Hey Friends!
If you have been following along, you may have noticed me drop a hint or two that I have picked up training for a big goal again. This time, horses were not involved! Let me backtrack a little.
Not too long ago (ok longer than I am willing to admit, time is passing too quickly!) I wrote about my feet issues - plantar fasciitis in particular, and how for the longest time, the PF was incessant. For years it would come and go but mostly come, and I could never quite get rid of it. So I took a year and stopped trying to be the person I was before. I stopped trying to get back to running or expecting anything out of it. I focused on lifting big things and freeing my feet.
This spring, I finally felt like my feet might start to tolerate running again. I was so afraid, I had been through this countless times before. Would this time be any different? I HAVE to be different this time. I wanted to try. So I signed up for a race in July. A 10k race that went straight up and down the ski hill… twice! Seems a little crazy to start, but my logic was this: I had never done much running on hills, not in a competitive way at least. I would have zero expectations on time because I have literally have zero idea how long it should take me to run up and down a ski hill twice. So I had set the stage perfectly - to listen to my body and work with what I had. Approach with cautious curiosity.
I trained at my local forest, doing lots of hiking and a little bit of jogging. Gradually jogging more. Gradually going out longer. I was super conservative but I was enjoying being out in the forest (usually with my dogs) and moving my body. For the most part my feet were fine. I walked/ran that 10k, gave it an honest effort, even finished in the top 1/3 of entries. Not bad!
That was July. There was still a lot of summer left. What to do now? I casually looked around at other races thinking it would be nice to see how far I could go, but by the time I was ready to pick one (mid August), pretty much everything I was interested in doing was sold out. Wow, what a great thing for the trail running scene, not a great thing for someone who needs a date on the calendar to stay motivated.
Then I found the Horseshoe Valley Hustle. It was at another (smaller) ski hill and it had a cool premise: 8 Hours x 5km long loops. Run as many loops as you can in 8 hours. As someone who was very fearful of ruining my feet again, this sounded so appealing. I can do anything I want in 8 hours. I can walk it, I can run, I could even do one lap, go have a 6 hour nap or trip to the pub and then run one more if I really wanted! It was a way to set a goal without being afraid. It was a way to be curious and discover my potential and maybe my limits. There was no pass or fail, there was just move forward and do your best. I think it was a very healthy mindset honestly!
Now I had my date set and training had a purpose again, but if you know any endurance sport… you can write out a plan on paper. You can do all the math with progressive overload, long runs, deload weeks all that stuff, and it won’t work. There is so much more to it than just logging the miles. If you go big on something, its never the straight line you have planned out. I have had people ask me how I would recommend training, and there are so many plans you can find online so instead I want to tell you about the other things and just how much weight they carry when it comes to tacking the big goals. They are what separate those who try, and those who succeed: they persist through the things that they just “dont have time for” in training.
First for me was shoe drama. I liken this to saddle fit in endurance riding. Things work until they dont. Then you spend weeks trying to find something new that works but trying new things has inherent risks. You probably get injured as a result and need to recover, then try something again hoping you don’t continue to fail time after time. I eventually found shoes that were good enough for the job, but not without a lot of tears, pain and downtime.
And that downtime, boy is it ever scary with a deadline looming. So many other variables that need to be tested too, I need long runs to nail my fueling strategy, I need to feel like what being on my feet for more than 2 hours is like, will I recover at all let alone in time? What in the world have I gotten myself into. At that point the math doesnt math anymore. No amount of adding 10% week over week would get me to 8 hours of work in under a month. Am I prepared to just accept the suffering and really commit to the motto of “8 hours is 8 hours, I can do whatever I want with it”? Or will my expectations and ego get in the way?
Then the return after those injuries… I think these shoes will work! On the high of that rollercoaster. Oh but that downtime? It happened to be when all the leaves fell and I was such a daisy cutter. Didnt see that rock, didnt see that root. Now I am seeing my way into the ER to see if this wrist is broken or just sprained. Is it just the leaves? Or are these shoes not the miracle I had hoped for? Or is something else going on? Do I remove my backpack, do I change my stride, do I just walk the whole thing? I dont know. I really dont. But I will try it all.
More recovery goes by but I do manage to do a couple of long runs before I have to taper, not sure if I gained anything and my Garmin assures me that yes I am losing fitness (endurance score dropping) and yes that does make me a bad person (or maybe I read into that too much). The long runs feel really hard. I can get to 20km but its slow, I am so sore and tired, and I cant imagine keeping it up for anther 10 minutes… but really I need to double it!
My work gets busy and I am so stressed, the haunted house we help run is incredibly successful but that means I am wearing myself out directing parking instead of doing a structured and measurable taper. I get cold sore after cold sore after cold sore and my body seems to be telling me to SLOW DOWN.
I go back to my motto as I show up at the resort and the start line. 8 Hours is 8 hours.
Thankfully, its also on halloween. I am dressed as a leopard complete with ears, tail and eyeliner whiskers. So I cant take myself too seriously.
