Some advice about running please.

I walk anywhere from 12 to 17 miles per day for the last two months. I thought I might as well start running, so I went and got some nice running shoes and gave it a shot. I ran about a total of two minutes and the front part of my lower legs were on fire ! I searched around on google to find out the cause, some posts said not stretching enough, some said stretching has nothing to do with it, others said shin splints..

I was only running for about 30 seconds and they were burning like crazy, any ideas what the problem might be, and how I can overcome it ?

If it were shin splints, then walking would affect you, too. I recommend getting legit running shoes.

they are decent running shoes

http://www.amazon.com/Reebok-Mens-Flight-Leat her-Running/dp/B001IBJQ5U ;

I would think even in hiking boots someone should be able to run for 30 seconds without the front of the legs burning. It's not like I ran miles, just a 100 feet or so. Just that less then two minutes of running and it feels like someone whacked me across the front of my legs with a baseball bat.

Let's take a look at HOW you are running...  Are you running on your toes?  Landing on your heels?  or what?  Ideally, you want to land midfoot (or flat footed), with a bent knee.  Shin muscles are notoriously week in somebody that has never ran before (or in a long time).  You will need to ice them, and keep a sharp eye on them.  If the pain gets sharp stop.

You can do toe raises to strengthen your shins, and calf raises to strength your calves.  Take it slow.  Be patient.  Ice and ibuprofen are you friends.

Good luck!!!

Wes

tibialas anterior exercises

I will try it again in the morning, I usually go for my first walk about 6am. I really have no idea how I am running, I will try to pay more attention to that. I have never ran for sport before, but I have certainly chased after the dog before etc..

I had a stop watch with me and 60 seconds is as far as I could go and the front of my lower legs were on fire, I stopped and walked for a couple minutes then tried again, I went 40 seconds before giving up. I didn't expect to be able to run a marathon, but with walking at least 12 miles per day I though I would make it longer then 60 seconds.

I will try stretching good before I go out, hopefully that makes a difference. It just doesn't make any sense to me, never when I have ran before has it felt like that..

I ran (tee hee) into the same problem when I started running.  I had good cardio at the time (swimming 45 minutes per day, 3 days per week), but I couldn't run worth a darn.  I got a burning pain in the outside front of my shins.  I started a "Learn To Run" clinic, and asked the instructors.  They suggested something very similar to the "Reverse Calf Raises" in the link that watergirl provided.  Except I could do it without extra weights.

For me, I was told to do my back against the wall, with my feet about 18" in front.  Then lift your toes up as far as you can, and tap them up and down 30 times quickly.  Then do 30 slowly.  Do this every day.  By doing this, I could replicate the same feeling without actually running, which was telling me that it was a decent way to build up those muscles without actually trying to run.  The pain has to do with your dorsiflexor muscles (the ones that lift your toes) not being used for much besides running.  I was able to replicate the feeling by walking hard/fast, in particular, up hill. 

After a couple weeks of doing this daily, I was able to run without issue.  Now it's my hips that are sore, but I'm getting better with putting more miles on.

Try something like the C25K runs that have been discussed in here.  My clinic did 2 minutes walking, 1 minute running the first week (25 minutes per run, 3x per week).  Then 1 minute running, one minute walking the next week, and then 2 minutes running, on minute walking.  Keep increasing the number of minutes running till you're doing 10 minutes running, one minute walking.  I think we're in about our 6th week, and we just did our first 8k run.  I did mine on 7 minutes running, one minute walking, and it took about 55 minutes.  It was our "long slow day".  Not sure what all that means, as all my runs are pretty slow. :)  But it was much longer than normal.  And I survived!

Clint

and to add to Clint's excellent advice...  you run real slow to start with!  You can get faster later!

Oh, and just because the shoes are "decent", that doesn't mean that they're decent for you.  People have different running issues, and different shoes are designed to correct different issues.  So if you had good shoes, but they were correcting the wrong issue for you, you'd be making it worse.

Of course, some people feel that you should run barefoot rather than funky shoes... Personally, I went to a local running store, where they watch you walk and run, and then suggest one of the 3 styles of shoes (motion control, cushioning/neutral, and stability).  I think I've got the classifications right.

Clint

Yeah I know, but here we have a bank, grocery store, hardware store etc.. we have no local running store, hehe.  I have never even heard of a running store before ! and I should probably run for awhile before I go investing even more in shoes. and who knows if it's something I will even keep up with.

 Well, running barefoot is an interesting concept, but there's at least a couple papers in Nature that looked at the bone wear patterns in human feet from various burial sites and excavations and they've come up with a pretty convicing hypothesis that humans have been using some kind of footwear for at least 30,000 years. There was a drastic change in the wear pattern of the toe bones without a structural change in the leg bones, and the most reasonable explanation is that this is about when we started to use something like footwear of some kind. So potentially, we're at least partially structurally adapted to using some kind of footwear.

