Back earlier this year i had to quit running. I had given myself shin splints, something i'd heard of but never really known what it meant. Well, pain is what it meant. I went to the doctor and he said that i needed to quit running, at least for several months. I did. And hated it. To replace my running i took up bicycling, which is fine and i need to do it because of my nebulous plans to eventually do a mini-triathlon, but biking is no where near as gratifying in the endorphin category.
Anyway, i have laid off running since January. I have waited patiently until now to try it again and i'm back at it. It probably isn't going to work, however. I can feel that same old feeling in my right shin that i was feeling earlier this year, so it looks like i better keep it to a minimum.
That, however, is not the point of this post. Here's the point:
I usually carry a watch with me when i run or bike. It's not a sports watch, but a normal everyday kind of watch with big hands and stuff. I use it for the merest reference, i.e. hmmm...i've been at this now for twenty minutes. That's long enough.
Well, today i took an actual stopwatch. I wanted to find out exactly how fast my average running mile is. For a long time now i've been under the impression that it takes me about 7 to 8 minutes to run a mile. I've wondered, then, as i breathe heavily and only slowly improve, how in the world there are people out there that can run a freakin' mile in like 3 minutes and stuff! I'll never be able to do that, i think.
Well, lo and behold, today with the stopwatch, i found out that i ran a pretty average speed mile in 4 minutes and 18 seconds. Lawsymercy!
10 years ago
4 comments:
When you developed shin splints, how often were you running, and how long were your runs? I'm a runner.
Yeah, i remember you blogging about you running. I have a hard time seeing you do it (insert smiley face here), but i seem to recall you were covering some pretty good distance.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of my problems came from the same source of many of my issues: too much, too fast.
By the time i started developing problems, i was running approx. 3 miles every weekday, taking saturday off, and then going for a one hour run on sundays. I did all of this on a hard surface (mostly asphalt, some cement).
Are you concerned for yourself, or do you have some good advice?
No, nothing to offer. I run about 3 miles maybe 3 or 4 times a week.
Hey biffle, I've been training for a marathon. It's in two weeks. I just experienced some injury after my longest training run, 20 miles. Not immediately after but the next week. I think it was gradually building up over time. It might be an 'iliobital band' injury, I don't know, just some numbness or pain in my right leg above my knee. Luckily I'm in the tapering phase of my training, so I'm hopeful I'll be 100% for the marathon in 2 weeks.
So here's some random bits of advice, maybe some will be helpful.
You are running way too fast. Remember that running under a 4 minute mile was considered unachievable up until the 50's. If you really did run at 4:18, you would have broken the world's record in 1865. I know you want those endorphins, but trust me they still come if you run slow. Slow tokes man, don't choke. For comparison, I'm running between 11:00 and 12:00 miles in training.
Warm up, stretch, run, stretch.
Get good shoes. I used to get shin splints and various lower leg and foot ailments. I went to a running specialty store to get shoes, and the guy told me my shoes were too small! Typically you need a 1/2 bigger shoe than normal for running. After than all those pains went away.
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