At the begining of the week I developed a sore shin (left leg, just up from my ankle).
This started Tuesday at work in the afternoon (last run was Sunday, no pain). Went for a run after work and when I got back it was agony!!!!!

Wednesday no running, but it was still tender, so put an elastic stocking and ibuprofen gel.

Thursday morning with the support still on went for a run and shin was fine. And all day at work. No pain and felt normal.

Today did not have my support on and went for a run, before I run I walk about a mile to warm up and I could feel it starting to get sore. While running it was sore but I got through it.
Got home and it's sore, put the support on and it's not as sore!!

What could it be?

it's shin splints...

mostly caused by overstriding and landing heavily on your heel flexed upwards (dorsiflexed)...

this causes forced contraction from the calves, which causes the foot to be flexed downwards very strongly (plantarflexion)...

this eventually causes soreness of the muscles in front of your shin (e.g. tibialis anterior) as they are stetched very quickly by this reflex...

[shin splints can also be caused by over or under-pronation (pronation is when you turning your foot inwards slightly when you run - happens automatically)...]

i can't find a great explanation...

but basically you can overstride (particularly when you're forcing yourself to run faster - e.g. sprinting to the finish line) and your foot lands in far front of your body and so all your body lands heavily on your heel (since you can't land any other way if you overstride)...

hard core runners are worried this slows you down...

however, what bothered me was the injuries it causes - it puts you at risk of shin splints and plantar fasciitis (heel pain)...

maybe the pictures will help...

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3Den%26sa%3DN

you could try midfoot landing or flatfoot landing and not heel-to-toe landing...

i hope that helps...

i had to do my own research because that runnersworld website forum wasn't very helpful or useful...

i now run midfoot landing and haven't had foot pains since i changed...

edit:

i can't find great pictures... but look at the first three guys in the link below landing on their heel... that might give you an idea...

http://www.runwashington.com/other/rankMenAut05.html

hope that made sense...

Very informative post revenged! I'm impressed by your knowledge

May be worth baring in mind that shin splints is essentially an overuse injury, so it may only take a minimal amount of overstriding or for your foot to overpronate slightly without being corrected - and as running is such a repetitive motion, if your body isn't used to the stresses and strains it can quite easily develop into an injury.

From my personal experience I'd suggest that it's worth trying to rest it and fully recover early on, otherwise it can niggle you for ages (well it did for me, I was just too eager to get back to training).

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www.richardsimkiss.co.uk - Glooston 10k report added

That does make alot of sense.

I have noticed that if I shorten my stride that there was no pain.

I'm off running again today and I give the mid food landing a go.

Thank you for your advice.

It may also be worth concentrating on calf stretches if, like me, you have very tight calf muscles. I found that doing calf stretches 2-3 times a day between runs made a huge difference to my sore shins.

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Cautiously potter-along puddy

I've just more or less got over shin-spints. They are funny things because sometimes they seem to go away after training and then come back a day or two later. I would definately recommend calf stretches and do them daily even if you can only manage a few minutes.

I had sore splints about three weeks ago and the stretches seemed to be working but as soon as I went out running again, they came back. Then one monday I went out doing this military, circuit training type stuff and we did a huge amount of sprinting and hill-work. Had a great time but I couldn't run for a week as my shins were very painful. I made sure I stretched every day (and did some exercises to strengthen the muscle on the front of my shins) and then when I started back running, everything seemed ok. I've been out three times since and they are now only slightly sore so providing I keep stretching and exercising, I think I've got them sorted.