Rhayader thoughts, and the next 3 months challenges

Now I've had time to think about Sunday's Rhayader Mountain Trail (story below) these are my thoughts.

The Good:
The organisation was good, no problems at all. Food laid on at the start was welcome and excellent. The people at the checkpoints were superb. They brightened up an otherwise dreary day. The checkpoints were well stocked with food and all of it welcome!
I made it around the course despite problems. It crosses your mind to just quit sometimes, but you don't. So, it was character building, and should help when it comes to difficult times on the MDS. My feet stayed in one piece, a couple of places would probably have bistered if the distance was longer. This was all down to wet feet all day. GPS is wonderful.
Although I moan about walking so much in this event in some ways this is beneficial. It is the waking on the MDS that destroys feet. Runners are not used to walking, and it causes rubbing and blisters in different places. I've always know I should become a hardened walker, before a runner for success on the MDS, so I will pencil in some walking sessions into my plan again.

The Bad:
The weather - not much anyone can do about that. Falling into deep bogs and ruining my map and written route. All my fault, I guess my map case isn't as waterproof as my PDA bag. Lesson learned - pack the proper OS map because the ink won't run when wet! Wet feet all day - it's not enjoyable. I should have perhaps researched the terrain/route better, but I don't think this would have helped much.

The Ugly:
The organisers choice of route. I was annoyed because I wanted to run more and couldn't. I was very frustrated at staggering through moors and marshes with nothing resembling a path to follow. I think the organiser could have pre-warned the runners better in the event description. I accept there will always be rough ground, but there was too much normal runners (The Montrail runners no doubt knew what to expect). I don't want to walk so much.

Running out (almost) of batteries for PDA/GPS. I will take a spare PDA loaded with the same route. I can either just swap batteries, or if a PDA goes down, use my spare (recentley repaired). I need to set my GPS to low power mode to double to battery life to 17 hours+. I have event coming up that will need that kind of battery life.


The next 3 months challenge events.

Sun 02/09/2007 A Coventry Way Challenge Central England 40 miles

Sat 08/09/2007 5th Hills & Dales Northern England 21 miles

Sat 22/09/2007 In Pendle's Shadow Northern England 20 miles

Sat 06/10/2007 Grin & Bear It Northern England 25 miles

Sat 20/10/2007 John Knox Challenge Walk Central England 22 miles

Sat 10/11/2007 Six Dales Circuit Central England 25 miles

Sun 18/11/2007 Wensleydale Wedge Northern England 23 miles

Sat 08/12/2007 25th Rowbotham's Round Rotherham 50 miles

Sat 22/12/2007 Wem Winter Wonderland Central England 20 miles

The big one there is the Round Rotherham, which has been used my former MDS competitors as a warm up. Those events take me up to Christmas, when I will see where I am and target my efforts for the final run up to the event.