Which way at the Murph?

I ran in Murphy on Sunday (interesting weather day) and ran the course in the clockwise (CW) direction, I was hoping that I would be faster than my counter-clockwise (CCW) direction.

The result is in and it doesn't matter which way I go, on Sunday I ran it CW in 1:49, my Ipod+ said it was 8.49 miles and my previous run going CCW was a 1:50, Ipod+ said 8.75 miles. Now, what was interesting was the distance from the horse parking lot to the main parking lot, my Ipod+ showed it at 2.55 miles which seemed to track to the distance after the second water stop, except that would mean it was 6 miles from the main lot to the horse lot (instead of 5.3 if my Ipod+ was equally accurate - which it may not be). All things considered, the distance doesn't matter to me as I figure it is what is and if we go 31 or 33 miles it will still be fun and I will still be at the back of the pack.

I will admit it was fun going the CW direction on Sunday as it was a nice change of pace from my other runs, what I noted was I was sheltered a bit from the wind and sleet, snow, rain mixture. So if it is windy it won't be terrible for us running, now the aid station folks might have it tougher. There are still a lot of leaves on the ground some of which cover rocks and ruts. Maybe the wind blew them all out before it subsided :-). There are sections that I can't run (at least not for 4 loops) as my walking and running speeds would converge and my HR got up to 150+ walking after I stopped the running. The uphills I remember the most are the #6 hill and #14/13 hill, the downhill I liked was the #4 hill, sure beat going the other way but don't worry there are many more in both directions. There are a few sandy sections which may slow you a little bit but not a lot and sufficient horse droppings, rocks and ruts that you should probably keep your eyes on the trails.

So with the final run at Murphy complete, I patiently await the Surf the Murph 50k.......