Latest news with #WildHorse200
Powys County Times
6 days ago
- Powys County Times
Builth Wells duo ‘climb Everest' by completing Wild Horse
EVEN though I hate the term 'bucket list', climbing to Mount Everest Base Camp is on mine, and my girlfriend's. However, I'm not sure that you really need to make the odyssey to Nepal now, Michelle Woods, after completing the Wild Horse 200 last weekend, organised by the fabulous Pegasus Ultra Running. Starting from Chepstow at 6am last Wednesday, May 21, she and her friend Izzy Watts spent the next four-and-a-bit days running, walking, climbing and at times crawling the 200 miles to the finish line in Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula, collapsing onto the finish line gate, overlooking Worm's Head, just after 1pm on Sunday. During that gruelling trek, the Builth Wells duo amassed 31,644 feet of elevation. For reference, the summit of Mount Everest is 29,028ft. She's already climbed higher than Everest… so is there really any need to go there now, babe?! To put their feat into even more context, a friend's son mused in the pub on Monday: 'That's the sort of height planes fly at." Izzy 's partner, Gary, and I, had a bird's eye view of the event, as their support crew. Together, we traversed over 500 miles of roads, lanes, dusty tracks, car parks, fire roads and lay-bys in support of the girls – some, though definitely not me, would say our achievements were even more impressive. Kidding aside, their gargantuan slog was truly epic and inspiring. Despite taking every ounce of sweat, blood, tears and effort they had, a cohort of family and friends waiting for them at the finish line was ample reward. There were plenty of tears. Izzy and Chelle at Ponsticill Reservoir. (Image: Matt Jones) I've become something of an ultra marathon runner myself in the last 12 months, completing two. But there's no way I would take on one 200 miles in length. Izzy completed a 100-mile event last year, which almost broke her. So, what on earth possessed her to do one double the distance, I cannot possibly fathom. But, they're made of stern stuff, this pair. It pushed them to physical, mental and emotional breaking point – fuelled by a combination of energy drinks and gels, cake, sweets, cups of tea, salty snacks and bitesize bowls of cheesy mash and beans. Gary and I? Our bodies remain largely constructed of junk food, after we gorged on Maccies, chippies and bacon and sausage baps to get us through the week. The gang at the penultimate checkpoint in Penclawdd, Swansea, ahead of the girls heading off for the last leg, the 17 miles to Rhossili, on Sunday morning. (Image: Matt Jones) It was rewarding experience for us in the van too. Crew life was a mix of keeping the girls fed and watered, bandaged and dosed up with ibuprofen, and keeping them motivated. There was a real camaraderie forged with other runners and the dedicated individuals and teams keeping them going as well. If you like stats, here's some more eye-watering numbers from Chelle and Izzy's Wild Horse buffoonery. Chelle clocked up 446,669 steps over the course of 200 miles. It took them a little over 103 hours to reach the finish line (achieved on the event's fourth day, well ahead of the 6am cut-off on Monday morning). They passed 10 checkpoints, three of which were designated sleep stations, even though they only slept for around six hours in total. The winner, New Zealander Damian Watson, finished in a remarkable time of 51 hours, 51 minutes – smashing the course record by more than four hours. Of the event's starting field of 103 runners, 71 finished, while there were 32 DNFs (did not finish). This included one man found sleeping on a road; so delirious he told paramedics he was sleeping on a bench – he was immediately pulled from the race for his own safety… and sanity. You have to be slightly insane to enter a race like this in the first place. Our girls are recovering this week… but Chelle is already talking about entering the Mid Wales version of the Wild Horse, which is returning next year.
Otago Daily Times
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Runner ‘chuffed' with record
Former Dunedin ultra-distance runner Damian Watson nears the finish line of the Wild Horse 200 in South Wales. PHOTO: SUPPLIED Damian Watson did not just break the previous record for the Wild Horse 200 ultra-distance race across Wales, he absolutely smashed it, then ground it up into dust. The race can take up to five days to complete, but the Dunedin-born and raised runner won it in 51 hours and 51 minutes — about five and a-half hours faster than the previous race record-holder. The 38-year-old's mother Sharon Watson, of Dunedin, said it was held on a gruelling 200-mile (322km) trail, traversing the mountains of South Wales, along Offa's Dyke, traversing the Beacons Way before catching the Heart Of Wales Line on to the Wales Coast Path and finish line at Worm's Head. "It's not like the Coast to Coast in New Zealand. It's a lot longer — 322km straight." She said about 120 competed from across Europe and Watson was the only New Zealander. "He's pretty chuffed with the win. He's really competitive. "He's always been a sports person. He played ice hockey — he was a former Ice Black — and hockey, and then he took to marathon running. "He can be very hard on himself. That's why he was so chuffed. "He recently got third in a big race in the North Island which was a lot less kilometres in it, and he wasn't happy about it. "He had the fitness, but he lost it mentally at the end." Whatever went wrong upstairs, he seems to have fixed, she said. "There was no way anyone was going to catch him. "He basically led from the start and he was about 20km ahead." She said he was "a proud Kiwi" and the family was delighted to see footage of him crossing the finish line, holding a New Zealand flag. It appears there is no rest for the wicked. She said he went back to work the next day as a Trafalgar Tours guide on a bus. He spends the northern hemisphere summers tour guiding and doing marathons where he can, and in the New Zealand summer, he returns to help run his deli at Muriwai Beach with his business partners. Mrs Watson said the former King's High School student was not the easiest child in the family to raise, because he was so "driven". "But we're very proud of him."
