7.5 Mile Night Cold Run

The temp has really dropped (some frozen precip particles on the deck as I departed) so I bundled up and hit the road with flashers and the head lamp at 9:30 tonight. I waited to run late so that any delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) would happen first. I find soreness from workouts peaks at between 22 and 25 hours. In the ultrarunning world you're trying to learn how to run when you're very sore. My legs weren't terribly sore but I could feel some of the Hogpen climb in them. My calves were sore halfway through the run again... I think I'm just not getting enough runs in each week.

The mentality is a bit different in ultras than it is in triathlon. In triathlon, even at the ironman distance, you can train your base up to the race duration. Like I did last year with mega workouts of nine and ten hours spanning ten and eleven hours. But in ultrarunning you can't go out and train up to 24 hours. (I suppose you could, but it would actually be rather logistically impractical when you added in sleep and recovery from 24 hours training bouts.)

In triathlon the mantra is generally "wait until you're recovered before you train again." In ultrarunning that meme is certainly there (human biology doesn't change just because it's a different sport) but there's also the meme of "learn to run when in pain." As the miles add up you're going to be in pain and you're just going to have to keep moving. The limiter in ultras isn't so much lung/heart as it is connecting tissue/joint strength/will power. People do a lot of long two-a-days to pound the body before giving it some rest. I'm just getting into the whole ultra thing and have much to learn. There's a reason that most successful ultra runners are cagey 40-55 year old running vets. And this is something I like... there are years of lessons for me to hear, ignore and then finally learn the hard (fulfilling) way. (I'm trying to skip the ignore part of the process as much as possible but let's face it... I'm still functionally retarded in most of life's adventures.)