My training plan designated this as the highest volume week of the block with up to 120K of running on a similar elevation profile as the target event. Since I had been recovering well throughout the training block, my original goal was to hit the upper limit of 120K exactly. I was forced to bail on that plan during my first weekend long run, ultimately accumulating just under 110K of volume during the week.

Here’s the mistake that I made. The plan called for two back to back long runs on the weekend. In order to vary the stimulus, I decided early on to do one of the long runs on roads and another one on trails. The problem is, however, that due to scheduling issues, I ended up doing all my runs leading up to Friday on roads too. This was a change to the previous weeks where I’ve kept mostly on trails. To make things more complicated, I did a set of all out hill sprints on my Friday run. This workout takes a toll on muscles as I do it on a trail next to a drain pipe that climbs up at around 30% grade.

This change in the type and intensity of stimulus led to severe cramping towards the end of what wended up being a 25K long run on Saturday. In many places, I thought I’d actually pulled my hamstring. The pain continued after the run and into the evening. I was certain that I couldn’t run in the following day. In the morning, I decided to give it a go anyway and told my wife I’d probably be back in half an hour. I took a few steps and… nothing. The hamstring felt as good as it ever has. There was no pain, no tightness, no soreness. I was easily able to do the planned 32K and felt great the entire run.