I had the idea to run this trail in the beginning of October. I have never run it before so in the few weeks leading up to the attempt I scouted out just about the entire trail from start to end so that I would be familiar with the terrain and wouldn't have any navigation issues. My hope that the trail would be dry so that I wouldn't have to push the technical sections to maintain speed and the last section from where the trail goes onto the road I could push the pace.
Because of the cool temperature I only carried 1L of water in my vest with 200 calories of tailwind nutrition mixed in. In addition I also carried 5 gels but only used 3. The trail ended up being a bit wet with lots of leaves on the ground, not muddy but slick. My strategy changed to keeping the speed up on the slower more technical sections and more controlled and steady on the faster sections. This ended up working out pretty well considering the trail conditions. Scouting out the trail worked out well as I didn't go off course once.
The weather was sunny and a bit chilly for me, I could tell the temperature was starting to get to me with 10 miles to go. My legs got pretty sluggish and I thought that maybe I wasn't in the shape I thought I was in. However the day after the run I am not sore at all so wearing shorts in 40 degree weather probably chilled my legs more than I thought. Overall I am happy with the result.