R.I.C.E.

I wrote last week about my first experience with shin splints. They are pretty painful to deal with and I was definately in denial about the fact that I actually had them.

On Friday, when i got home, I threw on some knee high socks and stuck ice packs in them for 20 minutes at a time (to hold the ice in place) and the pain was gone by saturday morning, just in time for my 6 mile run. My legs felt awesome the entire time. No pain, nothing. I took the now traditional ice bath for about 15 minutes and was like "what 6 miles?"

Then, saturday evening I went out for my best friend's bachelorette party. I was dancing, drinking, having a great time when at about 11:30pm my shin splints returned with a vengeance.

Lets just say my poor legs were pissed at me by the time I woke up sunday morning. I rolled out of bed, shuffled to the kitchen to find ice packs, ibuprofen and pillows. Got back into bed, propped up my feet, popped the pain relievers and sat the ice packs on my poor, mistreated shins.

So, to keep my shins from boycotting the rest of my body, my prescription for the rest of the week is RICE. And not the kind you eat.

My schedule is absolute chaos this week, so its actually perfect timing (i guess?) to take a few days to rest my shins. I'm skipping my monday, wednesday and thursday runs and will hit my 7 miler on friday. I'm sure I'll be itching to get out and log the miles by then.