I cross the start line and I execute the plan to near perfection. My pacing is on, my fueling is on, I am checking off lap after lap after lap. It certainly is a whirlwind and emotions were changing constantly. I ended up finishing the day with only 6 minutes to spare. I had done 10 laps, 50km, and nearly 2000m of elevation gain/loss. I walked a ton, just as I had planned, I didn’t let my ego get me, and I took care of myself both on the trail and in the aid stations. Turns out too I ended up placing second of the female division, and 8th overall. I could not have been more proud… not because of the placing, but of how well I raced. My first and last loops were only 5 seconds different - none of the other runners were that consistent!
At the end, I actually used the long downhill to the finish (as well as some flat) to see if there was anything left in me. I put on Bentley’s GO song and dug in, sprinting the last half a km to the finish, coming in looking strong.
I had wanted to find the small space between my capabilities and my limits, I was genuinely curious where that would be after living for so many years with pain, many days not being able to walk, and having lost a ton of fitness, but then combining it with a good and conservative training and racing plan (and using one of my favourite sayings “treat yourself as well as you treat your horse). Honestly, I am not sure I have found my limits yet. It seems likely I am going to have to do some more of these things.
I wont break down too much of the race, but I did want to share some musings I had about my race that I think you all will find intersting.
Firstly, I think that endurance riding is actually harder in a lot of ways than endurance running. Physically, running on my own two feet is a lot harder, but when its just you there are far fewer variables. Trying to manage a 1000 lb athlete that doesnt speak human is freaking hard. You can’t just ask them how they feel, you have to notice that. You have to care for them regardless of how you feel. You have to pass a rigorous vet check (well the horse does). Endurance riding demands perfection that the running just doesn’t require. I don’t think I could have paced myself so well, or taken such good care of myself at the vet checks… err… aid stations if I hadn’t spent years in endurance riding. I literally tried to embody what I always told people were the traits I looked for in a horse - enjoys the job, eats and drinks whenever offered, has a consistent pace, tells you when something is wrong before its a big thing, and a personality that’s fun to be with for hours on end.
Next, I was so surprised about how well I held up. My previous longest run was only 23km. I had no clue what to expect after that. Maybe I would explode. Who knows. I knew I would hit a wall. That was a given - I had faced it so many times in endurance riding. I kind of even knew when to expect it ( between ½ and ¾ of the race) and that it would pass. I think everyone has heard of hitting the wall or bonking, but it is very different to actually feeling it. Having felt it hundreds of times before when riding, I knew I could get through it. What surprised me though, was overall… 50km didnt feel that much harder than the 23km long run. The discomfort level was about the same, it just lasted longer. It didn’t feel like 5 hours longer though… if you had told me I was only out there an extra hour, I may have believed it. At some point time melted away. Yes I saw my splits, but it didnt feel the same. Strange.
The recovery process. I did NOT know that I wouldnt be able to fall asleep until 1am the following morning. Combination of being jazzed up from the accomplishment and likely the caffeine in those gels I took from the aid stations. Surprisingly I slept great before the run (I literally would never sleep before an endurance ride), but the after. Phew. Sunday was rough. I still fed my horses and got in 5k steps tidying the house and stuff, but I was tired from effort and lack of sleep. Stairs were also not my friends, but I could get up and down with some groaning and choice words. Then Monday rolled around and to my surprise, it kind of just felt like I had done a heavy leg day. Added weight to the bar or threw in a new exercise (like that time I started doing sissy squats!). Stairs were doable but a little painful, and I got a full 10k of steps in with no drama. By Tuesday I was pretty much feeling back to my regular self. I am sure that is not normal, but a great sign. I do think the slower pace and the variation of terrain helps with my feet, because other than being a bit swollen… they are the best they have been in years.
Lastly… the hills. Boy was that a lot of climbing. Of course one has a lot of time in their own head on something like this, and I thought on a regular basis… boy I wish I trained more hills. I did a lot of hills in training, but nowhere near what was in this race with the sheer duration of it. I wondered what would I have been able to do if I hadn’t had so many setbacks. My legs were definitely tiring faster than the rest of me. But it got me thinking less about how I should have trained, and more about how so many people go through their lives without trying “The Thing” because the conditions weren’t perfect. They didn’t get enough training, or the timing was never right, or there was no room in the budget or whatever it is. Imagine all that they are missing out on. Not just how great “The Thing” could be, but everything one learns about themselves along the way. I have said this before, particularly when I hear “I would love to do X, but….” (most commonly “I would love to do the Mongol Derby, but I cant afford the entry fee”). You are intentionally giving yourself a challenge… will you rise to it and make it work? Will you become scrappy and think on your feet? Will you learn to be flexible in how you get there? Will you lay down your ego and ask for help? Nothing builds character and confidence than a challenge that helps you discover your true self along the way.
Imagine if instead of saying “I would love to do this, but…” you said “I wonder what would happen if I tried …?” Where would you be and what would you learn about yourself?
I will leave you with that my friends. I hope I have inspired you to tackle something big today and if you want some help tackling it, you know where to find me.
Cheers!
Sarah
