Thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone.

Knee bone’s connected to the shin bone.

And the shin bone’s connected to the University of Maine men’s cross country team’s hopes for a successful season.

Three key members of the 1992 Black Bear cross country squad have suffered stress fractures in their lower legs in the past, causing them to miss extended periods of competition.

While this fall’s squad is currently healthy, as evidenced by Maine’s first-place finish in a four-way meet at Bowdoin last Saturday, taking care of those shock-absorbing shins and ankles is an important part of the training regimen.

“It’s always in the back of your mind,” said senior captain Jeff Young, who missed all of last season and half of the season before with a stress fracture in his left shin. “You’re always getting shin splints, so you’re always wondering if it’s degenerating into something worse. But if you took time off for every little ache and pain, you’d never get any training done.”

In addition to Young, junior Sean Tynan missed a season at Maine with a stress fracture, and junior Anthony Anderson is coming off a stress fracture from a year ago.

“We’ve had a rash of them in the past couple of years,” said 20-year cross country coach Jim Ballinger. “I think it’s due to the mileage these people are running. It’s also due to the shoes they’re wearing. If you don’t have new shoes, you can have a problem. A lot of times, you overwear them and they get worn down, which causes additional stress on the leg.”

In order to put in the 70-80 miles of running per week necessary to be a Division I cross country and track runner (virtually all the UM cross country runners also compete in track), shin care is a must.

“We ice every day after practice for a half hour,” said Young, a 6-foot-1, 165-pound psychology and political science double-major from Gorham. “We heat up our legs before practice, doing a half-hour of stretching.”

Ballinger said his team works particularly closely with Main Ballinger said his team works particularly closely with Maine’s highly regarded physical training department run by Wes Jordan.

“They’re very important for our team,” Ballinger said. “Without those people, our team wouldn’t be out there.”

While it might seem stress fractures are becoming more prevalent, Ballinger said he believes the injury has always plagued cross country and other running sports. It just hasn’t always been spotted.

“In the past, because of medical technology, it wasn’t diagnosed. We might have just called it shin splints and the individual probably kept running. Now, with the improved technology, they can spot even small stress fractures,” Ballinger said.