Listen to your feet, they always tell the Truth

During training, I know exactly where my feet tend to need protection.

Before long runs, I routinely tape a couple of toes and areas that have historically become irritated using Save our Soles Toe Tape.

Those areas? Perfect.

Not a single issue. Even my toenails look acceptable, I’ll be honest, not like they’re freshly pedicured but they aren’t a complete horror show.

The tape does exactly what it is supposed to do: reduces friction before friction becomes damage.

But, this last weekend, new blisters appeared somewhere completely different. Not because the tape had failed. Because I had never created the conditions that revealed those pressure points.

The race did.

And they weren't minor blisters.

They were, without question, the worst blisters I've ever experienced. By the finish line they were painful enough to change how I walked, and had the race continued for another several hours—as it would in my upcoming ultramarathon—they almost certainly would have become debilitating.

That's what made the experience so valuable.

The fitness was there.

The foot preparation wasn't.

Every race is data

One of the advantages of using this event as part of a larger training block is that nothing truly went wrong.

Instead, I collected information.

I now know that if I'm racing hard on sustained descents, there are additional areas on both feet that need protecting alongside the spots I already tape. Those blisters have shown me exactly where friction develops when speed, terrain and fatigue combine.

It isn't a lesson I would have wanted to learn for the first time 30 or 40 kilometres into an ultramarathon.

Training races exist to expose weaknesses before your goal race does.

Sometimes that's fitness. Sometimes it's nutrition. Sometimes it's pacing.

And sometimes it's discovering that the fastest way down a mountain creates pressure in places your feet have never experienced before.

That knowledge is worth far more now than it would have been on my goal race.

Because race day should never be the first time you discover where your feet fail.

The real purpose of specific training

It's tempting to measure a training race by finishing time or position. But sometimes the greatest value lies elsewhere.

Specific training is not simply about becoming fitter. It's about reducing uncertainty.

It's about understanding how your body responds when intensity rises, when terrain changes and when fatigue begins to alter the way you move.

And for runners, that understanding should always include the feet.

Because they are the one part of your body that experiences every single step.

Looking back, those blisters were frustrating, but they were also one of the most valuable pieces of feedback I've received all season.

They've changed how I'll prepare for my goal ultramarathon, just a few weeks away. I'll pay closer attention to where pressure develops. And I'll add Save our Soles Toe Tape to areas I now know are vulnerable.

The fitness I've built will help me reach the start line.

The lessons I've learned about my feet may well be what gets me to the finish.