DOMS: Runners Have to Earn Their Miles

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Jessica desperately wanted to compete in Ultra Trail races. But if she went more than 10 miles, the knee pain was terrible.

She loved getting out on the trails. Running to places she couldn’t see.

She pushed through the pain and did a 20 mile race, but she could barely walk for 5 days afterwards. The knees swelled up and she hobbled up and down the stairs.

When she talked about it with her colleagues they said “You run how far? You’re crazy. Your knees will be wrecked by the time you’re 42”

Her social media feeds began to fill up with loads of posts about how to “fix your knee pain”.

But everything she tried just made it worse.

Maybe it was time to quit…

One day, she stumbled on a post about runners having HEALTHIER knees than regular people.

She thought ”That can’t be right…”

But then, she had seen all these ultra runners in their 60s and 70s…

“Why can’t that be me?”

She was very skeptical, but decided to book a call with me.

We discussed her dreams of competing in ultra races, and the frustration she felt about the knee pain holding her back.

She was convinced that she needed to build up her muscles to protect her knees, but she felt like every time she put in a strength workout, she was missing out on the opportunity to run. She also went easy on the weights, because she didn’t want to be sore and screw up her next run.

Jessica had been too focused on logging miles, she was neglecting her strength training. I told her “you have to earn your miles”.

That’s when she knew she’d found her coach. Someone to take an objective view of the situation. 

Her muscles were weak as hell.

Her “strength training” consisted of bodyweight exercises and resistance bands.

Let’s be honest…

3 sets of 10 bodyweight lunges aren’t going to cut it if you want to run for > 6 hours!

She was doing “strength training” but it wasn’t actually making her stronger.

But Jessica had a good reason to go easy on her strength. Every time she pushed it, her muscles would be sore for a couple of days. So she was nervous to go run on those days. That meant logging fewer miles – a definite no-no for aspiring ultra-runners.

This is a conundrum many runners get stuck in. They know they need to do strength training to improve their performance and reduce injury risk. But when they do it their muscles get sore and they can’t run for a couple of days afterwards. So the strength training is detracting from the running training.

However, if you want to reach your potential as a runner, you’re going to have to find a way to integrate the strength and the running. To do this, you’re going to have to get past the muscle soreness.

The muscle soreness you get from strength training is called DOMS in the medical world. It stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and it usually lasts for 1-3 days after unaccustomed exercise (notice I said unaccustomed not heavy – we’ll come back to that in a second).

One of the strange things about DOMS is that it’s actually often worse on the second day than the first.

The exact cause of DOMS is unknown. We used to think it was muscle damage, lactic acid or inflammation but recent research suggests otherwise. As of 2024, we just don’t exactly know what causes delayed onset muscle soreness.

The good news is, DOMS gets better with every workout. So if you do a strength session and your muscles are so sore that you can barely get downstairs for the next 3 days, don’t worry. You can do that exact same workout the following week and you’ll only be hobbling down the stairs for 2 days! Do it again a week later, and you just feel mild discomfort on your stair descent and the following week, you’ll barely notice it!

It gradually goes away with repeated exposure.

This is where the unaccustomed part comes in. You can go really heavy on the weights but as long as it is a familiar stimulus to your body, the DOMS won’t be so bad.

It’s like the muscles think “Hey what the hell is this guy up to?” and they freak out. Then it happens again a few more times and they’re like “Oh yeah, this thing again, no big deal”.

It’s like a defense mechanism that nature gave us to stop us getting too carried away with new hobbies.

So this actually goes for any exercise, not just strength training. You can be an Olympic-level cyclist but then go for a 30 minute run and your calves will be killing you for a few days. It happens to the best of us.

So the key to overcoming DOMS is just to understand the pattern. You’re not doing yourself damage, your body is just freaking out a bit because you’re doing something new. Once you’ve done 5-6 heavy strength workouts, the DOMS will go away.

The bad news is, if you take a couple months off strength training, it will come back! 

Just like most things with the human body, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

So we increased the volume and intensity of Jessica’s strength training, and dialed back the running (temporarily). Jessica experienced DOMS with the heavier strength sessions, but now she understood that this was just a phase that she needed to work through.

After a few weeks, she was lifting way heavier and wasn’t getting any soreness at all. She even had to buy more weights because she was getting too strong! As she got stronger, we dialed up the intensity on the runs, but kept the volume low.

Finally, after a couple of months, we upped the running volume again. But now, she had the strength to handle it. She had “earned her miles”.

10 weeks later, Jessica was ready for that 38 mile trail race. But she was filled with doubt. “Am I really ready? What if the knee pain comes back?”

10 miles in she felt strong and her nerves started to calm. She cruised through the middle part of the race and started to remember why she loved trail racing so much. 

But at 31 miles, she hit a wall. Struggling to lift her feet, she tripped on a root and fell.

She was exhausted. She knew the next aid station was only a mile away. 

She thought, “they can radio in from there”.

She picked herself up and shuffled on.

She checked in with her body “Where do you hurt?…I’m ok, I’m just tired”

She thought about all the encouragement from her coaching team. Her family, waiting at the finish line. She started to run. Just a few more miles.

She crossed the finish line.

Then someone told her she was the first female. She’d won!

She couldn’t believe it. She’d just ran 38 miles with 200 other runners and she was the fastest girl out there!

Then it hit her “My knees…they’re not swollen…they don’t hurt at all…”

You see, Jessica had earned her miles. Her muscles were strong enough to protect her knees. Even on a 7-hour trail run.

She’d worked through the DOMS and found a way to integrate her strength training with her running training because she understood that she needs both. Not just to realize her potential as a runner, but to ensure that she stays strong and healthy for the rest of her life.

Now she’s an Ultra Running Champion. 

She’s ready for the next challenge. She’s leveling up to a 50 miler in the Fall and we’re so excited to help her prepare. Maybe you can win that too Jessica!

If strength training is an unaccustomed exercise to you it’s totally normal to experience muscle soreness or DOMS for a few days afterwards. Even if it’s pretty bad, don’t worry, you haven’t done any damage. It’s just a phase that we need to work through.

It’s ok to do easy runs when you have DOMS but you’ll find interval workouts really difficult. So move your runs around that week to only do easy runs or run:walks when you have muscle soreness. 

After a few weeks of strength training, your body will be used to it and the DOMS will go away. Then you can do your runs as normal.

If you’re really into ultra-running like Jessica, but knee pain is holding you back. Increasing your strength is very likely going to help. So be sure to work through the DOMS, it will only last a few weeks. If you’re not really sure how to integrate a specific and progressive strength program into your training, we might be able to help. 

Just click the button below to book a call and we’ll have a chat about it.