If anyone is interested on my little jaunt on Sunday....I ended up running 33 miles!

Croydon Ultra Race Report

Nice run, Jerry.  Getting lost due to poor directions thing would have been really annoying!  Looks like you took it in stride.  

 The problem with misdirection is it breaks the concentration and really puts me off as you have to stop and start hunting around. My 15 mile spilt was 2:11 and I knew I was due a few walking breaks and was well up for a sub 5:00 hour 30 miles which was my main goal but was happy to pass thirty in 5:13.

That evening I started sneezing and it has now turned into man flu.....

I think the only thing that generally annoys me with bad mapping is that we do turn up to races with a plan (or at least some form of visualisation) as to how to run the course and with a time expectation. If I be truthful I was looking to do a sub 5 hour, 30 mile run as it was on road/pavement and hard path and was well within my abilities. However when a wrong turn is made it is very easy to dismiss the PB/Good Time goal as I for one lose the psycological aspect of the attempt...I think I mentioned I hit the 30 mile mark at 5:13 and I know that 13 + minutes were wasted going around the "long way", stopping to ask or retracing steps.

However, if you attend events with the view that it is a map-reading course with enormous hills, mud and water crossings it is a challenge You v The terrain and it is a known fact that you and others will take the wrong turn and it isn't a problem but all part of the fun.

As for 80% of the field getting lost in your event then that is solely down to the organisers and I hope they do a "lessons learnt" exercise.

Back to my 30 mile event, I sent an email to the organiser who lives about 8 mile away from me and have offered to run the course with him before next year so that he can see the shortfalls in the race and he has accepted the offer.

BTW...I am seriously impressed with your race turnover in the past 2 months