I reached an unwanted milestone last week - ten months battling the dreaded shin splints. When I tell people how long that I've had shin splints, most assume that I'm overtraining but I can say in all honesty that I'm actually undertraining! I have only exceeded 50k's a week a handful of times in the last six months. That's not overtraining. There is little doubt that my shin splints are caused by my flawed gait and my overstriding and I continue to work hard to overcome those flaws. In fact, I've have just hit upon the idea that my walking gait could be contributing to my problem. Those who have struggled to keep up with me when walking will know that I walk extemely fast, and overstride considerably when doing so. I'll be investigating very shortly to see the extent if any, my walking gait is contributing to my probs.
Moving on, following discussions with all parties involved in my running career, I've decided upon the following changes:
- All speedwork will be run at no faster than 3:50 mins/km which is at least thirty seconds slower than my top speed. Possibly, I may not go faster than 4:00-4:10. In order to ensure that I still have a decent workout at speedwork, I will shorten my standing recoveries and run quicker jogging recoveries and top that off with a brisk warm down run. I may occasionally run at top speed for 8 x 500 and 5 x 1k sessions or a 3K Time Trial but these instances will be few and far between. I will do very little racing. My gait flaws are exacerbated by running fast, so hopefully, this move will speed up my recovery from shin splints.
- I will slowly increase my Sunday Long Runs back up to two hours and my Friday Recovery Run up to one hour. Shortly, I will resume my Wednesday Midweek Long Run starting at 20 minutes, increasing at five minutes per week and working my way up to 70-90 minutes.
In summary the above changes will see me reduce the intensity and speed of my running but compensate for that by bumping up the overall weekly mileage. I won't be getting too many PB's from my new plan but hopefully the reduced stress on my legs will assist my recovery from shin splints whilst the increased mileage will build up my endurance and strengthen me for when I'm ready to resume full on speedwork. I've spent the last three-four months following a plan of continuing to train hard at speedwork, but only running four times a week with at least 36 hours between runs to allow the shins extra recovery time. The plan sounded good in theory but unfortunately, has not worked.
Fingers crossed that these changes will help. If not I might have to try something out of the left field such as that suggested by Bruno when I got a rub this morning. He told me of an elite ironman triathlete who overcame shint splints by doing ALL of his running on a treadmill for six months, the theory being that running on the tready forces you to shorten your stride somewhat, thus overcoming gait flaws and the softer surface is also a little kinder on the shins. That would be as boring as hell, but I'll do it if I have to!!
40 mins this AM for 8k's at 4:52 mins/km
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3 comments:
Have you got that heart rate monitor yet?
Keep with it, its tough I know - I'm up to a 50min longrun now, but its frustrating as anything that I can't make that 1.50 for sure :) Good that you have a plan!
I wouldn't be too dismissive of your new training plan and it's ability to get you PBs.
I have always followed the Lydiard training principles which places great emphasis on lots of slow aerobic build up and limited speedwork and racing. It has worked for me and many others. It could work for you too.
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