Well done Athers, for someone under the weather, you were certainly moving well enough up the fell!
Thanks for your thoughts, and i'm always willing to listen to those with more experience than me. When i first started i certainly did always go off way too fast, and then suffer. As I've gained experience and learned to pace myself a bit better, I've been of the feeling that it's more a case of being strong on the climbs but a lot weaker descending.
My descending has certainly improved, but as my climbing keeps progressing, i find myself at the top of the fells with comparatively better descenders, and struggle to hold position. I think some small evidence of this is Peris, where every year I've gotten faster on the descent to PyP, but this year i'd felt my descent was 'shocking', due to losing places, even though it was my fastest time on that section. But i was half an hour further up the field compared to the year before.
However now i seem to be bringing my descending a little more "up to scratch" maybe a slower start is something i need to play around with, and see if it makes a difference.