Ouch!
Posted on Tuesday 26th September 2006
Last Sunday I became a cripple.
We’re currently in training for the Shepshed 7 and on Sunday Mark and I met up to do the 10km at Fitness First. I’d been having a few niggles in my shins for a while but thought I’d be OK.
The first km was a little sore, but I soon warmed up and got into the stride. By the halfway point all was well and from a cardio point of view I was feeling strong.
By 8km I got the first signs that all was not well, as my left leg started to seize up. It got better and worse intermittently, so thinking it was simple cramp I ran on. By 9km it felt like someone had jammed a red-hot poker into my left shin. Rather stupidly (isn’t hindsight a wonderful and useless thing!) I ran on but was forced to pull up 800 or so metres from the finishing line in agony.
Two days later my leg is still painful and I can’t weight-bear properly on my left leg. Doing BodyPump last night was not much fun on squats and lunges even with no weight.
Google is your friend! Well it’s diagnosed my problem – medial tibial stress syndrome. Basically my trainers aren’t giving enough arch support to my foot. It then turns outwards during a stride and puts too much stretch/strain on the muscles and tendons on the inside of my leg. Result = hobbling about like an old man and having to climb stairs one-at-a-time.
The solution? No running for a bit – no worries on that one, lots of stretching and some better trainers. The ones I have at the moment are light-weight shoes for long distance running, but they don’t have the cushioning or support I need.
Hopefully this will pass and I’ll give Mark and Rich a decent bit of competition on the Seven.
[...] Lunges: This was a wierd one. It started simply enough with some lunge travels but being asked to do static lunges with the front foot on a step was decidedly strange. I felt off balance and didn’t really work to my potential. The idea is to encourage you to have a greater hip flexion in the front leg but I found myself putting a lot of weight on the back foot. This is not a good idea given the problems I’ve had with shin splints. Music is: Angel from B*P*M. [...]