Shin splints..

Yup, the last thing one would want to happen with less than 4 weeks left in training for a marathon has happened...I'm injured. "Luckily" its not the WORST possible injury but it may set me back a little. I have shin splints. For those who have had them they can sympathize on the pain, for those of you who have never had them, it is not a fun time. It is shooting pains up the front part of your shin either on the inside or outside of your leg. I have them on the inside of my right leg. I started to feel them the end of last week and kind of ignored them thinking they would just "go away." Yesterday morning when I woke up to run in the morning I tried to run but it was more of a hobble. After 2 miles of discomfort and pain, I bowed out and walked back home. I was so mad, so disappointed, I wanted to throw in the towel all together. I felt like it was losing right before the finals of a tournament. I won't quit though. I immediately googled shin splints and remedies. RICE. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. I'm down for all of that but the rest. How am I supposed to rest right now??? I am taking today off from running and doing time on the elliptical. Tomorrow is my scheduled day off but Saturday I'm supposed to run 20. That is so not going to happen. I'm thinking of swapping it with next week's 12 miles. I think I'm going to do 12 Saturday, then the 20 the next week, 2 weeks before the big day. It seems like a lot rather close to the big day but I don't know what else to do. They say one of the causes of shin splints is running in sneakers without enough support....great. I have new sneakers but they didn't really win me over Tuesday night when I ran and I didn't really get much of a shot to properly test them out yesterday. Therefore, my long run, whatever it ends up being Saturday, will be done in the old sneaks.

So frustrating, so disappointing. I don't want to deal with this right now. As we speak I have my leg up (elevation) with an ice pack on it (ICE). I got compression running pants, now if I can just "rest" I'll be good to go. Fingers crossed that my taking care of myself and the new sneakers do me some good.