Shin splint Saturday, and the SMC Sunday Half

Now I know why I prefer to put up entries daily - it's a pain in the backside having to recall previous days...

Saturday
Wasn't feeling fantastic on Saturday morning. The hangover I'll cop the blame for (self inflicted wounds and all that), but getting out on to the road for a reasonably paced jog (4.8km in 22:36) revealed the return of an old "friend" I hadn't seen since July 2002 - shin splints.

I've been thinking on this - I have a suspicion I can get away with running in neutral shoes, but I need longer distance trainers that provide pronation support. The Reebok Road Lites, nearing 600km, are in the bottom of the shoe bin, awaiting a Six Foot Track hit-out next week that will probably be their swansong, and I've been doing long runs in Asics 1090s, which are nicely broken in now - but I think I need the support fairly regularly on longer runs.

I pottered over to Damien's (The Sydney Running Centre in Edgecliffe) and after trying on the Asics Nimbus (soggy) and Adidas Supernova (nice sole, hated the upper) ended up with the series 11 Kayano. Having started my running 'career' in Kayano VIIs, and sticking with the range until late last year when I abandoned my series IXs as I felt they had the motion control of blancmange. Looks like the control's much better, and the upper's much better. Shame about the white shoe with black trim and flourescent yellow highlights, though...

Sunday
Fire the Sube up, pick up Johnny Dark, and head to Smithfield. I had been planning to run in my series VIII DS Trainers, but given my thoughts (as above) and still feeling fairly stiff, I made a call to debut the Kayanos in a race. Plenty of tape on the feet, mind you...

Ran 85:05, which I guess 6 weeks ago I would have been rapt with. Got through 10k in 40:01, which was what I targetted, climbed the hill on the extension loop, came back down, settled down, got to the bus crossing, hit the accelerator, and....

...nothing....

Remember that scene in 'The Empire Strikes Back' when the Millenium Falcon clears the asteroid belt, and with a Star Destroyer right up their backside, they fire up the hyperdrive, and nothing happens except a feeble whining noise? That's pretty well the moment.

I was locked at 4:06 per km pace and I couldn't break out of it. I ground through to the 20km marker (losing my fourth spot in the process) and despite a stitch, flogged it home for the above time.

I started with shin splints, but they went away after 9km or so, so I think I'm on to something with my pronation theory. The new shoes took a little while to loosen up on the hard tarmac strethes of Wetherill Park, but were pretty well fine after 14-15km or so. Actually, the Kayanos were pretty good, even before taking into account they were literally straight out of the box.

I suspect, given that the slow-down occured after the climb, that there are still traces of the Six Foot training run still lingering in the system. We are of course out there again next week, so I've got the opportunity to bugger myself up for four weeks again.

I felt pretty strong on the climb, though, and suspect it is simply the 'endurance' side of the equation that is suffering a bit at the moment.