Yeewouch! My shins!

TheAshpie

Hey guys! I'm doing Couch to 5k, and on week five, day two completed. Next day is the twenty minute with no walking and I'm slightly terrified. Tonight after the first round of eight minutes, I could barely walk because my shins were hurting so bad. I almost threw up when I tried to stretch them out, I was literally holidng my breath because it hurt so bad! I did a super long cool down walk ( 30+ minutes) and stretched for about 15 minutes afterwards, focusing on my legs. Any other advice to prevent this pain? Thanks!

KukuDan

Im currently going through the same problem. What shoes are you using? you might need to go to shoe clinic or somewhere similar that can do a proper fitting. I did this yesterday and I needed a very specific shoe with a lot of arch support. Look up shin splints as a running injury for some more advice.

TheAshpie

I have my trusty old new balance shoes. I love them, but I'm actually looking into some vibram fivefingers. I love the idea of "barefoot" running and would love to strengthen my ankles and run with proper form.

salxtai

Ice your shins 3-4 x day, and drop the running at least until its painfree with walking - this sounds like shin splints developing, although without a physical assessment this is purely a hypothetical guess based on what you posted.

I'd strongly recommend going to a physiotherapist to get this properly checked out. It can be a pain to treat if its left and become a chronic problem.

mikejacobs1958

I seldom used to get sore shins from running (not quite like shin splints - but you would be in serious pain if it were shin splints).
but when I did get sore shins, my remedy was to replace my inner soles, as I have a high foot arch and without decent support, they gave me sore shins. you get cheap and nasty inner soles and really fancy onces, an in-between suited me.

I am no specialist but it could be incorrect shoes, lack of arch support or simply too much running too soon?
a visit to your local running shop should do it for you.

drezha

Barefoot running is fantastic. There's no way I would have got running without following a barefoot running guide. If you do, make sure you follow the guides to start slow and work your way up - the worst thing you can do is to just get going.

Thankfully I bought my barefoot running shoes at the same time as starting to run so I could only run a few minutes before stopping abnyhow. Inov8 had a good guide available on it's website for getting started and it's what I followed (believe it's less strenuous than the C25K but it takes some patience)

In regards to shins, I got this at some point with my barefoot running when my form wasn't quite right. I managed to minimise it by:
A) changing my form
getting a gold ball and rolling it under my barefeet when sitting at a desk. Roll if quite hard (pressure on it) and it seemed to help fantastically (couldn't tell you how or why but it worked for me and it worked for the person that told me to do the same!). I assume if you cant get a golf ball, a small hard ball would work just as well.

Hope that helps.

crystalrx

Sounds like shin splints to me, maybe get it checked, but definitely take a break. Just to be safe!!

TheAshpie

Thanks for all the advice! Especially the bit about the Barefoot running since I'm very interested in it. I'll try icing them next time. The pain subsides fairly quickly after my work-out is done, as well as my very long cool downs, it's not a problem hours after the work out. Maybe I'm just pushing too hard, too fast? I'm very excited to be able to run/jog a full 5k!

Jishmeister

When people jog, they tend to do "the shuffle" which can cause pains and shin splints. Be sure to lift your legs higher when running or jogging, as if trying to make your heel touch the back of the knee. This makes running easier and doesn't force you to apply all your weight on your feet.