I do have some overall thoughts about the run.
The mountains were everywhere: There was only about 10km of running at the start, and 5km running at the end. Everything else was at an angle. Sure you could run some of the downhills, but a lot of them were too steep it too treacherous and so you had to take them slow. And every mountain seemed to be worse than the last one.
European wilderness is different: Because people have lived here so long, there are small parts of civilization everywhere. Almost every waterway had a bridge. There were no lessons on how to deal with bears. In fact, I recall on my hike to Mount Sala seeing a poster on how to deal with cows. That may have been helpful here. Especially in the middle of the night when you realize there is a cow next to you and no fence.
Maliciousness: I never got the sense that the true course was cruel and unusual. I only ran part of it, but I got the sense that it wasn’t trying to be mean. It was taking the easiest route around the mountain. Easy being very relative under the circumstances. However, after I left the true course, I got the impression that they were trying to make up for missing the rest and all bets were off.
2012-9-3 22:10