Due to an Injury, my legs came into this run under-trained. Started to feel my quads like 10 miles in. Last 7 miles my mantra was ‘do not walk, just keep running.’ I have learned the hard way that even if you are running super duper slow, it’s still faster than walking!
Take aways: 1. Lots of ‘short’ up and downs take a bigger toll on the legs than longer climbers. In other words, lots of true mountain ultras have the big climbs at the beginning and the big descents at the end…therefore the legs don’t get beat up as quickly. However, at pick your poison, my legs were toast only like 10 miles in. 2. Still working on not comparing myself to others (super hard to do in a race). But I had some insight into it ‘like, its just illogical.’ Maybe the guy I just passed was up all night with a newborn baby or something else while I slept great all week. Or maybe this is so and so’s ‘A’ race while this is just my first run back.. the comparing just doesn’t make sense! So the question isn’t how did I do compared to others, its ‘did I do me as best I could’? 3. Crossing the finish line with Keshet, my kiddo, is just the tops!
