This was a race for me that i booked back last year, and was all set to be my big A race of the year, who wouldn't want to run 200 miles across North Wales. The year as a whole hasn't been great for my running, i started out with a new coach at the end of last year, which didn't work out but that's a whole new blog altogether but as a result i ended up injured for 3 months.
If im honest my knees haven't really been the same since then, but im not one to make excuses, you just get on with it and play with the hand you've been dealt, so training gradually started to build up again after having to put my fastest known time attempt of the Wales coast path to the side for rehab training. i got to race then in June doing the Vogum 40 miler from Porthcawl through to Penarth in South Wales along the Coastal path. With all things considered and the fact id just had 3 months off injured, i took a respectable 4th place in just over 6 hours. It wasn't about the result though, it was just a little confidence boost to let me know i could up the anti and get back doing some longer runs ready for the Wildhorse.
Pretty much from here, our personal lives turned upside down, and im not writing about this for sympathy, but ive not spoken about it and i hope that writing it all down will help, as ultimately this could of had an effect on my race because i just haven't been with it since.
The beginning of July we found out that one of our children had been groomed and sexually assaulted by the owner of the local shop. This had actually happened a month prior to us finding out, because she felt she couldn't tell us. To be honest if another incident of her friend getting drunk and needing her stomach pumped hadnt happened then i dont even know if we would know now as a lot of stuff came out that day. You build up a relationship with your kids so if anything happens they can come to you, you're meant to be there safe place and they couldn't come to me because im Mr emotionless and my answer to everything just seems to be toughen up, which i dont know why because i was never brought up that way. But this has led to police station visits, lots of tears, not from me though as this is something else i cant actually do, im sure if i started one day i dont think id ever stop. All i seem to feel is failure and anger at the moment as i feel ive let my baby down and didnt protect her like i should of and this lives with me everyday now.
Right back to the Race itself, although with everything that had happened in the build up, id had some decent training runs, nutrition was good. Ive just moved over from Tailwind to Hammer, as Tailwind was starting to make me feel ill when running, but turns out that it might not actually be the tailwind. Lets get to it anyway, this isnt a counselling session its a race blog after all and im about to tell you all about a big fat DNF
So its the week before the race, yes i was doing a countdown on insta everyday because thats the type of thing i do. Information from the race was pretty much drip fed to us, which i really dont like, i like to organised and planned out and it was only a few days before we got the final GPX and a route description, and to be honest after reading the route description i didnt feel as happy as i normally would going into the event. There was to be lots of little crossovers and running the same sections so your watch would be going crazy and you could potentially run the wrong way round the loop etc, but i studied the route as much as i could and made notes so me and Chief Crew Mrs Smevs knew what was what, the only problem there is the more tired you get the more you start to forget things. I can remember we were coming up to one cross over point, she was driving behind me because it was a stretch of country lanes, and i had to ask her 3 times which way i went at the loop, and everytime she had to check the map again because she had forgotten as well ha ha.
Racing and crewing is stressful enough as it is, so we managed to find 3 homes for 3 of the 4 kids, and also a home for Bruno, so it was just Smevs and my littlest Nelly (2) coming to crew, Bruno had been dropped off on the sunday night, ready for the drive up early on monday, a 4,30am alarm and a really easy 40 min shake out, i arrived home to a message from the dog sitter saying Bruno wasnt happy, so a 90 minute round trip to pick him up and bruno was promoted to Race crew team! We then had to drive 4 hours up to South Wales to drop off Betsy to Nannies for the week, then another 4 hours from there up to North Wales to Chester, we wanted to get all the crap stuff done in the first day so tuesday we could chill during the day, and register in the evening, then wednesday morning was game time!
Wednesday 6am Its go time! The race ive been waiting for. The start of the race was pretty much 31 miles of flatness, which does not suit me at all, but i knew this and planned to take it nice and easy, 200 miles is long way after all. There was only 18 brave souls on the start line, i think 6 of them had already completed the other 2 200 mile races within the series, which is mega impressive, the more ive started racing races ive realised that i need that recovery time and i can only have 2 maybe 3 max Important races a year, everything else just has to be for fun and they still need to be accounted for when planning the training.
