Shin splints

Photo by Justyn Warner on Unsplash

 The second day of training is meant to be the "easy" day. It has the shortest number of running intervals each week.  Yesterday I was at my local leisure centre so I decided to train indoors on the treadmill. I instantly remembered why I don't like doing this.  For a start it feels very different to the road. It's also harder to fire certain muscles because you're not pushing off from the ground in the same way, so for people like me trying activate glute muscles this isn't as effective a training method as hitting the tarmac. This article explains why.

Although this was meant to be less challenging than my previous run, I actually found it much harder, as pretty much from the start I experienced pain in my right shin. It got worse and worse and I actually had to cut the final interval slightly short because it got so bad.  There wasn't much respite during the resting intervals either. I did some research on why this might be. It seems this is a common problem as there are lots of articles on the Internet about how to avoid shin splints on a treadmill. 

Some of the most common reasons cited for shin splints in this context are:

• incorrect running shoes (nope, I love my shoes and have had no problems with them so far)
• doing too many miles too soon (at my current lofty PB of 3 minutes non-stop running, I doubt this is my issue)
• not varying the incline setting of the treadmill, i.e. running on 0% grade. I changed the incline setting on the treadmill after each interval, not because I wanted to avoid shin splints, but because I wanted to create the impression of constantly varying terrain, more like what I experience on the road. That said, I was still in agony, so this didn't help.
• not warming up (nope)
• lack of cushioning on the treadmill (no idea, I didn't ask the gym for a spec before I got on it)
• being flat footed, tendency to pronate (nope)
• too much impact to the lower legs, commonly caused by heel-striking or overstriding (it's possible my foot strike changed on the treadmill, so this could be a culprit) 
• overuse of the lower legs - pushing off with toes (again possible)

 As I'm unsure about the cause, the next time I'm in the gym I may ask someone to observe me running to see what the issue is. I think it's safe to say that my long run this week will be out on the road, however. Rain is better than pain.