Up until this year, managing injuries has been a consistent thing for me. Ultimately a running injury is what got me into triathlon... I know that sounds weird given that running is one of the disciplines of triathlon, but it was a knee injury that got me to switch to road biking for a while, and the road biking that led me to do a swim-cycle event, and that led me to get into triathlon.
I've dealt with patello-femoral syndrome and achilles problems in the past, and made corrections to my training and equipment in order to prevent these issues from happening. This year, things were finally different. I was running in the right shoes and training intelligently, and was injury-free for the first time ever.
But after my Tri season ended, and I moved into my fall run focus, four things happened that led to injury, and in retrospect it's really no surprise that I got bit by the injury bug.
1) Increased run volume
After the Brockville race, I quite "training" on the bike, and just rode once every week or two when I could get out for a nice long ride. But I replaced any biking (and swimming) sessions with run sessions and hit 50km in a week for the first time, after averaging maybe 30-35 for most of the summer.
2) More speedwork
Under my normal training regime, I did one speedwork session per week. And this typically consisted of race-pace intervals. Once I switched to my run-focus and was running almost every day, I was doing one speed session (400m repeats well above race pace) and one tempo session (just over 10K pace). Furthermore, I devised a plan that quickly ramped up the duration of these sessions. So in a couple of weeks I was running more hard miles in a week than I had been in a month prior.
3) Hard surfaces
In the summer I have the luxury of running in the daytime, and can do my normal runs on gravel roads and my speedwork on the local high school track (also gravel). But once September rolls around and I'm back to work, I have to do my running at night after the kids are in bed, and running on the track isn't really all that great. It's not lit at all, and is overgrown in places with weeds - running in the dark can be treacherous, plus it's annoying not to be able to glance down at your watch and see your pace. So my speed sessions (now twice a week instead of once a week) were being done on streets, and asphalt is harder on your legs than gravel. In fact, all my running was being done on asphalt, as opposed to the summer where it was at least 50% on gravel.
4) Worn out shoes
Rightly or wrongly, I credit my injury-free season up to this point in a big way to my Brooks Ravennas. The right combination of stability (to help my knee and toes), heel-toe drop (to help my achilles) and light weight (to help my overall form) is something I've sought after for a while and while I'm sure there are other shoes our there that can provide similar benefits, I'm pretty sold on the Ravennas for now. But although I know there's some debate as to how valid this rule of thumb is, the general consensus is that you should be replacing your shoes after around 300-500 miles. And I got to the point where there were well over 400 miles in these shoes. Were they worn out and causing more wear and tear on my muscles and bones? Maybe, maybe not, but in conjunction with the previous 3 factors, it's pretty clear that I should have expected an injury.
So what was the injury?
I've dealt with medial shin splints in the past. The only thing that has effectively managed them has been a good RMT (shout out to Cory at Back in Balance). But since I'm now working in a different part of the city and my summer vacation has ended, it's been really difficult to get back in for treatment. And the four factors listed above have all added to the stress on my shins - both the soft tissues (muscles/ligaments/tendons), and bones - that has not really been dealt with.
My medial shins were getting sore leading up to the North Gower race, and after the race were really sore. I took a day off after the race and went for an easy 10K two days later. My shins were sore during, and perhaps more significantly, after. At work that week I was really feeling it. The issue with medial tibial stress syndrome is that it can turn into a stress fracture. And stress fractures mean potentially several months without running. I really wanted to hit my sub-40 10K goal this fall, and while so far my proudest achievement has been a running goal (getting that sub-20 5K last year), I'm still focused on being a multisport athlete. Jeopardizing next season in order to achieve that goal made no sense. I haven't seen a doctor, and there's some question as to whether what I'm dealing with is just a stress reaction or an actual stress fracture. The "hop test" resulted in no pain, but pressing on my tibia resulted in a pretty specific/focused pain in the bone.
So, in the interests of playing it safe, I've given up running for a few weeks. I've replaced it with more biking in order to maintain fitness, and have blown way over my previous highest weekly bike TSS. I've also devised a run-specific strength circuit that I've been doing a few times a week. I probably should have been doing this type of thing anyway.
I've already signed up for the Cookie Run in November, so the plan is to do that. My goal had been to do that run in under 40 minutes, and at this point, I'm not sure that's reasonable. The McMillan run calculator puts me, with a 19:16 5K time, at right on 40 min for a 10K. But with a good month off running, I certainly won't gain any run fitness and break that time. If I'm still sore, I won't even race, but after a week of no running I was pain-free with normal activity, but some pain upon pressing on my shin has still been present, but gradually decreasing. Now a week out from the race, I'm pain-free, so will attempt to ease in some light treadmill running in the final week. Hopefully that will remind my legs how to run.
I'll likely try for the 4:00/km pace required to break 40 minutes, and if I blow up (or shin pain gets bad) I'll back off. If I break 40 minutes, in my mind, it'll be a triumph and an interesting learning experience. I'm hoping that a) run fitness, which doesn't increases quickly, will also not decrease quickly, and b) the strength work I've been doing will pay off.
As always, experience provides more lessons to apply to next season's training.
