Summary (for the time or attention challenged): Plyometrics the day before a long run is a baaaaad idea.
Two weeks ago I ran my longest run ever (18 miles) and was feeling very good afterwards. A little soreness, but nothing of much concern. Regardless, I decided to take it easy to give my body time to heal and recharge.
It seemed like a good week to try a technique I read about in Galloway’s book. Instead of doing the planned mileage for the week (I am still building my base) I decided to take it easy during the week and prepare for the upcoming weekend…and the milestone of 20 miles.
So, my plan was:
- Monday – Rest
- Tuesday – easy 2 mile run
- Wednesday – easy 3 miler
- Thursday – easy 10 miler
- Friday – rest
- Saturday easy 2-3
- Sunday – 20 mile long run
I thought it was a solid plan…then life happened (with a sprinkling of stupidity on my part).
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday went according to plan. Then Thursday hit and I had to drop the 10 miler at the last minute because of “kid stuff”. No problem, I thought I could hit it first thing Friday morning.
But life (and my family) had other plans and I moved the long run from Sunday to Saturday. This meant a 10 miler on Friday would probably be a bad idea, so I decided to fit in an hour session of Plyometrics. What could it hurt?
So, watching my son in his Kung-Fu tournament on Saturday was awesome and I would not trade it for anything. The downside is that sitting on a hard surface for 4 hours tensed up my back and numbed up my butt…not ideal prep for a long run. Nothing that a slow start for my run wouldn’t work out, right?
The first 6 miles felt great but at around 10 miles my hamstrings started talking to me. By 12 miles they were yelling. At this point I was questioning the sanity of running. Not just THIS run…but running in general. Who the hell was I kidding? I think I can run a 50 mile ultramarathon in the mountains?! Haha. Dreams of beating Tony K and Scott Jurek…rubbish! I cannot even run 20 miles around my subdivision! What an idiot I am.
However, maybe it was just my brain responding to the pain. I needed to overcome this and run through it! I must have just pushed the pace too far too fast. But what if I push through and injure myself?
These types of thoughts were careening around in my mind as I alternated running and walking for a couple more miles. This is where my background as an athlete came in because I was able to pinpoint the source of the pain. It was not tendons or bone or ligaments or cartilage…it was muscle. Why did I have muscle pain in my hamstrings? I never have hamstring issues because I start slow and build to warmup.
The assessment continued as I plodded through the miles and I realized that although it was my hamstrings which were tight and painful, it was my glutes which were the source of the pain. They were very tight and pulling on my hamstrings and lower back…causing them to cramp. What the hell? I have never had glute issues.
Then my stupidity dawned on me. Plyometrics. The seemingly innocuous exercises include lots of quad work…but there were also lunges and squats. Duh.
So, I was faced with two questions. First, I had to decide if I COULD go on. Walking was not helping, nor was stretching. Could I push through the cat claws raking down the raw muscles on the back of my legs? As I battled it out mentally I kept moving. My eventual decision was yes, I could finish it. No matter how bad the pain the thought of the Dick Hoyt or numerous other inspirational people provided a quick reality check.
With that decision made, my second question was SHOULD I continue? Even though this was an important milestone run for me, it was not important enough to injury myself over. I kept running as I took a final assessment and decided that all the pain and damage was to muscles, nothing permanent or debilitating. Of course, the cramping muscles could very easily alter my stride and cause and injury.
In the end I decide to keep a short easy stride and keep going.
With the physical assessment done and the decision made I continued on for a short while, playing mental games to disassociate myself from the pain without blocking it off totally. I knew that I needed to keep a link open to the pain because it was my communication line to my body and I had to pay attention to warning signals.
With about 4 miles left the mental games started back up and I once again began questioning my sanity. Ultra-schmultra. What was I thinking? The hubris needed to even attempt 50 miles was laughable…it’s time to stop. Not just ultra training, but all distance running. Time to stop the madness.
My assault on myself continued until I made a simple decision. I had already faced the decision tree on stopping or continuing for injury reasons and had decided to keep running. So, I had to decide now if I really wanted to keep running in general. This was not fun or inspiring or even ok…it sucked.
In the end I decided that I would not make the decision during my run. I had decided to do the 20 and I would finish it. Tomorrow or the day after I would decide if I really wanted to keep running or not. It is not my style to delay a decision, but I knew now was not the time to make it and I would consider the run a failure if I stopped.
So, I finished my third 6 mile loop (18 miles total). This is close enough right? Eighteen is almost 20! Especially considering what I was struggling with at the moment. Eighteen is close enough to twenty!
But it’s not.
So, I turned around and took one of the most painful steps of my life in the direction away from home. 1 mile out and back, I can do it! And I did.
In the end, I learned many lessons from this run and had some breakthroughs. As of this writing I am working through my sore hamstrings and glutes, but I know I made the right decisions.
I am undecided whether or not I am going to do my long run this weekend, or if I still plan on doing my 50 miler in 15 weeks. We will see.
I DO know that I will never again do Plyometrics the day before a long run!
