Ran this for the first time last year.  Saw all sorts of shoes, big cumfy things, trail, even barefoot, so I suppose the best thing is go with what your used to.  There's two sections of 'off-road' and the weather last year was interesting (streams instead of paths, sunshine, rain, thunder, lightning, hail, wrath of God, you get the picture), but my ordinary cheap and cheerful, run of the mill trainees coped ok.....I think, 26 miles is 26 miles after all!  As for your time; weather, fitness, blah blah, this one taxes the lot, fair play for running it, good luck mate.

How did you get on?  I almost broke my legs coming down the last slippery slope with my cheap and cheerful budget trainers......took 40 minutes off last years time though :-)

Wow 40 minutes off last years time! What made the difference? Training, conditions, course knowledge, pacing....

You're quite right to be perfectly honest, what made the difference was knowing what was coming around each corner, I'd kind of worked out when to go hard and when to back off though I'm quite sure that's my limit now and I'd be hard pressed to improve much more.  The other help in some weird way was the weather.  Having run it last year in bad weather I'd realised that when its going to be wet and wild, you don't really want to be hanging around too long.  Anyway, whatever it all seemed to come good.  Really good race, brilliant support, fantastic company, this one's got to be one of the best.  Well done to everyone.

Same time same place next year then!  :-D