My Ankle's Sad Sorry Story

It all started when I decided to lead a climbing route that, in hindsight, I clearly was not experienced enough to lead. The route is called no nuts and it found up Ogden Canyon in Utah. It is pretty much a vertical wall of gneiss (metamorphized granite) with two small roofs. A roof is a big chunk of rock that juts out from the wall, they are challenging to climb over. I was a little more than halfway up working on clipping into a bolt on the second roof. I tried to get my quick-draw clipped in twice and missed then on the third try my left hand fatigued and I fell down. It probably looked something like this:

http://flic.kr/p/6tkE1D

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

What is soreness and what causes it? Nobody likes being sore, but everybody who has done a new workout is familiar with it. I have often heard that it is caused by the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles. For the longest time I have thought this was correct. Technically I am a scientist so please indulge me for a bit as I wax scientific.