Anyway we were off, i was first out the gate, and we set off down to the start of the Wales coast path, i knew this section all the way through to the first check point 25 miles away as id recced it in january for my coast path attempt that never happened. It was literally now about 10 miles of canal path, then back to skinny coastal paths, loads of gates and the odd seaside town, i had arranged to meet smevs at Flint castle about 13 miles in just to change bottles, i came through there in 1st place and was started to open up a gap between the rest of the pack, it was still early days, we still had 187 miles to go, but all was feeling really good and really comfortable, i swapped over my bottles for 2 more Hammer Heeds, and i had been taking a gel every 30 mins, while also taking the heed. I left flint castle and had 12 miles to go to the first official check point, but i got to 20 miles, and i just desperately needed water, i had to ring Carly and get her to come and find me so i could get some, i was that thirsty that i just started tamping water, and i just couldnt quench my thirst at all. Then my hydration vest snapped and i had to try and tie it together, plus i was taking phone calls from race HQ coz my tracker wouldnt work, maybe that race number 13 was cursed. I got to the checkpoint, and to be honest i felt good apart from being so thirsty still, i had a quick cup of tea, refilled up my pockets with fuel, but instead of taking the heed i went with a water and orange squash, and as standard ultra protocol i also took a fruit pastel ice lolly with me.
Off to checkpoint 2
We still had another 5 miles of Flat wales cost path to deal with before heading on to the offas dyke path, id heard good things about it, but in all honesty i wasnt that impressed with it, it had me running through a the high street in Prestatyn, over the train line, and then we started to eventually get some hills, this is where i run a lot better, but these climbs were steep, theres no way you could run them and they just seemed to go up and up. I managed to bump into Smevs again for a refill, and i was still feeling so thirsty, but then also starting to feel sicky as well, i just need ice cold fluids, so i had a cherry coke which didnt seem to help and i seemed to leave feeling even more thirsty, i was still weeing at this point, ok yes it was brown but i was still weeing. Trying to force bits of food in, bars, gels ice lollies, a few sweets whatever i could get in, but nothing seemed to be settling on my belly at all. It then seemed like forever till i saw smevs again, but apparently it had only been 45 mins, i felt the dark clouds of doom coming over, questioning everything, was i good enough to be doing this. im normally really good with dealing with these, but this pulled me in and i was starting to believe the shit i was telling myself,and then to make things worse, i came across my first cross over point of the loop, i entered into a field which had cows in, im talking 30 cows, im not a fan anyway, so i walked into the field and carried on walking nice and slowly, just trying to keep an eye on them to see what they were doing, all of the cows had stood up and they were moving towards me, i started to poo myself, then the cows started running, so naturally i started running, then they were sprinting so i literally had to sprint as fast as i could and literally dive over a barbwire fence cutting myself in the process, and while i lay there all i could think was that i had to do that bit again tomorrow. Still under the cloud i managed to push through a couple more miles and then luckily i saw the castle of Denby, and i remembered in the race brief that you saw this before checkpoint 2, i pulled myself together and ran into cheers for the crews and the race organisers and i felt happy again. i ran straight in to the hall, got a cup of tea, and moaned about the cows. Carly was parked up round the corner as Nelly was asleep so i went round to them, complete kit change and a sort and talc of my feet, 50 miles in and feet were spot on. The only thing letting me down was my stomach, sat there sorting my feet trying to eat and drink, i managed a banana milkshake which packed in 300 calories but id probably already burnt 5000, a bite or 2 out of a sandwich and i was feeling sick, and then the dry retching started. i took another fruit pastel lolly and off i went. But when i wasnt even enjoying the lolly i knew i was in for a tough time.
