After completing the 50 miles of the Baker Trail Ultrachallenge on Saturday, I was quite afraid of how sore I would be, the next day and the few days after. I should not have been concerned; my recovery has been great.

My biggest fear was muscle and soft tissue soreness. I remember various parts of my legs starting to get very fatigued, and almost sore, during the race.  When I got out of bed yesterday morning, I was therefore very surprised when my legs felt normal.  I had envisioned walking down stairs backwards or very gingerly, one step at a time. It turned out that I was able to walk down stairs perfectly normally.

I didn’t get away with no issues at all however, but what I do have is very minor.  I have a large, intact blister on one of my big toes and one of my toenails is bruised.  That is it.  Nothing more, after running 50 miles !! I am shocked, but very happy.

What does the state of my recovery tell me? 

Firstly, that I must have a very deep level of fitness and strength. Consistent training for months, even years, is definitely paying dividends. 

Secondly, I need to re-examine my shoes and socks for future races of this length.  I have run in the trail shoes that I used a lot, and not had issues with them.  What I most likely didn’t account for, was the fact that my feet probably swelled quite a bit, while running for eleven hours. I may need to consider a slightly bigger shoe in future.  The other thing that I could maybe have done, was to re-tie my laces during the run (especially before a long downhill).

All in all however, I am supper happy with how my recovery from the race has gone.  I am looking forward to running again in the next day or so.  I didn’t think I would be saying that when I finished on Saturday evening.