Brathay Challenge - Thomas Giles

I am delighted to be able to do a gentle training run today; 5.6Km in 33 minutes. This really is good recovery from the 75Km run on Saturday and bodes well for consecutive long runs. My attempt to change my running style to control injuries also appears to have worked. I only had mild stiffness but for the first time ever developed core muscle stiffness. It really was a weird feeling to have wobbly muscles above the pelvis and behind the belly button.

Having a medical job, one of the strangest aspects of extreme running is experiencing a variety of physiological changes. This weekend was hypothermia. This is not the first time I have suffered this and its development when combined with extreme fatigue is insidious and potentially deadly. I do not experience cold and shivering but become progressively slower mentally and then develop muscle stiffness.The ability to initiate actions wanes resulting in a dangerous trend of becoming slower and slower, colder and colder presumably eventually stopping and lapsing into coma (thankfully a stage I have never reached, although I have got to the stage of not being able to speak due to lip stiffness or hold a pen due to hand stiffness!). Thankfully on Saturday I only got as far as finger weakness, making it difficult to operate the head torch controls. Interestingly, when I do start warming up I then go through a stage of shivering, sometimes violently and uncontrollably.
The stresses ultra-running places on the body should not be under-estimated - people have died doing it and almost every ultra-runner I know has suffered an over-use injury at some time or another. Despite this the rewards are immense. The sense of achievement when a challenge goes well is overwhelming, the sensation of extreme fitness has to be felt to be believed and 'runner's high' is real. There really is a buzz following a good run.