Post PTL 2010 thoughts
By Julien on Wednesday, October 20 2010, 19:16 - PTL - Permalink
If September has been pretty quiet on the blog, it's because it's been pretty quiet running-wise too! I've not run a single kilometre between the PTL and the beginning of October.
The recovery took quite a while, and I was still very tired for about 10 days after the event. This shows how deep down the fatigue was buried inside me. For about two weeks, I followed a high protein, high fat, and generally high calorie diet. I felt like I was never completely full, no matter how much I ate.
Leo reckons he lost 10 pounds (4.5kg) in the adventure! I've not weighed myself neither before nor after the event, so I'm not sure about the impact on my body, but I guess it's similar. Assuming this weight loss was only fat, with an efficacy around 3,500 KCal per pound of fat, this is a mere 35,000 Kcal overspent! The good old Naismith's rule estimates the equivalent flat distance of the PTL to 238+18000/120=388km. Considering an expenditure of 1 KCal per kilo of body mass per kilometre run, with Leo weighing about 70kg, that is a total energy loss of 27,160KCal. I'm not including the normal daily expenditure, which I hope was covered by what we ate. This is not too far off the overspent 35,000 Kcal... At least, the same order of magnitude.
No one seemed to have noticed that I concluded the PTL report with "Ultra hike". The fact is: the PTL was a super-hike, at least for us. We basically ran the first 8km to Les Houches, a few times downhill on the first night and day, and then not much until the final sprint. I guess you can probably still say you "run" the UTMB. Although 160km in 35 hours leads to an average speed of 4.6km/h, in practice you probably walk at roughly 3km/h uphill and run at 10km/h downhill (*). Whilst strictly speaking you run only half the distance, I guess you can still say it's a run. As for the PTL, even removing all the stops, it took us about 80 hours for 238km ie. 3.0km/h. Uphill and downhill speeds are probably around 2km/h and 5.5km/h respectively.
I'm also wondering how long you can last with that kind of routine, ie. sleeping 4 hours per night and being on the paths the rest of the time? It feels like it would be possible to go further. I know there are always longer races than the one you've just done, but I feel like adding more distance or ascent by running for example the Tor des Geants would not really bring anything significant. It's a bit like trying to run 13km when you know you can run 10km. I'm not saying I won't try longer races though, I'm just saying it will be more for the pleasure of the event than the challenge.
And finally, looking back, I'm still really surprised (and glad) how well it went given the extremely poor training regime I followed beforehand...
Ultra contented
(*) Yes, the average of 3 and 10 is 6.5. But assuming the same distance is covered uphill and downhill leads to an overall speed of v=2vuvd/(vu+vd), in our case 4.6.
The recovery took quite a while, and I was still very tired for about 10 days after the event. This shows how deep down the fatigue was buried inside me. For about two weeks, I followed a high protein, high fat, and generally high calorie diet. I felt like I was never completely full, no matter how much I ate.
Leo reckons he lost 10 pounds (4.5kg) in the adventure! I've not weighed myself neither before nor after the event, so I'm not sure about the impact on my body, but I guess it's similar. Assuming this weight loss was only fat, with an efficacy around 3,500 KCal per pound of fat, this is a mere 35,000 Kcal overspent! The good old Naismith's rule estimates the equivalent flat distance of the PTL to 238+18000/120=388km. Considering an expenditure of 1 KCal per kilo of body mass per kilometre run, with Leo weighing about 70kg, that is a total energy loss of 27,160KCal. I'm not including the normal daily expenditure, which I hope was covered by what we ate. This is not too far off the overspent 35,000 Kcal... At least, the same order of magnitude.
No one seemed to have noticed that I concluded the PTL report with "Ultra hike". The fact is: the PTL was a super-hike, at least for us. We basically ran the first 8km to Les Houches, a few times downhill on the first night and day, and then not much until the final sprint. I guess you can probably still say you "run" the UTMB. Although 160km in 35 hours leads to an average speed of 4.6km/h, in practice you probably walk at roughly 3km/h uphill and run at 10km/h downhill (*). Whilst strictly speaking you run only half the distance, I guess you can still say it's a run. As for the PTL, even removing all the stops, it took us about 80 hours for 238km ie. 3.0km/h. Uphill and downhill speeds are probably around 2km/h and 5.5km/h respectively.
I'm also wondering how long you can last with that kind of routine, ie. sleeping 4 hours per night and being on the paths the rest of the time? It feels like it would be possible to go further. I know there are always longer races than the one you've just done, but I feel like adding more distance or ascent by running for example the Tor des Geants would not really bring anything significant. It's a bit like trying to run 13km when you know you can run 10km. I'm not saying I won't try longer races though, I'm just saying it will be more for the pleasure of the event than the challenge.
And finally, looking back, I'm still really surprised (and glad) how well it went given the extremely poor training regime I followed beforehand...
Ultra contented
(*) Yes, the average of 3 and 10 is 6.5. But assuming the same distance is covered uphill and downhill leads to an overall speed of v=2vuvd/(vu+vd), in our case 4.6.
Comments
In case anyone doubted that you're a scientist, with all these calculations... ;)