with some sore calves, but that is all temporary.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Injury and Pain, Races, Running, Shoes and clothing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.