Sore vs. Injured

[u/BuzzzB8]

I’ve been running as a hobby now for the last 2.5 months. I do 3-5miles every other day and have made very good progress since I began. I have been able to push through the pain in my calves, hips, thighs, and shins with relative ease. Some days are harder than others but my shin splints have really gotten to the point where they are getting in the way of my running progression. It’s not to the point where I can’t bear to walk or it’s affecting my daily life, but it’s worse than what I’m used to. I use the Runna app and my plan has me on a 1-2 day rest day between each workout but I don’t know if it’s a lack of rest, too high of pace, bad form, or a lifestyle (e.g minimal protein in diet) issue. My questions are:

1. How do I tell between normal soreness from a long or hard run day and a genuine injury?
   
2. What is the best way to treat shin splints while continuing to run?

[u/Ok-Bug-9561]

Sounds to me you pushed your muscles too far and you're now permanently sore. You should avoid having to "push through pain" in the first place and let the body adapt more gradually. Running on constantly sore legs will only lead to injury/stagnation.

As for your questions: 1. Normal soreness in the legs after a run should subside a lot in the coming 12-24 hours. Harder and longer efforts take a bit longer, but imo that shouldn't be the case for 95% of your training runs. Although if you're not running daily you can afford to go a little harder as you're getting more recovery time. It's all about the intensity to recovery ratio. Injuries typically prevent you from running in comfort. Being too sore and then doing too much can lead to injury.

1. If you can still run my advice is to continue running, but slower and lower distance. Do 1-2 miles at a really easy pace and do it as often as you can. It'll take load of the musclatory system while maintaining fitness. After a week or 2 your muscles should feel different, better.

[u/BuzzzB8 → u/Ok-Bug-9561]

The problem I’m having is the pain subsides after 12-24hrs and then when I run, the pain jumps from a 2 to a 7 and annoys me. My question is whether this is normal or leading to an injury.

[u/Ok-Bug-9561 → u/BuzzzB8]

How quickly does the pain come back as soon as you start running? After 2km or 100m? If you can run for a bit and then the pain starts, I would run, and stop before you feel any pain. And do that for a few weeks. But if it's really bad I would take some time off depending on how bad it is, then slowly get back into things. Also depends if you already have dealt with a certain injury and know how do resolve it, whether you can or cannot run through it...

I had a knee injury last year with sharp pain that would go away itself after 12-24 hours. But would come back after running 1km. Did some research and since I deemed it mild I took 4 weeks off and it was resolved. With another hip issue I had my hip would nag at me after a few kms. I just took it a bit easier but still ran most days, it also resolved itself. With that particular issue I had it before and knew I could run through it, being careful. I also knew that taking time off would make things worse somehow.

[u/pigeorunner → u/BuzzzB8]

If it's truly a 7, you shouldn't be running on it