The IT Band runs down the outside of your upper leg, from your hip down to your knee. It tends to be most troublesome closer to the knee. Because of the area it is located in, it is pretty difficult to stretch. Here’s what worked for me: If you’re trying to stretch your right IT, stand sideways on a step with your left leg dangling. Drop your left hip and push your right hip to the right. Keep pushing gently and you should feel a good, deep stretch throughout the IT Band. Like most stretches, hold it for 30 seconds, relax, and repeat.

The other stretch that works fairly well is performed on flat ground. Again, if you are working on your right IT Band, cross your left leg in front of your right and bend over as if touching your toes. Instead of trying to stretch the back of your legs, lean to your left and push your hips to the right, similar to the first method.

Lastly, you might have some success continually massaging the area that is overly tight. You will need your leg straightened for this to be possible, and relaxed. If you’re sitting in class or at work and have nothing better to do, find something to put your leg up on and dig in!

The solution is a rather simple one, although rather annoying at the same time. Go to your local craft store and get some casting cloth (plaster cloth or several other names), then find some knee-high socks you don’t mind making a mess of. You will need someone to help you with the next step. Lie on your stomach, with your feet hanging comfortably off the end of a table, couch, etc. Put the sock on the injured leg, and with your foot perpendicular to your leg (straight down), have your assistant create a cast of your lower leg. You only want to cast the back of your leg and the bottom of your foot, wrapping around the sides slightly and to the ball of your foot for stability. Remember, you want to be able to get it off! Once it has dried, take it off and cut it down to about mid-calf level. When you put it on at night, wrap it with an ace bandage to hold it in place.

Remember I said something about it being annoying? Well, if you get up at night to go to the bathroom, you’ll understand… Especially if you have the cast on both feet!

The exercise that was recommended would best be described as figure-eights. Find yourself an old bicycle tube or some surgical tubing, and tie a loop at one end to put your foot in. Pull back on the other end with as much resistance as feels comfortable, and rotate your foot in circles (point your toe, rotate clockwise toward you, then away from you, etc.). Change directions from time to time, making slow, controlled movements. After five to ten minutes a day of this, my shin splints were gone for good within a mere week or two. Had I only known this three years earlier…

I have not seen this exercise recommended anywhere else, and I’ve never seen a good description of the underlying physiological principles. Here is the way I understand the process works. There is a long, slender muscle (the tibialis anterior, I’m told) that runs vertically along the front of your shin. Being a very small muscle, it can easily become weak in relation to the opposing calf muscle. The result is muscle being pulled away from the bone and causing the un-scientific term shin splints. It is surprisingly easy to counter this affect by strengthening the muscle for which I now know the name.

Furthermore, I have learned through experience that running on pavement does not cause shin splints. The pavement may aggravate the shin splints, but it does not cause them. Be careful to separate the symptom and the illness. When I had shin splints, running on hard surfaces was excruciating. As soon as they were gone (and I mean a mere week after they were gone) running on pavement never again caused me shin pain.

Why, you ask? Trust me, you’re not the first. I began the practice as an impressionable, young high school runner. Several of the really fast guys did it, so I thought I’d try it, too. Brr. It really seemed to work well for getting a lot of the soreness out of the muscles that results from high intensity training, so I stuck with it. However, I discoverd that if I took an ice bath the day before a race, I felt fairly stiff from it. I guess it takes a while to thaw out! Two days before the race seemed just about right.

So, what is an ice bath (beyond the obvious), you ask once again? It works best in a whirlpool (of the athletic training room variety — tough to make enough ice in your own freezer) filled with enough cold water and ice so that the ice is not fully melted after sitting in it for 20 minutes! The “recommended” range is 15-20 minutes, but I always went with the higher end. Submerge yourself past your waste (please don’t ask for details), and find a towel to bite down on! Some people like to use the little neoprene toe covers; probably not a bad idea. Want to really have some fun? Talk all your teammates into doing it, too, and watch the first-timers scream in ecstasy… Cool dippings.

