It's great reading about this from the fell runner's perspective after seeing a bunch of wanky social media posts from people who dropped on day 1!

Some thoughts from me (Matt O'Keefe, finished 3rd, captain of MDC in South Wales):
- Very few people at the front were using poles. Coming through the field each day I saw some extremely comical pole "usage" particularly on the rock hopping descents in the Rhinogs! The leading woman was extremely good with them though
- Day 1 and 2 were a very different race to the rest of the days. You can really see the separatation between fell/mountain runners and ultra runners if you look at the day 1 and 2 results vs days 4 and 6
- It's very expensive, but you can see where the money goes. The organisation is superb, the camp is excellent, the food is great and there's loads of it and they get the basic things right like a Harvey map of the entire route
- Half of the field underestimated the race or over estimated themselves. That said, I think a lot would have passed a vetting process that focused on experience in ultra events, again it was the technicality and heat in the first two days that caused the massive drop out rates
- The atmosphere in the whole race was really great, I met a lot of like minded people, not just runners but volunteers too. Nic's Dragon Mail was a highlight
- I might be biased because I live in Cardiff but the finish was excellent. I've heard many stories of the school at the end of the traditional route and it sounds rubbish in comparison.
- My club mate Simon Roberts has turned in to a monster and I'm looking forward to him racing some longs next year!

Also, it looks like this is my first post here after lurking for 4 years. Seems like a good pace to start.