Wow, I did my first trail ultra on Saturday and I cannot believe how sore my quads are! I can barely get in and out of my car. The downhill running absolutely destroyed my quads. I have much respect for you ultra runners.
I also ran a 50 on Saturday. Were you at the White River 50? And yes my quads are sore. I was thankful for cruise control on the drive home. Next year there will be another 1000 feet of elevation added to the course bringing the total gain to around 10,000 ft.
Hardest run I ever did was in Aspen at Maroon Bells, I was dropped off at the base and told that it was about 5 or 6 miles back to town. So I ran about an hour on the trails up to treeline then started down the road. Ended up being 9 miles downhill on a road then another 4-6 back to town where I was staying.
Total run was around 20 something. The downhill for 9 straight miles KILLED me. I could barely walk for two days.
Nick, I wasn’t at the White River 50. Not sure I’d want to be there anyways with 9,000 ft. of climbing 
the folks i’ve seen who are good at it just let go on the downhills. i’m working on that, but on trails it sure is tricky.
I seemed to learn this technique a bit during the race. If I let my legs flail all over the place, while running downhill, and not use my quads to slow myself down I seemed to run better and have less pain. It’s all a learning experience I suppose!
Last year one of my training partners did the inaugural Ridge to Bridge Marathon (http://www.my-bmrc.org/RTB07.html), which begins at Jonas Ridge, near the Blue Ridge Parkway, and finishes in Morganton, NC.
“The course features almost 14 miles of extreme downhill, a 300’ climb at mile 17, then some flat-to-rolling terrain. The course is USATF certified (NC-06033-PH) and may be used for Boston qualification”
Took awhile to get over that one. My quads/knees hurt for a week from just reading the course profile! 
“we had an unheard of percentage of Boston Qualifiers last year”
really? you don’t say?
i suppose it beats getting your ticket to boston by parachuting down from 26.2.
looks like a beautiful course, but a bit cheezy as a qualifier. not to hijack the thread or anything.
Welcome to the world of eccentric muscle contractions!
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0009.htm
greg
Interesting…thanks!
“we had an unheard of percentage of Boston Qualifiers last year”
really? you don’t say?
i suppose it beats getting your ticket to boston by parachuting down from 26.2.
looks like a beautiful course, but a bit cheezy as a qualifier. not to hijack the thread or anything.
Agreed. I was quite surprised to see that it was a Boston qualifier. BTW, my friend didn’t go for the Boston slot. She has a (2nd) house near the start and runs/rides in the area a good bit already.