I ran the 25K in 2009...random and unorganized thoughts:

- the hills are relentless and never-ending

- the paths are wide, and footing is good -- they are XC skiing trails and not "technical"

- the 25K is one lap, the 50K is two laps

- good aid stations and support on the course

- the soft trails really made recovery something different than roads, no sense of "pounding"

- I never wanted to run another hill in my life for the next two weeks

- I trained by running the hillest course I have, always running on the shoulder dirt, it wasnt' enough

- the bbq was great, my wife finally called time and I was bummed

I said I'd never do it again, but I'm planning on the 50K this year.  Blaine will jump in with a lot more info, he's got way more experience than my little one time running the 25K.

Take one of these, and repeat:

This is a fun race, if you are in shape for a marathon then you can do the 50k.  It might hurt a lot while you are running and it will be tough, but you'll recover a lot faster than you would from a road marathon.

As mentioned, you never get a break from the hills, you are always going up or down, there's very little in the way of flat stretches.  There aren't very many hills that are particularly large (I think the biggest climb is 60 feet and the biggest drop is 80 feet?) but they just never end.  When you leave the trails and head out into the fields, the footing can be a bit treacherous as well, since these are haying fields and aren't that flat, but most of the course is easy footing on soft grass or dirt.

Plenty of aid; when I ran the 50k, I carried my own water bottle but it isn't really necessary. It did let me skip aid stations and get a drink a bit more frequently which was nice...but then I wound up missing out on a lot of the great food at each aid station.

I did the 50k a couple years ago, last year I did the barefoot 5k and the 25k, this year I'm leaning towards running the 50k again:

http://news.runtowin.com/2009/05/25/pineland-farms-trail-challenge-2009.html

http://news.runtowin.com/2010/05/31/pineland-farms-2010.html

If you get the chance, it's worth doing some training out on the course. Once the snow is gone (you aren't allowed on the course while the trails are still ski-able) we'll be out there every week around 8:00 in the YMCA parking lot running the course, always welcome to join us. There's probably going to be a group on Sundays as well but not 100% sure of that yet.  Just knowing what to expect going into the race and not having any surprises can make a big difference.