Aching legs after running. Normal?

The shin pain isn't too bad at all. And it tends to come and go; today, for example, I ran for 25 minutes—no shin pain.

Good. Stay at your current mileage/effort for a few days and see how it feels.

The knee pain is sometimes in the inside of the leg, sometimes the outside. Today, it's above the knee cap.

Classic symptoms of "patello femoral pain syndrome" ("PFPS"). As someone who had knee pain (bilateral) from 1978 through 2010 (it was cured by running), I would strongly recommend:

http://www.runningwritings.com/p/the-injury-series.html

Thanks to a good education and an inquisitive mind, I have had a good understanding of physiology for a long time. In the three years that I've been running, I've added to that knowledge bybooks, magazines, and websites about running and running injuries, and runningwritings.com is the best source I've found for dealing with running injuries. The author discusses the common running injuries in detail and discusses numerous treatments, laying out the pros and cons of each treatment. His work is detailed but easy to follow.

I had to rehab my right Achilles a few months back - I followed his recommendations and have healed completely.

My feet generally hurt when I run longer than 10 minutes too. So perhaps my form is a little too heavy?
Or do y'all really think it's in the stretching?

When you think you want to stretch, lie down 'til the feeling goes away.

That's only a mild exaggeration.

Static stretching is a great way to reduce power output and, possibly, induce muscle damage.

Yes, I know, we see pictures of athletes stretching and there is a reason why they do so. Stretching before exercise can help loosen muscles and warm them up but static stretching simply pulls on muscles. Further, stretching helps, in theory, stop athletes from pulling muscles during heavy exertion that might push the range of motion further than they should.

We runners don't do that.

Our range of motion is very limited and we tend to run at a consistent pace so there's zero reason to worry about pulling a muscle.

In time, you might want to do some dynamic stretching before a warm up - before a race, I like to run about a mile or so at a very slow pace and then do some warm up drills but I would never static stretch.

Some runners do light static stretching after a workout but, based on comments in forums at runnersworld.com and runningahead.com, it seems like most runners do not stretch and those who do stretch do so out of habit. There are lots of runners of a variety of experience levels who simply don't bother to stretch after a run and who see zero change in their injury rate or in their performance.

Another point - head over to sciencebasedmedicine.org and read their thoughts on Epsom salts. It's nice to have some insight into the science behind a "classic remedy". :-)

You'll hear the admonition "Listen to your body" but, in that you're a new runner, you may not have the knowledge to know what it's telling you. If that's the case, go slowly. My running journey has been pretty rough at times for a variety of reasons to I understand the desire to keep running but, remember, you're feeling pain for some reason.

It could be damage or it could be "normal" pain and the easiest way to find out is to stop running for a day or two to see if it clears. If it doesn't, you've got an injury (70% of runners are injured at least once in a 12 month period).

Err on the side of caution. It is much better to gradually introduce your body to the stress of running than it is to increase your mileage/tempo, get an overuse injury, and have to spend weeks (or months) recovering.

Final note — three years in to my running habit, what strikes me is how frequently our injuries are caused by "overuse" (running too many miles too fast) coupled with lack of muscle strength. Things like compression gear, knee braces, orthotics, more water, less water, beetroot juice, "train low, run high", etc, etc all have a place (well some of those do…) but by far the biggest thing a runner can do to stay healthy and run better is get rid of all of the mechanical crap and strengthen the legs and hips.


*I'm not knocking knee braces, for example - I think they have value for a permanent injury. My issue is that many runners get focused on the "buying stuff" to try to solve a problem but all they're doing is masking symptoms of those problems.
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