Never run full tilt at a wet wooden stile, planting your fell shoe clad, lead foot and only your lead foot onto the near side of the stile ( no hands ), as if going to push off and hurdle said stile. Treacherous and leg breakingly painful slippages may occur!!
I have just read my way through the whole of this thread. For many pages, until it got bogged down in folded race numbers and philosophy, it was a fascinating read, could be published to give a real feel for fell running, its mishaps, foibles and follies. No magazine article I've ever read does it half as vividly.
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
........and dont forget to nag the race organiser every day afterwards to publish the results
No country for old men.
Absolutely, wet wood = pussy-footing and little giggles to runners around you, 'I'm man enough to lose 5 secs here, thank you very much'.