Guernsey's Tom Druce sidelined by shin problem

Druce is ranked among the top 40 400m runners in Europe

Guernsey 400m runner Tom Druce could miss the indoor season after suffering shin splints in his right leg.

The 25-year-old had been hoping to use the early part of 2012 to build the foundations for a bid to make the relay squad for the 2012 Olympics.

Druce won broke the Guernsey 400m record at a meeting in Italy in July.

"The only positive thing is it's the beginning of the indoor season rather than the outdoor season," he said.

"I'd be a lot more upset and worried about my prospects for getting into the Olympics if it was May time that I got this problem, rather than January," he told BBC Guernsey.

Druce has yet to complete a training run in 2012 after the injury flared up over the festive period, and the London-based runner says the problem has been exacerbated because he has not been able to afford as much physiotherapy as he would like.

"Ideally I'd have gone to the physio and got the little aches and pains seen to," said Druce.

"But financial times are biting into everyone at the moment, I'm living inside the M25 so it's quite an expensive place to be, and I've been scaling back on things like physio."

Druce was meant to run in his first indoor meet of the season this coming weekend, but says he may not take part in any indoor events at all.

"The indoors are in a little bit of danger because I don't know what the recovery's going to be like.

"I've had quite a few muscle problems in the past but you know where you are with a muscle tear because you go through the process and actively rehab it, while shin splints is more of a case of rest.

"I can't really say when I'm hoping to return, I've just got to keep my fingers crossed," he added.