Week 4 a.k.a. HELL

So as you can tell from the title of this entry, week 4 was awful. I'd begun to have some intense tightening and pain in my shin (this started last week and gradually increased) and as a result was unable to finish my run on Monday. In all honesty, it felt like my shin was about to detach from my leg and this time, I cried. Yes, I cried on the side of the road with all the cars whizzing by... but that's ok. Needless to say, I had to take it easy this week. Instead of running on Wednesday, I did an hour on the stationary bike so that my legs would stay strong. I also spent some time icing and heating my shin in order to relieve the pain. Thursday, I did a short 2 mile run on the treadmill at about a 12:30 minute pace... still leg pain! I pushed through it, but was feeling very depressed about potentially having to shorten or cancel my long run on Saturday. In the meantime, I'd been doing some research online about how to relieve my shin pain and what might be causing it. Let me tell you, the internet can be overwhelming when trying to self diagnose. I found about 25 different potential troubles and ailments that might be causing my problem. Ultimately, I attributed it to my bad feet, which leads to a bad stride and also weak shins. I found an exercise that is supposed to help strengthen the shins and have been doing that everyday, twice a day. You basically use your toe as a "pen" and write out the alphabet. Pretty easy, and I can do it while I'm watching TV or sitting at my desk. Eventually, Saturday morning came along and prior to the run, I did about 30 minutes of stretching and applied a hot towel to my shin in order to warm it up and stretch it out. I don't know if it was the warm towel, the ABC exercise or the attempt to correct my stride, but I was able to finish the whole run (a little shy of 5 miles) and my leg felt pretty decent.

I feel like I'm starting to get back on track and hopefully this rough patch is over. It was beginning to get really frustrated watching all the other runners in my neighborhood bound about like gazelles while I was struggling with shin pain! Looking forward to the upcoming week and putting in some good mileage.