Couch to 5k

I had some unpleasantness (further detail here if you are on my access list) on Monday which has left me rather out-of-sorts this week; one result is that all my joint/muscle pain is worse than usual. Annoyingly this seems to include the shin pain, even though I am being careful not to push myself for speed when getting from point A to point B.

So I didn't go to the gym Tuesday, and I'm not going today, and I will try again next week I think -- I don't know how long it will take to revert to "normal for me", but I do need to prioritise being functional for paid work and professional commitments. It's annoying, because the endorphins from exercise (even the walking) would probably help me get back to normal sooner as well as make me feel a bit better, but the risk of injury is just too high.

Shin pain is back.

I am upset about this. I wasn't even running.

It started before I even did the first "faster" interval, when I was still walking 5km/h. Maybe I should have just stopped then, or done 40min at 5kph and left it at that.

I kept going anyway, telling myself it wasn't *that* bad. This may have been a mistake, in terms of recovery and not aggravating an existing injury, but I think I would be feeling even worse now if I hadn't completed the set.

Possible causes:
-last night I was running late for a service I was leading, so I walked faster than normal to get to church on time. I rather legged it, in fact, and was pleased with myself for having walked a mile in under 20 minutes. It didn't hurt at the time. I've been walking a lot: church is just over a mile and I am there most days, sometimes twice, so I'm walking two to four miles most days; most of the time, this doesn't cause me problems. In general my joints have been pretty good lately and I haven't taken any painkillers for a few days, so I don't think I masked pain with medication or anything like that.
-er, not sure what else. I don't think it was caused by walking faster for 5 minute intervals instead of 3 minutes, or anything, because it started before then.
-I'm starting to wonder if the orthotics are actually causing part of the problem. They're "half-orthotics", which means they're only under the back half of my foot, and they're stiffer than the shoe in the front part of my foot. Could I be over-working my calves/shins because that part of my step is more flexible? But without the orthotics, I get hip and back pain, which slows me down a lot more and probably involves long-term damage.

PLN:
-Accept that it isn't fair and allow myself to have a bit of a sulk. Grah to hypermobility. Hmph.
-On Thursday, try the same programme again, with all the speeds cut by .5kph. Decide after that what to do next.
-If I continue to have ongoing problems, maybe try those horrid elliptical machine things. I hate these, but I haven't really used them since before I got the orthotics, so maybe they won't make my hip hurt so much now. They don't involve so much lifting feet and putting them down again, so may be gentler.
-Think about how this programme could be adapted to cycling, which I have had more success with in the past.
-If that also doesn't work, look into spending serious money on shoes, gait analysis and so on, or possibly getting different orthotics (even more serious money, if the NHS says "You get shinsplints when you walk fast? Walk slowly then!").


Good things:
-I have a PLN
-I walked a mile in under 20 minutes last night, and regularly walk two to four miles in a day. That's not bad going. In 2007 I couldn't walk to the end of the road without serious back pain, so even if I'm having some minor problems now, I've definitely improved.
-Between the walking (and attempts at running in January), rowing (so far this does not seem to exacerbate shin pain), and various other things, I appear to have dropped a dress size since Christmas. Now, I'm not doing this to lose weight or get smaller, or even weighing myself or using measuring tape! However it is gratifying to see some results in the form of changes to my body, even if they are changes I am trying not to care about.