I am no expert but I don't think there is a muscle associated with the shin (which is a bone). You could be experiencing patellar tendonitis.

http://orthopedics.about.com/...a/patellartendon.htm

I used to get this when I was running "heavy". In other words, I would run with my feet smacking the ground and not lightly with quicker, smaller steps.

Thoughts?

I've experienced patellar tendonitis - i don't feel any pain associated with the patellar tendon. The particular muscle that is affected is the front (anterior) part of the shin. I don't experience any problems with the outside (lateral) parts of the shin. The pain I feel is associated with the shin muscle that pulls the foot up.

More thoughts would be welcomed.

Must be the tibialis anterior. Are you running exclusively on hard surfaces? Are you icing?

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/...flamtibtensheath.htm

Yes, that sounds like the tibialis anterior.
Here is a trick that works great for shin splints - a condition typically caused by insufficient strength and endurance of the tib ant.

Sit on kitchen counder so that your feet are hanging.
Wrap a small towel around the handle of a partially filled paint can (start with no more than 16 oz/1lb).
Place the handle over the top of your foot, just behind the top of the toes.
Slowly raise and lower the paint can. Do both feet.
Start with 4x12. Build up to 4x24. Then add 8 oz fluid to the paint can.
Keep working your way up until you can do it with 48 oz.
If soreness follows, apply ice 10-15 mins immediately following the exercise.
Walking is also a good way to develop strength and endurance in the tib ant. at a much lower intensity.
Good luck.

Similar exercise - get a theraband, tie it in a loop. Wrap it around a leg of a table and put one end through the other side and put the free end around the top of your foot. Sit and flex your foot up. If you need more resistance, sit further away. Basically, it's the same exercise as the paint bucket, but might be easier.

Also, rolling your shin on a foam roller or something harder (e.g. baseball bat) will help also.

Are you running in new running shoes by any chance?

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GET OFF THE F*%KING WALL!!!!!!! (Doug Stern)
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2 things: try lacing your shoes like this http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/straightfashionlacing.htm
This will take some of the pressure off the top of your foot and allows your tibialis anterior as well as the otehr muscles that lift your foot to function better.

2nd, make a point of not landing on your heels. Landing on your heel forces your shin muscles to funciton beyond what they can handle to prevent your foot from clapping forcefully to the pavement.

I had these problems a couple years ago and after a lot of effort I found that these worked for me. Good luck.

I've encountered the same problem when I go out too hard early in a race. I'm beginning to think that if I'm trying to go out too fast, I end up overstriding and aggravating it. (If I'm well warmed up, I've never experienced the problem.) I now try warming up longer and concentrating on proper stride length early in races and I haven't experienced any serious symptoms since...

Brad

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3SIXTY5cycling.com

do you heel strike? that normally happend to me before and it happend a lot, really painful and like what you described. when i was able to run with a faster cadence and mid-foot strike, it has gone away. mine happens after 5 mins of running and also checked my shoes..i used to wear an old pair of nike max`s and the air sole has been punctured but kept using it.

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"Pain is NOT temporary,you remember every bit of it"

I used to have severe shin cramps that developed into shin splints when I was in the Army. They always developed on roadmarches at a certain pace under a certain load. I found the cause to be my stride under heavy load made me heel strike very hard, resulting in fatigue and then pain. They also were unbelievably painful 10-15 minutes in, then dissapated after 20 minutes. I would have fatigue in them after the event and they'd be sore the next day (but I could still work out).

My answer was to speed my pace up (i.e. run) or slow WAY down (walk). Basically, I had to decide my pace before the event and either smoke it or slack in order to save my shins. You may want to consider this. Another answer may be to lose some weight (I don't know how much you got). This also worked for me, I'd just put less in the ruck if I had to keep a fast walk pace for whatever reason. Calf stretching helped a ton, as did ankle stretches.

The good news is that this problem will go away after you put more miles under you. Those muscles are tough to work, but they get strong over time and you'll be GTG. Good luck!

Here's some background information. I'll send my personal comments later:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/shinsplints.pdf.

Thanks for the article. This injury, I presume, is do more to a lack of running experience more so than other external factors (excessive weekly distances, poor physical condition, etc.). I'm in relatively good physical shape. I have been nursing a partially torn plantar tendon for the past six months and have only begun to run again rather recently. My running workouts have been fairly short (2 mile runs, 3x week) and I'm slowly increasing the distance. I stand 6'1" and weigh 195lbs. I use orthodics in my shoes. From the article, it seems like a program of flexibility training and strength training to promote muscle development in the affected areas makes the most sense.

One of the questions which you might ask yourself is the foot slapping a cause or an effect. Is your foot slapping down because the tibialis anterior is becoming fatigued? If this were the case, it would make sense to strengthen the tibialis anterior to prevent footdrop.

I have my own theory about the footslapping. I believe that it is partly cause by the stiffness of the running shoes. They prevent the natural flexion of the foot, so that the foot cannot roll, but instead comes crashing down like a flat board. If you try running in more flexible shoes like cross county spikes, you'll find more freedom of movemet of you feet, and you may unload some of the stress from the shin. The tradeoff is that you will transfer the stress to the forefoot. You may substitute one injury type for another.

There is a specific shin exerciser made by APEC which uses weights. You can ectually see your progress.
http://www.apecsports.com/main.htm

Working on ankle/foot flexibility may also be helpful. Try fin swimming for this purpose.

The condition is called anterior compartment ad is in fact related to to the footslapping the ground.

It comes from you overstriding when you run. You can look up overstriding and see what is going on. Oddly, but basically your foot needs to land directly underneath your body when you run. Not out in front.

Sounds similar to something I had about a year ago. The doc said my anterior tibialis was overloaded because the foot rolled inwards too much - basically the muscle was too weak to stop the rolling which was being cause by a lack of arch support. I had inserts made and the pain went away. About year later I removed the inserts as I felt I didn't need them anymore.

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In order to make a diagnosis of anterior compartment syndrome, you need to measure the pressure within the anterior compartment. In severe cases, a fasciotomy is recommended. As I recall, Mary Decker had this procedure back in the 80's.

http://www.syracusechargers.org/therapy/chapt45.htm