Pre race questions
The Mississauga Marathon is just a few days away and we have several people walking their first half marathon at this event. There are always excellent questions asked of me by virgin marathoners.
One question often repeated is "What can I do about sore shins at the beginning of a race?" Well, it's not exactly the shins that are sore - it's the muscle alongside the shin bone or tibia - the tibialis anterior. Many people, when they walk really fast, feel this muscle fatiguing.
It's a small muscle, and our brain sends lots of messages for it to work hard when we want to speed up or walk. Quite often I recommend that people use their brain to send a message to the glutes (much bigger muscles!) to take over from the tibialis anterior.
Sometimes, and often at the beginning of a race, this just isn't sufficient.
I know one of our coaches is going out for a 3k walk before the half marathon on Sunday to give the shins time to warm up before the start gun.
One of my tricks is to have a warm bath before I leave for the start. In the warm water I massage the muscles of the calves (gastroc and soleus) as well as the tibialiss anterior while moving the foot through a flexion and dorsiflexion movement (i.e. pointing and flexing). After that I try to keep the legs warm by layering extra pants. Once I get to the race, I find a clear place to pace up and down.
So, if you are walking the race this weekend, good luck! If you have any pre-race questions, ask them here. Or, if you have any pre-race suggestions make them here!
Labels: Thoughts on racing
posted by Wow Power Walking Founder @ 4:42 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I too have suffered from sore shins at the beginning of races and have found it very helpful to do a warm up walk of about 10 minutes before the race and then some stretching for the shins. It is hard not to get caught up in the momentum of the crowd and go out too fast at the start, but if you build your speed slowly, that can help eliminate some of the pain in the shins.
One of the best tips I ever received was to wear old clothes that could be discarded to the start line so I could stay toasty warm until the race started.
The most important thing is to relax and enjoy this first experience. Have fun and good luck!
I decided that for me to improve my time that I would have to go out faster. That said I would have to address my limiting factor--SHIN PAIN. I get the pain after about 1k and it last until 5k. I discovered that the pain was the same at moderate speeds and faster speeds. I proceeded to modify my short training runs by starting out faster a I figured I had the pain at either speed I may as well train to be faster.
In the Mississauga 1/2 I found that the shin pain was not as intense and it did not last as long
In my training I found that I had the pain from 1-5K no matter my pace time.
So for my short training walks I went out faster. I got shin pain sooner at the beginning but over the course of my training the intensity and duration diminished.
It seemed to have worked. I posted my PB at the Mississauga 1/2
I am doing the Ottawa marathon next weekend and always go out to slow trying to alleviate shin pain. If we were to go out faster does the shin pain just all of a sudden go away? It is so difficult to pace ourselves properly and any suggestions help would be wonderful.
The tibialis anterior muscle along the shin is a small muscle trying to move a heavy load!
Small muscles are vulnerable to fatigue and injury, especially at the beginning of a workout when blood flow to distant muscles takes a bit of time. Also, once small muscles like the tibilais anterior are injured they can be difficult to heal - leaving you unable to train for weeks.
That is why caution is urged in respect to pushing too hard through pain. Pain is our body's way of telling you there is danger.
Still, Shelagh's comment is interesting and I know of other people who proceed the same way. In the Sporting Life 10k I experienced severe pain from shin fatigue for the first half of the race. I persisted and posted a better time than last year.
Still, this is a radical approach and I encourage you to try it during training walks after the Ottawa Marathon. As far as the Ottawa Marathon goes, I would still listen to the pain as an indicator that the muscles are not ready for the load and try some of the more common strategies.
Anything you do on race day should have been tried on one or more training walks.
Good luck and have a great race next Sunday!
Thank you for your input about persisting through shin pain. I also wanted to know if you have any solutions for toes that get numb feeling. This is a recent issue and I am not sure how to "fix it".
Thanks again,
Love your blog and I always look forward to it.
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