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thanks. I think the shin splints were caused by 3 days of longer off road runs though, my lower leg wasnt used to working so hard! All seems fine now - it took three weeks to get back on track.
I'm a fore/mid foot runner and wear neutral shoes already, but sounds like I had a similar experience to you. About 5/6 years ago I managed to sever my big toe tendon in my left foot, get a sciatic nerve inflammation where I couldnt use my leg at all and then have a major 5-days-in-hospital bike crash, all in the space of a six months. As well as other problems, my gait was all messed up (I couldnt walk 100m never mind run to start with).
I went down the stability shoe and the expensive custom orthotic route, only to come to the conclusion that that stuff causes more problems that it solves. Lots of time spent stepping forward and back in front of a mirror along with strength and mobility work got my lower leg strength up to scratch and my hips able to place the foot on the ground safely.
cookiemonster-
That's a rough ride! Interesting that you had the same experience with the shoes/ orthotics.
I run mid/forefoot too, depending on pace, and it's always lower leg endurance that limits how long you can hold the forefoot for so I try to gradually build that up.
I also found that running on grass makes a massive difference to how much you can run - hard surfaces are brutal - and uneven surfaces were fantastic for building up the general resilience of all the ligaments/ muscles in the lower leg. Sorry if this is obvious!
welpeur
I suffered badly from shin splints years ago and went through progressively more built up running shoes and then custom orthotics trying to get rid of them. The net result was shin splints plus additional problems!
Then I thought about the nature of the problem, which in my case was the over-pronation which essentially is an incorrect motion that the shoes and orthotics are trying to prevent, but forcing a rigid biomechanic as a result. So I got a pair of neutral shoes and spent a couple of months on a treadmill in front of the mirror concentrating on trying to eliminate the over-pronation and gradually building up the time to allow everything to adapt and ensure that it became my natural motion.
It worked and I now run fine with neutral shoes over any distance/ surface so it's worth considering if you run into the same problems again.