Checkpoint 2 to 3
I was told this was the hilly section, but i didnt think it was that bad to be honest. This section was just miles and miles of road with the odd farmers field and more cows. Another 2 times i got charged and chased out of fields by the cows and then got attacked by 3 dogs, id had yet more hard miles and Smevs was really struggling with signal to work out places to intercept me, so where we had arranged to meet she wasnt there, but i did bump into her then outside a shop, i just sat on the bench and tipped bottles of water over my head, i felt so hot as if i was melting inside, i had already dunked my head in 2 streams by now
Although i wasnt feeling good at all, i was still moving and the pace was still ok, not as fast as i had wanted but i was still comfortably in the lead so just had to keep going, this was such a weird race, the feelings that i would normally feel i didnt seem to have any of them, just felt emotionless through the whole race, i actually felt miserable, i wasnt enjoying myself, i couldnt eat or drink and was just retching everywhere, but i was determined to get to the next checkpoint, id convinced myself if i had a little sleep then id be fine, i wouldn't normally sleep on the first night, but i hadnt actually slept the night before because belive it on not Bruno kept me awake snoring all night, thats actually not even a joke, i was stuffing toilet paper in my ears to try and block him out. A few more miles ticked off and i bumped into my team again little Nelly came running down the run to great me
The next bit of this section Carly literally drove along side me for about 7 miles, as we just had one continuous uphill stretch of road, more road, this isnt what i signed for. The first night now was drawing in and the sun was going down, still unable to eat or drink anything we hit the reservoirs, then i spent the next 5 miles on more roads running around them, before heading into some trails, which i actually enjoyed this bit and perked up a bit and had a good 6 miles to the checkpoint. 75 race miles done + 3 miles for nav errors
So i was here a checkpoint 3, i wanted to try and have 20 minutes if i could, i hoped it would sort me out, but as soon as i lay on the bed my body just went freezing, teeth nattering together and i knew there was no chance of getting to sleep. so it was cup of tea time and i attempted some beans and sausages but i could only stomach the few sausages. i liked this checkpoint, Nelly was so happy, there was a table tennis table in the middle of the hall and Nelly was just playing away with staff and crew, while eating all the lollies out of the sweet packs. A top change and a long sleeve base layer put on and off we went, this next section was labelled as the trail hadnt been maintained so is a bit overgrown, this is where the gpx was trying to take me
So a slight diversion, climbing over ridiculous amounts of barb wire fences just to get through, this then caused some really painful cramps in my calves, which is something ive never experienced before so wondered what the hell it was at first. Made it back out on to the roads where i met Carly, we had been on the phone for the last 45 minutes or so anything just chatting waffle. But she pulled over and i sat on the side of the road trying to pour custard into face, which actually tasted ace, but it just didnt want to go in
A few more miles in the bag and for the first time i thought that i might have to call it, i was really dry retching by now, still couldnt eat, my teeth had become so sensitive so i couldnt even suck anything, and i had no energy, i was feeling so tired at this point, i was literally running on empty. I met up with Carly again and said im going to have a make or break sleep for 30 minutes, i rang Rhys the race director and said im getting my head down for 30 mins and then climbed into the camper. I dont know if i actually slept of not but the alarm went off and i got up, pack back on and started running again. I managed about another 3 or 4 miles, then started climbing a hill, every other step retching feeling like i was going to flake, and i made the decision there and then that it was over. i had 8 miles to the checkpoint, i was 92 miles in to the race, and i didnt have 8 miles in me, let alone the 108 to finish. I dont know 100% what happened as ive never experienced that before, with Race across Scotland last year, i actually ate more than i burnt.
As i climbed the gate to get out of the field, i saw a bright light coming towards me, and it was a VW it was Mrs Smevs. i said to her that's it, she tried to talk me round but i knew that was it, i got the Team Smevs official fist punch that we were in agreement and that was it. I jumped into the camper and we drove to CP4. And that was the end of the wildhorse 200
As jim Bowen would say, look at what you could have won
You win some you lose some, is it a race ill go back to next year to put things right? Unfortunately not, personally the race wasnt for me, its not the type of terrain i like to run on, North Wales is an amazing place and i dont think the race showcased that. The organisation of the race was spot on, Rhys and his crew were amazing and couldnt do enough for me and my family which was great so i thank you all.
A Thank you to Liz for taking me back in March and helping me through my injury and getting me on start line for this.
And finally Mrs Smevs, my rock, we've had a terrible year so far but as long as we have each other we can get through anything. Well nearly anything obviously not wildhorse 200, but you know what i mean.
Im going to have couple of weeks off and reassess my plans for the remainder on the year and next.
Thanks for reading, and please dont send me messages of sympathy i cant deal with that!
Keep Running and Keep smiling
Smevs xx