humbled, sounds like you're back on track toward feeling good, moving well, and keeping positive. awesome. and, 16x, i can't even imagine having that kind of speed! i might give an outdoor road mile a try in june, and will therefore dissect my legs in a week or two to start to see if there are any fast-twitch fibers in there at all, but for now i'm sticking with long distance.
my 50 miler on saturday was an interesting journey, as anything that long is bound to be. at dawn it was already 66 degrees, which is warmer than i've felt outside since last fall, and there had been thunderstorms overnight that created messy conditions on a relatively few miles of the trail. not a good portent. in the end, it all worked out okay. although i was over an hour slower than last year's perfect conditions allowed and an extended low period during the second third of the race, i still finished fourth woman (of 69). so (at age 48) i can't complain, and i was even 20 minutes ahead of last year's winner when it was all said and done, although i imagine she was just on a training run for something yet longer.
the course has an early out-and-back section with a turnaround 9.4 miles into the race, which provides a glimpse of the very talented front runners (anne and mark lundblad both took top honors, with anne finishing with a course record of 7:31, although i bet in last year's conditions she would have easily been sub-7), as well as everyone behind. this of course creates the opportunity to cheer on new (new, as of the prerace dinner) and old friends, since ultras are very cooperative affairs, even though there are surely races within the race (mine was being virtually pushed by last year's female winner, who i kept expecting to catch me, and i even hallucinated her approach with just half a mile (uphill!) to go).
for you masters women, here's some inspiration: three of the top four women were masters, including anne, as were five of the top six men (all but mark).
anyway, it was a good, albeit long and hot day, my quads are nearly back to normal after just two days, and i have no other maladies to speak of. of course, this will necessarily be a week of only easy runs, but yesterday's gentle hour felt just fine.