A little history of my running Part 2

So after beating myself up and surviving another marathon (4 hours and 8 minutes) I set up a long, easy yet disciplined training schedule before attempting my third. After consulting a couple of books and countless websites, I was determined that my shin splints were a result of two major problems. The first being that perhaps I was asking too much out of my legs and that I needed a more gradual training regiment and let my shins build strength at a slower rate. The second problem I hypothesized was my hamstring tightness. For as long as I can remember, I had been that one guy in the gym who couldn't sit indian style for more than 2 minutes and by no means, get close to touching my toes. Unfortunately, I had inherited hamstrings of steel from both sides of my family. I do recall being able to tap the tips of my shoes once, when I was 18 and stretching daily, for months during soccer season but I have no proof of this. I have attempted stretching routines at least 3 times a year for the last decade and I quit just a few days in because its just too uncomfortable and nauseating to continue.
So I started the new plan, beginning in June and continuing through November, to prepare for a November 15th race day. I had just visited my trusty running shoe store and was once again diagnosed as an over-pronator and bought another pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire 3s with Power Step Pinnacle insoles. On the day of my sixth run, the shin splints attacked and never fled. I powered through them for months, basically unable to do speed work because of the pain but still able to put in the mileage. By September, I was up to 28-30 miles a week, feeling pretty good cardiovascular-wise.

About 3 weeks before the race, my dad mentioned that he had an extra pair of Nike Free 5.0s that were not quite his size, so I picked them up and gave them a whirl. I had been around running long enough to know that switching shoes even two months before a race was not the best of ideas, but I figured I'd stretch out my feet for a 5 mile jog and see how they felt. My shin splints were instantly reduced by about 75%!!. I was so enticed by the sensation that I rolled the dice and ran that week's workouts (34 miles) in the Frees. When I drove to the race in San Antonio, I brought both pairs of shoes but really never considered wearing the Mizunos - I was still buzzing with the possibility of running a marathon with majorly reduced shin splints.

A little history of my running Part 1

Greetings! This is yet another experiment that I am going to indulge myself into and it may be a disaster shortly. Ok, so as stated in the description, this is going to be a continuous run-on of my thoughts, failures and break-throughs of brewing beer and running. This post will pertain to running. I am truly dedicated to solving my shortcomings of running so hopefully, I do make progress and it can be tracked here. In order to bolster the purpose of this blog, a little history is needed. I ran track in middle school, then went 5 years without running. During sophomore year of college, I ran in short spurts, always knowing that I would pick up my running later but still very distracted from true progress due to extremely consistent shin splints. As college continued, my running binges got slightly longer (up to 3 months) consisting of slowing burning out 10-20 miles a week at around 8:30 per mile. I ran an occasional 5k or 10k, racking up around 10 recreational races over the 4 years. During my last year, my roommate and I decided to punish ourselves with our first marathon. The plague of shin splints prevented me from training properly and I only put in a good 30 days of training, which of course proved to be disastrous come race day. Starting at mile 22, I was doing more of a dance than a run because of horrendous cramps. I hobbled across the finish line at 4 hours and 16 minutes completely unable to walk to the car. Moral of the story is that I have always loved running and placed it high on my priority list however I have been shunted away from my goals constantly because of shin splints. Now, there are a lot of different descriptions that are used for the term "shin splints" and my description is as follows: after about 10 minutes of jogging (or if I started off too fast), my anterior tibialis (that muscle that runs along your "shin" bone) would swell up and burning like the fires of Mordor. After months of this specific pain, part 2 would appear: a more medial pain (check out the picture). The crazy thing is that after 30-45 minutes of enduring the pain, it would usually disappear and I could finally get in a good cardio workout instead of an injured doggy limp. Therefore, I was in and out of running shoe stores, constantly quizzing my father and visiting a physical therapist to find a cure for my shin splints. The quest had begun...