Somewhere between finishing the Owl's Roost Rumble half Marathon with Meghan and Noel, and beginning training for the NY City Marathon a few weeks ago, my shins decided they had had enough.
"We're done, finished, OVER and OUT!" they screamed at me and promptly decided to give me trouble. Even standing up to ride the bike in spinning class made them throb. The docs in sports medicine said it was likely just my body not able to handle the increase in mileage. The physical therapist told me it was because my big toes wasn't quite flexible enough and he added a little piece of tape to my inserts to give it extra "drop". I even had a bone scan...nothing. I crossed my fingers, knocked on every piece of wood I could find, prayed to every God I could think of...I iced, I elevated, I RICED... and still there was little improvement. For those Seinfeld fans out there, I was left imagining my shins with lightening bolts hitting them and given the answers I was getting that may as well have been the cause.
I stopped running for 6 weeks and things got a little better.
Then I went back to yoga. My first night I imagined all my breath going into those shins and as I exhaled I imagined what ever the cause of the pain was leaving my body. It was very, as Meghan would say, oooovy groovy. But I kept at it.
I ran 9 miles on Saturday, and 6 on Monday. And 7 the Sunday before. Now, when I get out of bed in the morning my shins are quite. They're not silent, but I'm able to drown out their voices with just my breath-- and that feels pretty darn good.
- kjd
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