Elite Marathon Training Series: Hendrik Pfeiffer Training Part 1 – Returning From Injury
Yes, I’m at training camp. The french national team is here, some from Switzerland, Austria.. It is a good place. Some very good athletes here. Amen Tuka, 1:42 800m runner, The Polish Olympic champion in the hammer throw, Anita Włodarczyk. It is a good place for training and it is very popular among the European athletes.
Understand you had a serious injury which prevented you from running, although you were qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympics. I’d like to hear a bit more about that and where you are at the moment with training. I know that you are now coming back..
It was a pretty bad case for me because I used to compete internationally in the junior ages and to qualify for the Olympics and the European Championships was a great thing for me … but now I am coming back. I had a few months during which I was struggling very hard. One year ago for the first time my achilles played up after a very tough workout . I know pain but it was a different kind of pain. In the morning when I stood up, the first steps were like hell.
Every week it became worse and worse. There was only one or two workouts that I couldn’t do the way I wanted to, in March and April there was a bunch of workouts I missed because of the pain and I discussed for a long time with my coach about what I would have to do. I had a lot of physical therapy, I went to every doctor I knew, and I had to make a choice between quitting the whole season that might be better for my health but terrible for my career because I would lose my place in the national team and a lot of money that I get because every year, I have to keep hitting times. If I run a good time, I keep the funding. I wanted to qualify for the Europeans for the half marathon, because in October 2015 I qualified but I had to perform a second time to secure my spot. And that was my main goal. I was in very good shape and I qualified for the European Championships after running 64:06 but there was a lot of trouble before that.
I missed a lot of workouts and I was mentally not prepared because every week there were 2-3 workouts that I couldn’t do because of the pain. I did a lot of alternative training, swimming or cycling, but I knew I couldn’t go like this forever. But then 3 weeks after that race, I had planned to run the Dusseldorf Marathon where I ended up qualifying for the Olympic Games.
And that’s where you ran your now personal best of 2:13:09?
Yes, 2:13:09 was the official time.
And that was after a lengthy period of having these problems?
Yes, that’s why it’s very hard to say “I quit the whole season and I lose everything I built up before.” It might be a mistake but I’m not sure if it’s wrong from the point of view of today. If I said in January 2016 oh, my achilles hurts, I skip everything I have planned and I do nothing, no more belonging to the national team, no more money from my club and that would be a danger too. So I said I will run for as long as I can, until the problem gets too bad, and then I will stop my season. Obviously it became like that – I had two races of the half marathon and the marathon and after that I had to quit the season, but I might – if I wanted to- to be able to compete at the Olympic Games, but for me it wouldn’t be of benefit. So me deciding to skip the Olympic games was the active decision for me and that’s why from today’s point of view I would do it again like that. Because now I have a very good marathon time, a very good half marathon time, I still belong to the national team although I missed the Olympic Games, so for me this situation is not as bad as it would be if I skipped the whole season in January.
But it was still very tough to do that.
To qualify for the Olympics and then to chose to have surgery rather than racing is probably the hardest decision anyone can make in the sport.
That’s right, but after I had the surgery in August, during the Olympics, I was in the hospital and my feelings became better and better all the time because I realized that it was a wise decision. Before the procedure I said “why did I do that, why didn’t I try to go to the Olympics”, but after the surgery I realized it was a wise decision and that I’m coming back stronger than ever before and that mood I still have today. It was a long period of rehabilitation, 4 months, and I have a great friend of mine who has a rehabilitation centre in southern Germany, and he invited me to come to his center after surgery. So I had very good therapy directly after the surgery. Even 12 days after surgery I could jog and do some easy walking on the Alter-G treadmill, with 20% of my body weight. I was very appreciative of this support. Other people that had surgery had to rest for 5 weeks but I could directly start my rehab program. That was a very, very big help for me.
So there was a lengthy period of rehab and now you gradually getting back to full volume?
In December I basically got back to being 100% in terms of the injury. Now I’m in Monte Gordo and as of January 1st, I started training regularly again. Now I’ve built up my shape, I will have covered 110km week this week and that marks the start of my regular training now. I’m tired of training alternatively but I will still keep using the Alter-G treadmill. Especially when I’m back in marathon training, I will do around 40km a week on the Alter-G treadmill because it prevents new injuries. The German national team have the privilege of being able to access the many headquarters which have these treadmills. My home club, which is located in a rural metropolitan area of Cologne has physical therapist there who also has an Alter-G, and they cooperate with my club – so I can always go there. I just have to make an appointment and I can use it twice or even 4 times a week if I want to, and for me it’s very great.
In Monte Gordo there are no Alter-G treadmills, so how do you get by at the moment?
No, but at the moment it’s okay as I’m just adapting to the kilometres. I have to get to 160-170 km a week and I have to start easily, I’m at 100-105K/week now, and that’s probably very okay for me. My muscles are very sore and that’s why at the moment I have no use for an Alter-G treadmill, but when I’m back in training, I will do about 140km on ground and 40km on an Alter-G treadmill. But that will in February or even March, I don’t know it yet.
if you had to quite specifically describe what you are doing in a normal week of training, including the treadmill runs, day-by-day, what would it look like?
Continued in Part 2
