Ramapo Mountain Madness 50k -1st Ultra

I ran the Ramapo Mountain Madness 50k today. My first Ultra Marathon. 2007 has deffinitely been my year for running, cause in the last 6 months ive run a 5k, 10k, 15k, Half Marathon, 3 Marathons, and today a 50k. I'm feeling like an Adams.The race temp was 42 degrees at start and raised to about 55 max. It was perfect.It was a very small race, held by YTD lifestyle sneaker company.It was an extremely hard course of very rough terrain and some serious hills. I actually ripped the mesh on my Arnuvos from the rocks.Race was going really well for the first 10 miles, I stayed with the top 5 runners for the first few miles then I dropped a bit back on some of the hills. At about mile 10 I passed one guy and then another at mile 12. It was around that point that 2 runners that were in the front of the pack came running in my direction,they were lost.I showed them the marker on the tree that I just passed to assure them that they were going in the right direction, but they said they ran a half a mile down the trail and all the markers were gone. So I ran back down there with them to see if they missed something, but they were right, The trail was really well marked and all of a sudden there was nothing. Now there was 5 of us all running together back tracking when a friend of mine also in the race came running towards us. I was so glad it was him cause he knows these trails pretty well. So we ran in the direction that he thought the trail should go and within a couple of miles we started to see the trail marking again, alot of them on the floor. Apparently some Hunters or maybe some kids decided to take the markers off the trees. It must of been a disaster for all of the racers after us also. For me it only put me about a mile out of the way. We started off again and I was able to maintain 4th place for the remainder of the race.I finished 4th overall out of 48 people with a time of 4:34, I felt so good today! After mile 20 or so I walked most of the steep hills, and ran everywhere else.After I finished I waited an hour and only 2 other people came across the finish line.Even though the course was so hard, the race seemed to fly by. I think when you run in the mountains you are so focused on watching your footing and the trail markers that it occupies your time so much better then just pounding the pavement for hours. The longest race ive run in the trails prior to this was a 10k. I could see why most Ultras are on trails.I'm probably going to run the Philly Marathon next month.