Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Deadlifts and Beer

Monday was an off day for running, but I had a long session at the gym that included my first deadlifts in quite a while.  A Masters runner I know who specializes in the 100m and 200m does deadlifts once a week to build overall body strength and power to help w/ his speed.  I hadn't done deadlifts in years, so I after a quick warm up set I did two sets of 6-reps w/ just moderate weight (about 240 lbs)

Later that evening was our first "Monday Night Football" of the season so it was off to the Sports Bar to meet up w/ some friends.  There we feasted on food that you might not find on Ryan Hall's Top-10 list of "food for runners" (hey, it's the only time in weeks I've eaten such garbage)  And although the Pint is great, we here in America have evidently discovered that 24-ounces is even larger!  (soon we'll discover the liter just like they have in Germany)  So it was 24-ounce beers and low-quality junk food for dinner.

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I noticed was that the beer from the prior evening created no ill-effects  (excellent) . . . . but when I tried standing up, I quickly realized that the same could not be said for my first session of deadlifts.  I had the usual stiff back which was nothing more than muscle soreness, and some general soreness in the legs - but after further review I realized that the outside of my left hamstring felt like it had a knot in there.  Not good.  I tried to loosen it up w/ some stretches to no avail. 

I didn't think it was too serious, so I went for my easy morning run and although I could feel that it was tight on some of the downhills, it was pretty much OK.  Tried more stretching throughout the day - didn't help.  I ran the evening run w/ no issues.

At this point it's not any better and not any worse.  I think it's just more soreness from the deadlifts as it felt fine all day yesterday and before I went to bed.  The issue is that tomorrow I've got my Threshold work ( 3 or 4 x 1-mile @ T-pace w/ 1-minute breaks) and usually muscle soreness is even worse the 2nd day before it starts to get better.

So my week is now up in the air a bit.  If I feel a little better tomorrow I'll go ahead as planned.  If not, then I probably run easy tomorrow instead and put off the T-work until Friday.  I really hope things are OK tomorrow - the way my running has been going the past 4-5 days I think I'm set up nicely to put up some nice results on those threshold miles.

Training:

9/8:    No running - weightlifting (upper-A, and abs)  Deadlift - warm up, then 2 sets of 6-reps w/ 240 lbs, stretching, rolling.

9/9:    AM  4-miles @ 7:45
         PM  5-miles @ 7:09  HR - 152  (nice run, very very easy)

1 comment:

Grellan said...

Better to put of the threshold miles until Friday if there is any doubt tomorrow.