Shin splints

I read up a little on shin splints and found this article, Your Shins by Martha Schindler on Runner's World. This paragraph caught my eye...

...A runner who overpronates might buy a rigid shoe hoping to keep her ankles from turning, he explains, but many motion-control shoes are simply too stiff for a woman's less-muscular foot to bend. "If you hear a slapping noise every time your foot hits the ground, your shoes are too stiff," he notes...

AHA! I may just have come to the root of my problem. I recently started using these pair of shoes. Each time my foot hits the ground, these shoes make a loud slapping noise which I can hear through my headphones. So much for buying a shoe voted "Editor's Choice," if it isn't appropriate for you. I'm actually a neutral runner, not an overpronator, and this shoe corrects overpronation.

Also on Runner's World, this article Get Healthy Calves and Shins, by Ted Spiker, describes shin splints.

Pain down the front of your lower leg is likely due to shinsplints--or medial tibial stress syndrome, as medical practitioners prefer to call it. It's thought of as a beginner's injury, but shinsplints can strike anyone, especially those who overtrain. They're caused by degeneration of the muscles or tissues that attach to the tibia (shinbone). Anterior shinsplints affect the tibialis anterior muscle (outer side of the tibia), which keeps your toes from dragging when you take a step and lowers the forefoot to the ground. Posterior shinsplints indicate irritation of the posterior tibialis muscle (inner side of the tibia), which decelerates the pronation of the foot after heel-strike. Too many miles with too little rest, improper biomechanics, or tightness and weakness in the calf muscles are all contributing factors, says Janet Hamilton, a registered clinical exercise physiologist and author of Running Strong and Injury Free. Typically, this pain strikes when you start to run and stops once you've warmed up. If you have shinsplints, the best remedies are rest, icing, stretching and strengthening exercises, and anti-inflammatories...