Well, the conference meet finally rolled around, and I was quite sure that I would run my fastest times to date. It didn’t happen. I ran pretty much what I had averaged all that year. Why? I didn’t prepare myself properly. As silly as it may sound, I didn’t understand at that time that I would run faster, not because other people were running faster, but because I had created the necessary situation for myself to perform.

Fast forward three years to my senior year. Heading back to the conference meet, to be my last race of high school, I had learned many running lessons. This time I spent two weeks visualizing every aspect of those two laps I was to run. When I found my lane assignment the week before the race, I spent much of that week practicing breaking in off the first turn and focusing in on the end of the straight. When the race finally rolled around, my mind was clear of everything but the 800m. (The nice thing about high school as opposed to college, I learned later, is that you can focus your attention on running for an entire week and not fall behind.) The first lap was truly effortless. In fact, it was only one second slower than my 400m PR, which I had just run the previous week. Unfortunately, I was not in quite the necessary shape to hold that pace, and I struggled to find the finish line. Still, I ran nearly a 2 second PR, after already having improved 6 seconds that season. Some of the improvement can surely be attributed to competition and conditioning, but the major reason was undoubtedly due to mental preparation.

That said, here are a few of the guidelines I have found that work well for me: Eat a full breakfast before a race. Wake up earlier if you have to in order to have enough time to digest before early morning races. The longer the race, the more important this is (proper digestion makes you feel better, and food provides the long-burning energy). I like to have finished eating four to five hours before warming up. Consider the warm-up part of your race, from a food/digestion standpoint. After the main part of the warm-up (the jog) — about an hour to 1-1/2 hours before the race — I often eat half of a PowerBar or a banana for a little extra energy to get me through the race. Either of these ought to digest quite easily. Also, I have long avoided dairy products before racing, even before I knew I was allergic to dairy. It really makes a big difference for a lot of people.

Anyway, here’s how you do it. Roll your shoulders forward slightly (also known in stuffy circles as slouching) and let them relax. As you breathe in, push out with your stomach and at the same time push down and out with your diaphragm. This allows maximum room for your lungs to expand and draw in precious oxygen. If you’re not sure where and/or what your diaphragm is, check an anatomy book, because I’m not quite sure either! I know it’s right around the center of your chest near the bottom of the rib cage. Some help I am… Once you get comfortable with how this feels, focus on how many strides you can cover between inhales. Initially, four strides (eight total steps, two steps per stride) will probably be just about your limit, but after a little practice you should be able to reach eight strides.

Give it some time, it will start to feel more natural. And if you have problems with side cramps, this technique will put an instant smile on your face.

Another excellent strategy is to rotate several pairs of running shoes at the same time, even if they are the same model. This keeps any particular shoe from causing irritations or wearing excessively in a particular area. You’ll have to buy a certain number of shoes based on your mileage anyway, so you might as well have them now and keep your body healthy; the shoes will last just as long either way. Lastly, make sure the shoes fit. Buy from local running stores unless you have no other options. They will provide you the attention needed to find the right fitting shoe.

“make your hard days as hard as possible and your easy days as easy as possible.”

The idea is that if your easy days are taking away from your hard days, you will merely run mediocre every day and not do the work necessary to become faster. It is the hard workouts that make you a faster runner, not the easy ones.

Personally, I am in favor of three hard workouts a week (two if one of the days is a race), with an easy day between hard workouts and races. I prefer six days a week of running, with the seventh day spent cross-training (bicycling, for example) or resting, if need be. Many people go the route of seven days a week, 365 days a year. This works for some, but breaks down many others. Find out what works for you, give the body time to get accustomed, and stick with that routine.

There is much more to rest than when and how hard to run, however. Other related things to consider are: sleep, diet, stress level, and mental preparation. All of these combine to dictate how your body will be able to react to your training regimen. You’ve probably heard your coach say, “two days before the race is most important.” This refers to both sleep and food. Why two days before? Because the night before a race you will probably be too nervous and/or excited to sleep, anyway! By eating correctly, your body replenishes the nutrients which are burned up through exercise.