Tim Downie wrote:

> Ouch  ouch ouch ouch ouch!  But perhaps I ought to start at the beginning.
> ;-)
> 
Sure you have enough ouches there, Tim? :)

....

> Now I *knew* Ben Aigen was there from the start, I knew it's height.  What I
> didn't know was that the bl**dy path was going to go up and down and up and
> down and up and down all along the sides of this hill.  When we did
> eventually escape the hill, the organisers had thoughtfully added in *more*
> hills by putting the extra 5k needed to make it a 50k over some steep sided
> valleys just for our further pleasure.  I don't now how much climbing we did
> but that's one hill I won't underestimate again!

Rule of thumb: Where there's at least one big hill, there's bound to be
a few others, possibly smaller :) They're highly social critters. Oh,
and if you check topo maps ahead of time, they may hide between the
contour lines to surprise you on race day. Never such a thing as too 
much information ahead of time when new to trails.


>Annoyingly, there was
> one runner ahead who was walking and running but I just could reel him in.

With longer distances and hills, it's amazing how efficient walking and
running can be, even when going for speed.


> 
> Final position was 40th out of 95 finishers (98 starters) which I'm not too
> unhappy about for a first 50K but I wasn't too wowed by my time which was
> 4:44:46.  I had hoped to get under 4:30 but that was based on a Ben Aigen
> walk up, run down and then back to level running again fantasy so perhaps no
> great surprise that I didn't manage that. 

Congratulations on an excellent race, considering you had done it more
or less blind and weren't familiar with the course and appropriate
energy management for it. I'll bet next time you'll do much better
because you'll know how to adjust to hills better as well as recognizing
differences in trails vs roads.

Dot

-- 
"Success is different things to different people"
-Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope