I LOVE THIS COURSE, and that is why I would run it again, in a heartbeat. It was a beautiful, unforgettable day of ultra-running, which is what I love doing. I love training for races, especially long ones with long training blocks of six months or more, and when the training goes well, as it did in this case, there's no better feeling than arriving on the start line.
This is what I looked like when I decided not to finish, at the 72km (45mi) mark, cold, unable to stop shivering, having just come through my second thunderstorm of the day, just before dusk settled in, with wet socks, soaked torso and legs, and blisters covering both feet. I was running alone, with no crew support, and had done so for the entirety of the race. So I called in the cavalry to save me, and got a ride from Foxhill to home, with a quick stop at Avebury to get my bag.
In addition to clothing failures (i.e. running shoes aren't really designed for this kind of thing, and the hikers have the right idea, dressing in waterproof shoes and warm coats), my body was shivering and burning up calories, heading into calorie deficit due to lack of food. This despite eating 6 hard-boiled eggs and ten rice balls I'd brought with me; six gels I carried with me; a jacket potato with cheese and beans with a bowl of soup and a roll at base camp; two large bean and egg burritoes and a Chia Charge bar with peanut butter porridge/oatmeal and Lucozade for breakfast; six more gels I got at the check points; 5 bananas; lots of fruit and loads of proten bars; despite all this it wasn't enough to keep me going or warm.
I chatted with a lot of people, because this was my strategy for how to get around, but when darkness came, they'd all bunched up into (mostly young) cliques. I got a lecture from one guy from London about how you're not supposed to eat during an ultra, and that's why he'd thrown away most of his food at base camp. I think he was having a mental breakdown, but he passed me at checkpoint 7 when I pulled out.
This was my longest-ever continuous run, so it was a victory in a way. 
Two things I blame on the organisers: 1. they ran out of protein food at the base camp, announcing that there were no sausages. There were only packaged sweets at the checkpoints. Contrast this with what was supplied at BigSea50k, and the difference becomes clear: have real food available to support your runners. There were only two checkpoints with real food here: cp2 and base camp.
The other thing I blame on the organisers (and I'm not one to complain much), is the start time. Last time I did this race I started at 6am. This time I wasted four hours of daylight waiting for my start wave AT 8:50AM. I had to pass a lot of walkers.
I think that running this non-stop is much more difficult than running it in two parts with a rest between. The reason for this is that running at night is actually very hard (especially when near hypothermic), and because your body can really go downhill very quickly without that break in between.
This is what I saw at the end of the day after the rain cleared, and it was a consolation prize of a sunset. It was carnage as several groups and individuals pulled out around me at checkpoint 6, most citing blisters. For me it was blisters, my left knee, my back, and my brain that all gave up on me. I could barely walk to checkpoint 7 where my ride was waiting for me, and this was the hardest thing I've done in my life so far.
