What exactly is a shin splint, and why does it have that weird name? Despite six months of living with one, I can't tell you. The shin part makes sense - it's an injury of the shin. But splint? I dunno. The real name is "medial tibial stress syndrome", so I guess I shouldn't worry about the nonsensical common name. In any case, as I have written previously, during last summer's vacation to the Southwest I was frustrated with an itinerary which kept us all too sedentary, and so the morning after we arrived home I went out for a run, and afterwards something didn't feel right. My run, in addition to relieving my frustration at not having exercised enough for two weeks, apparently injured my leg. I didn't think too much of it at first - by the time you're in your sixties, everything hurts at least sometimes. The pain was intermittent, and not too bad. As a precaution I did cut out running, but I didn't cut back on any other activities - in fact...
One man's journey into the great outdoors of Washington, DC and its environs.