Keep learning when trail running
I love running in general, and trail running specifically, for many reasons, but also because you keep learning and getting experience.
Past learnings
When I ran my 2 first "long-ish" trails (> 50k) - the X-trail Corrèze and the SainteLyon, I "discovered" that I had muscles called "hamstrings" that were heavily used when going downhill, and if not trained properly, you would struggle a lot.
So I trained a lot to improve this, and this paid off as I didn't have any pain during the Trail du St Jacques (even though that was a DNF for me, but not because of training).
Latest learnings
I recently ran the 50k Nice by UTMB (blog post coming soon), and even though it went well, there are still things to learn from it, so buckle up!
What I need to work on/improve:
- Quadriceps muscles: this race had pretty steep uphill sessions, so while I didn't suffer during the race, I could feel my quadriceps a lot during the next few days - and even on one of the steepest ascensions.
- Alimentation: usually not an issue for me, but this time I could barely eat what I had brought (energy bars), and the food at the aid stations felt not better. Fortunately, I managed to eat soups with pasta, which helped a lot.
- Backpack organization: I recently bought a new Salomon hydration backpack, which I tested while training, but on the race day, I had 2 additional flasks in the back, as well as plenty of things I didn't train with (headlamp, ...) so the last 2 hours of my race were a bit rough on my shoulders. I also found the mesh pockets of that bag to be a lot less convenient than my other Salomon S-LAB Ultra 8L. Definitely something I'll have to work on.
What went well
Of course there are also things that were OK, and that I improved based on my past experience:
- Drink: I used a combination of Overstims nnergy drink (Hydrixir) and electrolyte drink, and unlike other races were the taste was sickening after a few hours, I had no such issue this time.
- Alimentation: as mentioned above, soups saved me - so worth mentioning.
- No pain in hamstrings
- Descents went well
- Uphill went well - close to cramps at some point but avoided them