It has been a week since my first ultra marathon experience at Route 68 Challenge 2017 in Gombak on 16 April 2017. (Please click here for the complete race report).

7 days.

7 hard days - mentally and physically.

Until now, I am still not fully recovered from the "50km" trauma cum achievement!


Post-ultra marathon blues

After the race last Sunday, I started to develop the below post-race symptoms:
  • Got so sick of power gels.
  • Got so sick of raisins (which I consumed during race)
  • Got so sick of isotonic drinks
  • Developed phobia of hills
  • Developed phobia of running long distance
  • Lost appetite to eat (only little fried mee hoon for late lunch and little rice for dinner).
  • Mentally depressed, feeling the blues 
  • Legs were sore and in pain
  • Body was so warm and hot with no signs to subside.
  • Chaffing at thighs - causing me to walk like an elephant with wide spread legs
  • "Ouch ouch" during shower - due to the painful chaffing at thighs and spotted areas around my waist (caused by waist pouch)
  • Darkened skin from the hot scorching sun
  • NO MORE to ultra marathons! 😪

All the post-race symptoms actually over shadowed my great joy of 50 km completion.

I thought I was still living in dream at times as I couldn't believe I actually completed 50 km ultra marathon.

For the next 3 days (Mon - Wed), I felt so so tired.

Usually if I were to run a full marathon, I would have fully recovered by the next day.

But for 50 km, it took me 3 full days to fully feel my body back to norm again.

Am I getting old?

Or the 50 km on murderous hills was really killing?

Or was it that I didn't eat proper nutrition for recovery? Yimster has shared that he drinks lots of milk and consumes natural protein for fast recovery. May be because I didn't do that with largely still vegetable-based diet?

I wonder how long would the 84 km and 168 km finishers take to fully recover? 😃



Beating the blues through complete rest & positive thinking

After 3 full days of complete rest - no gym, no running, no exercise and plenty of sleep with proper nutrition (could have eaten more protein though), I finally felt better.

But I still have phobia of running hills though. 😱

At the same time, I also tried to pad myself on the back for the achievement of first 50 km instead of beating myself myself up for a rather disappointing time at Route 68 Challenge.

In fact, I have started to do slow run on 4th day (Thurs). Not a long distance but 8 km on treadmill only. Slow and easy for recovery.

(almost) back to normal life...

1 week later, I would say that the passion of running starts to burn up inside my heart, soul and body again.👍👍👍😀

As I put the 50 km ultra marathon at Route 68 Challenge last week behind, I am now looking forward to more running again and how to improve further - in terms of running technique, race strategies, etc.




Will I sign up for another ultra marathon?

Most friends said I will.

In fact, almost all ultra marathon friends said I will. haha!

I guess they speak from their own personal experience.

They said it's additive.

They said it's good to test the limit - 84 km, 100 km, 168 km?

One friend said I'm officially an endorphin addict!!

Oh well - I was very sure I will not sign up for another ultra marathon right after the race. Even for the last few days, I still felt strongly I should not. Very scared of the distance.

But then in retrospective, running 50 km last week was kind of satisfying...... lol!!

We shall see..... I'd better keep my options open.

Who knows? May be one day I change my mind, become crazy and sign up for another ultra marathon? hehehe!!😉




Written by Vincent Khor on 22 April 2017.