by Julian Brown » Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:58 am
Hi Ivor,
Yes a few of us went out there this year for the event. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it, it's certainly a hard event but then that's why you do it. It's well organised and supported, and popular (2000 entrants). We were failrly lucky with the weather this year too.
Obviously it's the sort of thing for which a bit of training is required - time on your feet, big climbs, long days in the hills etc. - would probably recommend a few of the longer / hillier fell races / Long Distance Walkers events / BG support, together with weekends in the Lakes or Scotland. We're fortunate at Macc in having a goodly number of folk who are daft enough to spend their free time in such jaunts, which helps a lot.
The other thing I (and a few of the others) did was to go out to the alps for a week / 10 days to walk the TMB (although not sticking to the race route for the most part) to get a feel for the length of the climbs / descents, terrain, weather etc.
Usual advice applies as for any long event - don't set off too fast, eat and drink lots, look after / sort out any niggles as you go along, and keep plodding !
Hope you give it a go next year, you'll enjoy it.
Julian