Painful Shins

Please tell me I'm not alone here.

I am experiencing pain around both shins while running, I know the first reaction is to say its shin splints but looking at the description of the condition it seems to be something else.
The pain isnt just down the front of my shins, in fact it feels as though its at the back of the bone and all the muscle surrounding the shine bone hurts.
The problem is that sometimes I don't get any pain at all but others I can practically walk. It also takes a good 30 mins to wear off too.
I've tried stretching before and after but nothing seems to stop it.
The reason for me writing this is I ran yesterday with no pain at all but was woken at 3am with excruciating pain in both lower legs and had to take Ibuprofen to sleep.

Anybody else experienced this and if so any ideas on how to prevent it?

Cheers

Bryan.

Bryan -  I had a calf problem last year, but this was in just one calf and after I ran.  Physio put it down to an overuse injury, muscle had become knotted, a couple of massage sessions, icing after running and ibruprofen gel were temporary fixes but rest was the best cure. Have you recently increased your mileage or faster running?

Hi Barry,
Im a fairly new runner and have been doing various park runs around the country. They are all 5k so thats what I have been running. My main objective is to better my last time so yes I do try to run quicker each time. Do you think this may be the reason? Should I try and get comfortable at a certain pace first before upping my speed?
If it was muscle strain though wouldn't I be in pain all the time?

Thanks for the reply.
Bryan

Maybe you should back off a little bit with the speed, how often are you racing? How often are you running? Are you warming up before and stretching after running?  Most of your training should be slower than your racing pace.  When I had the problem last year it did not hurt while running but hurt like hell after running, physio said it was n't strain just overuse injury where muscle had had enough and when really tight after exercise.