VT: The Aftermath

A few lessons learned from the VT50:

1. I need to do a bit more downhill preparation work in the upcoming month. My quads were feeling the hills by about 37 miles and it became hard to run downhill. One of my goals this year was to increase my leg strength, and I've been doing two short and sweet body-weight leg workouts a week, but obviously I still have some work to do. I spent the rest of Sunday, all of Monday and most of Tuesday hobbling around and having to go down the stairs sideways. This morning, I felt well enough to walk downstairs normally and did some rolling and stretching and feel like I'll be able to comfortably get back to running tomorrow, but some downhill repeats will be on the schedule the next few weeks, for sure!

2. I need to do a better job of reapplying Bodyglide during long races, especially hot ones! Since I was basically wet for 10 hours straight, my skin took a beating and I got chafed everywhere, and I mean, everywhere. Interestingly, I really thought I was fine as I didn't feel any of it until I got in the shower on Sunday night. But obviously, it was there! The only  exception was noticing the tops of my toes and the back of my legs near my sock line feeling rubbed in the final 5 miles of the race or so. Turns out, running through fine dust for 50 miles combined with sweat dripping down my legs for a long period of time created a lovely grit that caused the skin on the tops of my toes to get rubbed raw and created a lovely line of chafe/scratch along my socks lines on both legs. In fact, on Tuesday when I wore a skirt and my typical work crocs into work instead of pants and compression socks like I did on Monday, my boss said, ummm, you've got some serious scratches on your leg there, and I had to explain what had happened. I am not sure he knew what to say 😂😂

3. Taking time to regroup at aid stations as necessary is time well spent. I really needed the time at all the crew stops to stop and reassess and refuel and attend to what needed to be done to keep me moving (although see #2 above as a point missed in this equation). I know it is imperative to move through aid stations as efficiently as possible so as not to lose too much valuable time but sometimes a few extra minutes means the rest of the miles are able to go more smoothly.

4. It is nice to be reminded that I can go through a bad patch and be able to turn things around. I had some fairly negative thoughts coming into the 50k aid station, but once I got up and kept going, I was able to run a fairly decent last 20 miles with a positive mindset. As Ryan says, I don't really do intensity (ie. speed) but I do do tenacity 😂😂

5. Be proud of your effort! Enough said.

Combined medal rack. I do so love this reminder of all the cool stuff we've done!

Back at it tomorrow! :)