Lessons from 3 Months of Wild Horse Training

Doesn't time just fly? How is it already March!?

My first event of the year, The Hateful 8, has been and gone, with the first race of the Pegasus Slam, the CANUM, hot on it's heels with less than a month to go.

It's also over midway on the 6 month journey to The Wild Horse 200 in May, so I wanted to do a bit of a debrief as to how it's gone so far, what's working, what I've learned, and where I need to focus next.

How Training Has Gone

I won't lie, I've found the training for The Wild Horse especially challenging. When building up to the Epona it felt just like that, building, slowly getting stronger and improving my endurance.

However this time it's not felt like that, I've had this ongoing fatigue, a feeling of reduced performance and more post run aching. Its felt like a step backwards.

I tried to maintain my fitness post Epona so I wonder whether it's more of a plateau (or just good old winter blues), however it has led to a bit of a confidence and morale drop.

The Hateful 8 was a great opportunity to disprove how I was feeling after a sensible week of tapering, yet if anything it solidified it more with a feeling of exhaustion setting in earlier than I'd have hoped for.

What I think it's down to is persisting in the same base volume, with a lot of easy commute running,

but not enough hard running pushing past my zone 2.

See fitting all this around the kids, work and weekend commitments has been increasingly tough. Ellie wasn't in school during Epona training, meaning I had more time to fit runs in during the week. Now she is I'm struggling to get good sessions in on the three days a week I do the school drop before rushing off to work.

Those who know me also know I am a bit obsessive when it comes to the details, always having this meticulous event plan (which I immediately throw away when the race starts 😂). When it comes to a 200 mile challenge though, it's all got a bit overwhelming: I'm rethinking every piece of kit, panicking over every niggle, overthinking everything. It's not felt that healthy recently, going from a "passion for my hobby" to an "all consuming monkey on my back".

Having said all that, I felt like I've turned a corner since The Hateful 8. It was a wake up call on where I should be focusing, early enough to still make a difference before the insanity begins in May.

Lessons So Far

I brought the classic ultra runner bible: Fixing Your Feet by John Vonhof, after hearing how important looking after your feet was during a multi-day race. Since then I've put a lot of focus on looking after my toesies by:

• Using Squirrel's Nut Butter Happie Toes each night to moisturise my feet, soften callouses and help with recovery
• I had no idea I've been cutting my toenails far too short and rounding them too much, leading to a lot of the pain issues I experience especially around the big toes, due to the nail pushing into the skin. After letting them grow out a bit more my toes feel much better during long runs
• Been testing out different tapes and taping my feet for most long runs, trying to get it down to an art before I really need it. Taping feet reduces friction around hotspots by socks / shoes rubbing the tape, not your skin
  • I've found KT tape works best in terms of stickiness and mouldability
  • Zinc tape is easiest to apply (and cheaper), but comes off more easily in the wet
  • Microporous tape stay on well, but isn't very comfortable

Talking of kit obsession, I went a bit overboard with sock testing the last few months, trying Brav, Swole Panda, Balega, Bridgedale & Feetures socks, settling on my new favourite thing: Feetures Elite Light Cushion. They are light, breathable yet warm, have slight compression but aren't uncomfortable, and are padded enough to offer fair protection.

In general I've realised that thinner socks work better for me; previously I was filling shoes with thick socks to stop any toe bashing, but feeling sweatier and uncomfortable, whilst also pushing my toes closer to the shoe wall anyway due to said thickness.

My layer management has traditionally been pretty rubbish, especially in colder weather. If I start sweating too much I'm not great at removing and storing layers, which has a led to some races like the Celtic Trails Ultra where I was drenched through in sweat by the end, and struggled to warm up after. That can't happen on a multi-day event where you are limited in the layers you can change into, so I've been practising shedding layers when I heat up to manage sweat rate.

As mentioned earlier I've recognised I'm doing too much base, not enough pace, with a high volume but low intensity. For the remaining 3 months I'm switching that, I've built a good base, but need to ensure I'm still doing good hard sessions twice a week (speed and hill work) otherwise my performance will continue to suffer.

Finally; I've been faffing too much between different types of shoes, similar to what I did last year during Epona training. Just like last year I'm going all in now to ensure my muscles are well adapted to the shoes I intend to wear at the Slam and Wild Horse. That means as much time as possible spent in Merrell Agility Peak 5s wearing Feetures Elite Light Cushion socks.

What's Next?

11 weeks to go until the big day, with 2 races beforehand to test how things are going.

Focus for the next 3 weeks is lots of road time to prep the legs for the CANUM, then back into the hills for HOWUM and Wild Horse prep.

Hopefully what I've learned will set me up well for these last 3 months, and with the weather slowly improving I'm also hoping for a morale jump.