Burning, heavy legs... strange sensations... thoughts?

Injury/Nutrition Other

14 years ago 04/01/2010 3:12pm EDT

So the last few weeks I have several days a week where my legs burn. My shins and calves are the worse, but really all over my legs are burning and heavy. It is almost this strange feeling like my legs are full of lactic acid, like I have micro tears in my legs, and they're dead all at the same time.

Sometimes by around 5 miles in, they feel better. Other times, I fade slowly and die. Sometimes its just not there.

I'm training for the Boston Marathon (well, tapering now) and would like to figure out what this sensation is. I have massive variability in my runs these days. Some days I can't run 8:00 pace without feeling the way I mentioned above, and other days I feel great and have to hold myself back from hammering too hard.

I need new shoes, so I'm thinking that may help when I get new ones. Could allergies be a factor (everything just started blooming here in the north). Slightly overtrained?

Thoughts?

14 years ago 04/01/2010 3:20pm EDT

re: Burning Legs

This happened to me every year in college, just about the end of xc season. It would take me all through indoor (what little indoor we did) to get over it. Most of the burning lactic acid-type feel I got was in my quads though. I know that burning dead legs feeling like it happened yesterday. As I looked back over my training years later, the only thing I could come up with was overtraining. In college we hit it hard all the time. Every interval workout was a gut buster. There was no "within yourself" running that we did. Of course, I never ran enough in the summers to really be ready for the full season of training, so part of it is my own damn fault. But years after graduating, and taking charge of my own training, and learning a lot more about proper pacing based on fitness level, I never experienced it again while going on to run new prs from 3k on up. Boston is soon. Time to taper? Sleep like a dying man. Do anything you can to try to over come the feeling. I know how bad that is.

14 years ago 04/01/2010 7:16pm EDT

re: Burning Legs

I'd definitely say its the start of overtraining. Do you have any of the other symptoms (insomnia, tired all the time, elevated or DECREASED heart rate, etc.)? Since you are running Boston soon you can't take a month off, which is what I would suggest. Take the next few weeks REALLY easy.

14 years ago 04/01/2010 7:44pm EDT

re: Burning Legs

Rhabdomyolysis. Get yourself to a hospital immediately for dialysis.

14 years ago 04/02/2010 8:54am EDT

re: MD from hell

I'm going through the same thing lately. I was starting to get shin splints late last week and the pain kept growing so I biked to supplement running a couple days this week. Did 22 miles on Tuesday with a fartlek of 10 minutes off, 5 minutes on. Ever since my legs have felt excessively tight and horrible.

Yesterday for the first time in at least a couple years, I had a 10 mile run where as I went my legs just shut down more and more as I went. Starting off my legs and hamstrings felt extremely exhausted and felt like giant weights. I was still moving around 6:25 pace and doing ok. About 6-7 miles in I just wanted to stop and walk. I can't remember the last time I felt that way.

I would then have points where my legs would shut down to the point that my stride felt like a shuffle. Kept feeling worse and worse until I finished with a 6:45 last mile.

Haven't had a day in a long time where I just felt like I couldn't run. Waking up this morning I'm still tight. Is it just from the bike still or something else going on?

I'm running 75-80mpw, the highest I've ever done, and trained at before. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread, feel like I'm going through something somewhat comparable though.

14 years ago 04/02/2010 9:10am EDT

re: Tight

I get this in my shin muscles a few times per season. Take some time off, elevate your legs, and ice your muscles down often. I elevate my legs on the couch and put bags of frozen peas on my shins, from my ankles up to my knees. It seems to work.

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