Notes
Pineland Farms is a deceptively difficult course given how little difference there is between min and max elevation. It beats you up. I got goaded into running the 50k so we'd have enough folks for a team, and I'm glad that I did because I felt pretty good for most of the race. I started to get tired and sore with 10 miles to go, but never got to a point of complete exhaustion and managed sub-7 for the last mile.
My race strategy was to get through the first 25k loop before the 25k race started (at 2 hours) so that I wouldn't have to fight through the crowds on the trails, and I got through 90 seconds to 2 minutes before the 25k started. I just let the second half take care of itself. It worked out well because I had 3 or 4 miles that I got to run with the top 10 25k runners as they were moving at a good pace for me before we got to some of the more uphill parts of the course and I let them get away.
I finished and thought that I was in 4th place overall, and then while I was waiting for my wife to finish I saw one of the guys that I thought was ahead of me run by. He'd had a rough day and apparently I zoomed by him without realizing it around mile 18, so I finished in 3rd place overall and helped my team win a case of beer for the team prize. (Our 25k team also won, although the 50 mile team was 3rd so no sweep.)
I was about 17 minutes slower than I was 2 years ago, but that seems to be pretty much across the board. I still got 3rd place again, and the winning time was only 50 seconds faster than I ran in 2009 (the winning time then was 16 minutes faster than this year.)