Sunday, July 15, 2007

Shin Splints

Before I begin, I want to complain about the length of time it takes blogger to load. I've gotten to the point that I just type up my blog in a word processor (while waiting for blogger to load), and then cut and paste. I tried to open blogger, then wrote the text below, then waited a couple minutes, then wrote this paragraph, and it has only now loaded up. This is a complaint to any google/blogger workers who happen to read this (which is probably zero).

I had never had shin splints before. I was on the track team in high school, and I never got what people were complaining about when they said they had shin splints. As a sprinter, I never ran over 400 meters at one go, so I don't think I ever ran enough to get shin splints (even when we were to run 2 miles for warm-up, I would avoid it, somehow).

I have shin splints now, and they are killing me. I've never had this kind of pain, it's crazy. I've had both ankles sprained at the same time, a separated shoulder, a twisted wrist, toe nails come out, numerous leg bruises (all these injuries came from playing soccer), but shin splints are new to me, and I don't like them.

I don't like being sidelined; I kept playing soccer through all the injuries (often I had more than one of them at any given time), but shin splints are hard to play through. I went running this morning, and it was so painful to do. I kept thinking I would run through the pain (as I do with every other injury and illness I've had), but the pain was still there after almost 3 miles of running. Damn!

The next soccer season starts in a few weeks, and I want to keep up my running, but I don't know what to do about these shins o' mine. I've told I could tape them, but I think of the pain of that much leg hair being pulled off by athletic tape, and I don't know if it's worth it. If anyone has a remedy for shin splints (don't say "rest", because it's not going to happen), let me know.

A note on my last post (8 days ago, I can't believe how lazy I'm being). I was not lucky enough to have my computer work. Within an hour of that posting, it was acting up again. I took it back on Monday, and they replaced the motherboard (again). It seems to be holding up so far, but I won't feel like I'm out of the woods until a month goes by and I don't pay a visit to We Fix Macs.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Consider buying new shoes.

I once felt the beginnings of shin split pains myself from my old Nike Air Max 360s. At first I assumed it was me fault, i.e. bad running form, but then someone suggested new shoes. I went to a store in Palo Alto Town & Country, that specializes in running. They had me walk barefoot and then recommended shoes. What's more, they let me try running in them outside on the sidewalk to get a feel. With new and better shoes, and a little time I recovered from my shin splints.

So, it might be your shoes, maybe they are old!

July 17, 2007 11:08 PM  
Blogger Jefferson said...

I'm thinking this is the case also, but I've only put on about 100 miles on this pair (I got them in May).

I run on the outside of my feet, so I'm thinking that is also part of the problem. I'll check out that store at some point.

July 17, 2007 11:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe the name of the store is MetroSport. They might still have a store at the Oaks Center in Cupertino next to Hobee's, but if not you should check out the Palo Alto store.

July 19, 2007 8:39 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Locations of visitors to this page