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Thread: Excalibur Off-Road Marathon

  1. #71
    Master (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner's Avatar
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    FWIW my Garmin came out with 26.11 miles & 6850 feet.
    I've just decided I don't trust you anymore.

  2. #72
    Senior Member Usually at the back's Avatar
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Good report and observations. The car parking was very harsh, thankfully I had friends waiting for me a the end to drive me back up. I think the litter issue may well be a problem particuarly water bottles and numbers - not sure why people find it necessary to drop gel wrappers either.

    Glad I spent a lot of time beforehand, some dodgy map reading going on with some participants. A lot of encouragement and friendliness though on the route (at my slow pace anyway), someone suggested that the race may be reversed next time to get Fenlli out of the way.

    Kathy, what happened to your ankle? Apparently, a car was broken into, miney and rings stolen

    Hopefully the race will have raised a lot of money

  3. #73
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Quote Originally Posted by (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner View Post
    FWIW my Garmin came out with 26.11 miles & 6850 feet.

    Is that off your garmin training centre or after uploading to Garmin connect?

    Garmin connect seems to correct the data.. the training centre almost always over estimates by 25-40%.. I did a 10k race today.. the training centre said 1200ft of ascent, garmin connect 750 ft...

  4. #74
    Master (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner's Avatar
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Training centre/connect? I've no idea Iain, I just plug it in to the computer. As I posted earlier in this thread I've little confidence in the altitude measurements & normally knock about a third off the figure that comes up on my screen. If I was more computer literate I'd investigate Garmin connect.

    I've just read the post on the RW site about the thefts & that is really shit.

    Kathy, what has happened to your ankle? Did you get around?
    I've just decided I don't trust you anymore.

  5. #75
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Quote Originally Posted by (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner View Post
    FWIW my Garmin came out with 26.11 miles & 6850 feet.
    I made it (connect) 26.41 miles (had previously bot 26.4 in recces) and 5,561 ft ascent ( previoulsy had calculated about 5,500 from recces piecing bits together)

  6. #76
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Good report. I was pleased with my 5h 11m until I read it, though! Yes, I thought it was a great day. Weather helped. But some organisational issues which I agree with, wholeheartedly. We had about 16 Pensby Runners taking part so I'll compile a report and send it to the organiser. I do hope they dont mess with the route, though. The Organiser was talking of different options to finish in the top car park by chopping a bit here and adding a bit there.

    One of our guys got his car broken into and £60 cash stolen. I believe there were at least 3 others.

  7. #77
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Hi guys, yesterday was a good day out and a challenging route, it was great to see such a wide range of competitors taking part and very inspiring for lesser mortals like myself to be running with some real experts. I was relieved to catch lots and lots of walkers after the banter on here about that and pretty chuffed to catch some of the runners who had set off 2 half an hour before me too :w00t:

    I hope the organisers sort out the litter issues as litter was quite prevalent and totally unnecessary when most people had rucksacks and bumbags. The 'wave' start was fine and there was plenty of water on offer on the way around.I have no issues with the lack of navigational direction, there were actually signs up in many places which I hadn't anticipated, having been given a map of the route and the checkpoint GRs. They were an added bonus as far as I could see. The LDWA event Open to Offas on a similar route has no signs at all and has a great deal more navving involved. Perhaps as you say they need to make people more aware of the need for self-sufficiency. The lack of kitchecks was also a slight concern as it could easily have been quite a different animal if the weather had turned out to be a little less perfect than it was. The paper numbers were very short lived, mine died at the Cilcain checkpoint as did several others by the sound of it from the lady marshall there. RIP!

    The parking was ridiculous - I arrived at the bottom car park to be told I had to drive up and 'just walk down to registration' - and back, there was no word about this in the emails,when I asked why i was told it was because it was a 'visitors' car park! I'm afraid at that point I insisted I was a visitor and had no wish to walk to and from the top car park prior to a challenging off-road marathon thankyou very much!! I'm very saddened to hear that there were thefts - I have been told by several people that this is a local issue which unfortunately is not simply confined to yesterday's race but has been blighting the area for a while. There are also some signs up in various locations which are really sad to see suggesting that theft is rife from some of our remote hill carparks. Bad times :thunbdown:

    I thoroughly enjoyed the race - my estimate of roughly 7 hours proved to be very conservative and I was thrilled to cross the line feeling relatively still full of beans at 6.24.
    The only downer for me was my left achilles which has never ever been a problem i've had before. Sharon Basford, my Tattenhall Runners pal and I made it to the Kimnel Arms in 2 hours 15 feeling invincible (always foolish). We topped up on water, ignored the delicious smelling but potentially puke inducing soup tureen and set off up the hill. My achilles twinged slightly going up the road hill after the Kimnel Arms, I stretched and massaged it a bit and carried on with slight twinges every now and then for the next ten miles but was aware that if i pushed it or started leaping around I was in danger of really damaging it. I made the decision that as long as it was a dull and minor pain I would continue but if it began to give me real grief I would pull out so I didn't damage it too seriously but there's no doubt it slowed me down and a stopped to stretch it every time it twinged.
    I ran the next ten miles more cautiously and with the help of some ibuprofen :thunbdown:. Moel famau was fine and Moel Fenlli seemed to just flow beneath my feet (possibly the caffeine gel i'd had 10 minutes earlier!), I flew down Fenlli but staggered out of the car park and through the final section at a limping jog. The St Johns were helpful with a big icepack at the end (although the St Johns girl did have to ask me how to spell achilles - bless!!)
    It's sore and swollen today which is a bit of a downer. Any advice on achilles injuries - causes and treatments, very very gratefully received as I'm supposed to be doing the Sandstone Challenge in May and have no real idea why its happened as i've never had any issues with it before. ITB, Plantar fascia and calf are all familiar niggles but this is a new and highly unwelcome beast!!
    Yesterday was a good day, despite injury and i'd like to do it again - i hope they don't mess with the route, i think Fenlli at the end is a great challenge.
    In terms of stats - my garmin (in training centre) says 26.7 miles and 5470ft.
    Well done to everyone else - some awesome times - anyone seen any official results yet??

  8. #78
    Master IainR's Avatar
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Quote Originally Posted by (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner View Post
    Training centre/connect? I've no idea Iain, I just plug it in to the computer. As I posted earlier in this thread I've little confidence in the altitude measurements & normally knock about a third off the figure that comes up on my screen. If I was more computer literate I'd investigate Garmin connect.

    I've just read the post on the RW site about the thefts & that is really shit.

    Kathy, what has happened to your ankle? Did you get around?
    That's your garmin training centre. If you create a garmin connect account: http://connect.garmin.com/

    And then you can sync your training centre to that and they must have a formula to correct your height data.. its much more accurate from connect..

    You can also just down load sport tracks software on to your computer: http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/sporttracks/

    That's much more accurate for height gain, its a free version and easy to use.

  9. #79
    Master (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner's Avatar
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Okay, okay Iain, one thing at a time. My Garmin Connects stats;

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/163743561

    (26.11 miles & 5416ft.)
    I've just decided I don't trust you anymore.

  10. #80
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    Re: Excalibur Off-Road Maratho

    Quote Originally Posted by (notsomuchofa)Fellrunner View Post
    Okay, okay Iain, one thing at a time. My Garmin Connects stats;

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/163743561

    (26.11 miles & 5416ft.)
    See. That's why you were 1hr 55 mins faster than me you did 0.3 less miles and 145ft less climb ... and they were the hardest bits, too!

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