Fell Race race (Gargrave Show) 23:10 [3]
A night out til 3 and a 3.5h drive were not the best prep. I tried to guess the start time based off people's previous years' Stravas and ended up with more warm-up time than estimated which was good.
Got boxed in in the field but my recce of the wall crossing paid off (avoiding the bales). The river was nice and high and I crossed in third. The winner was running away, followed by Harry Coats and an Ilkley guy. They took a duff route up the muddy field so I gained a little. Got into a groove in the woods and tried to reel in Ilkley, it was going well until the final ridge climb where he put some speed in.
Caught him by the fell gate on the way down but stuck behind in the narrow woods before overtaking on a hairpin. He massively dropped off but I crossed the fields hard as it would be easy to lose time there.
Despite feeling a bit off I finished only a minute down and took time off my previous races (one I did finish without a shoe however).