 At the same time, excessive heel cushioning or ankle stabilization with high-tops is probably detrimental, given the recent studies that showed an increase in injury frequency for runners with the more expensive shoes.

 The Nike Free or Vibram five-finger shoes are supposedly reasonably close to barefoot running without actually risking your skin. But according to a friend of mine who runs with the five-finger shoes, he had some of the same symptoms that you're having when he was transitioning to running with'em.

 Anyway - I think following what Clint's outlined for you is your best bet; strengthen those muscles a bit and then do a walk/run program of some kind to ease through the transition from being a walker to being a runner should get you to your goal with a minimum of pain.

When I was in track in high school, I had to quite sprinting because of a similar kind of pain, and I never ran long distances.  So, you can imagine how surprised I was to be able to run a 5K with an additional 20 years and 60 pounds on me as an adult.

The best thing I did was read the Penguin Chronicles when I started at http://www.johnbingham.com/index.html. ; This guy writes about running for normal people - not marathoners or track stars.  There's great info about shoes, pains, plans, just everything a new runner needs.

Sounds like your tibalis anterior (Shin muscle), is weak, proper running form (Heel rolled to tip toes) will help 

The best way to resolve this is (Yes i know you will look goofy), but try walking or a slow jog, and ONLY allow your heal to touch the ground, run on your heels untill your muscle condition it'self to handle an actualy distance run or jog, then apply the above running form -  Also mid range body squat will help as well -

Also, chances are your Soleus, and Gastro (Calf Muscles), are much stronger in ratio then your T.A. -- Best advice is to STRETCH those muscles, but avoid working them out (Calf Raises, ect) UNTILL* Your T.A. Catches up in strength.

I will work on strengthening that muscle up before I try running again. Right now they are pretty sore, I feel goofy running no matter how I do it

When I was working through my shin pain, I still did the 1 minute running, two minutes walking for 25 minutes as part of our clinic.  Then the next week was 1 minutes running, one minute walking, then 2 minutes running, one minute walking.  Take it slow and easy, and work up to full on running.  But I don't know that you need to stop entirely.  Even if you just throw in a few minutes of running in your walks.

Clint

If you are at risk for Shin Splints or other stress injuries  DO NOT --  Continue training untill you idenfitiy what may be causing the pain 

Risk factors for Stress injuries of the Tibia/Fibia :

1. Flat Footed/Low Arched Foot

2. Improper Shoes

3. Overweight (BMI)

4. Rapid Increase in training

5. You feel the pain while on hard surfaces rather then when you run in the grass or sand

6. High Blood Pressure

7. Postural deviations of hip, and spine -

--- If you said yes to the above, i'd check with your Doctor - or  buy proper shoes...

If you "Work" through stress injuries it could result in "CHRONIC" Stress Fractures, something i myself am dealing with due to ignorant people in the Marines that forced me to run on stress injuries -

Stress Fracture of the Chronic type will never go away - so don't make something easly fixxed with proper shoes, and paced training turn into a devastating injury.

Original Post by pbear999:

When I was working through my shin pain, I still did the 1 minute running, two minutes walking for 25 minutes as part of our clinic. Then the next week was 1 minutes running, one minute walking, then 2 minutes running, one minute walking. Take it slow and easy, and work up to full on running. But I don't know that you need to stop entirely. Even if you just throw in a few minutes of running in your walks.

Clint

I did my normal 12 miles of walking today, later I walked my dog with me up to the store, I ran with her for a bit. I have a ways to go, thats got to heal up some. Hopefully by next week it will be good to go, running now I'm just going to make it worse.

how about a proper warm up? didn't see that mentioned. Are you going out and walking first before running? I'm an avid runner - training for a half marathon and I learnt pretty quick that if I don't do around 10 min of slow walking and then go into running - even my long distance slow runs - my shins will get really tight and start to burn. It's happened before too when i've tried to speed walk to a store before it closed lol and my shins were on fire. I regularly did weight lifting and was running 5-10k normally when it happened so something to keep in mind. it's good to warm up first before you stretch anyway. the whole cold elastic band will break when stretched without being warmed up first theory.

Yeah I have my rout that I walk around town a few times per day, I am kind of embarrassed to run so I didn't start trying to run till I had walked for a bit and was in a more secluded spot..

I think I just need to let them recover a bit, it doesn't feel like the burn from working a muscle right now, it feels more like an over extended tendon, or a tear. I don't want to damage it to the point that I can't do my walks anymore...

why do you have to walk so much every day? 12-17 miles is like 3-5 hours of walking (that's if you're walking at a pace of ~4 mph)

is this part of your job or something? (ie: mail carrier)

this seems like a tad too much, where do you find the time to walk for this long every day?