What just happened to me?

Triathlon Forum
1

Disclaimer: Did the search, without specific luck.

Back story: I decided to take some rest this weekend as a preventative measure against a very slight set of shin splints. They’ve been looming for the past three weeks, not getting better or worse. Realizing that they weren’t going to disappear in my recovery runs, I took two days off the run, and no swim/bike either.

Today I start out with an incredible swim. Classes…yadayada… Run this evening. Uh oh.

My legs feel good. I go out at a recovery pace, just testing my legs. No shin pain. No pain at all, anywhere.

No more than three minutes into the run, I get an ache starting in my upper legs. There’s a trigger point in the outside of the leg(s), a few inches up from the knee on the outside. It seems buried in the ITB just behind the outer quadriceps. That’s where it was. The more I ran, the worse it got. The aching grows and expands through the ITB through the length of my thigh, and in the quadriceps around my knee cap. I’ve hardly started running. In less than a minute I could hardly move. Standing and picking up the lower leg, I could feel the tightness run through the outside of my thighs, from the side of the knees up to my hips.

I fiddled a bit, tried rolling the muscles (my gosh a HUGE knot over that trigger point), tried running again, no luck. Sat for a while to let the cramps subside a bit…

Standing up, I could hardly muster a walk. Once the cramps set in, they wouldn’t go away.

I can still feel them sitting here typing this (3 hours later). A minor contraction of my quads and I can feel the soreness everywhere. What the hell just happened? What should I do?

FWIW: Running consistently for 3 1/2 years - Biking and swimming in some capacity as well. Past two months have featured consistent 6x Run, 3-4x Swim, 3x Bike / Per Week, developed gradually from a long winter run base-build. 5’11", 147lbs. This has only happened to me once, years ago, and only in one leg. No extremes of weather, no extremes of nutrition… I have no idea. Thanks for any input, or at least tolerating the wall of text :slight_smile:

2

Your muscles go through a series of on/off, on/off. They contract then relax. Your muscle never relaxed, IOW it stayed on…contracted. Massage can normally be used to relax the muscles. I’ve read several different theories on why this happens. Perhaps someone more knowlegable can chime in.

3

…as a preventative measure against a very slight set of shin splints. They’ve been looming for the past three weeks, not getting better or worse. Realizing that they weren’t going to disappear in my recovery runs, I took two days off the run

With the disclaimer that it could just be cramps (from any number of reasons), I will say that I always get the weirdest pains and worst injuries when I try running with nagging/lingering issues. I think our bodies are smarter than us and will modify our running stride in order to protect injured areas. This results in us using muscles/tendons/ligaments/etc… in ways they weren’t supposed to be used. This leads to us injuring parts of our bodies we never knew we had.

Take home advice: don’t run if you have a nagging injury; it is likely to lead to permanent problems. Also, I don’t think many people or your shins would consider two full days off (a whole 48hours!? oh my!) sufficient rest. Excuse the sarcasm.

4

Your muscles go through a series of on/off, on/off. They contract then relax. Your muscle never relaxed, IOW it stayed on…contracted. Massage can normally be used to relax the muscles. I’ve read several different theories on why this happens. Perhaps someone more knowlegable can chime in.

If you’d be willing to link me that would be awesome. While searches for anything including upper-leg running cramps nets all the same B.S., I’ve read some interesting stuff on trigger point therapy. Thanks for the reply.

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Definitely get a massage. And foam roll your quads and IT bands.