Things weren't looking too good, even before the start. Cycling up the A61 and A621 from Sheffield station to Totley at peak commuting time wasn't among the most pleasurable of my cycling-to-a-fell-race experiences, and I was glad to turn off onto Hillfoot Road, from where I knew that I needed a left turn onto Penny Lane to reach the race venue, Hillfoot Road descends steeply, and I missed the turn into Penny Lane at the bottom of the hill, and continued to the top of the climb on the other side of the valley before I decided that something was wrong, and looked at my map: a classic fell runner's nav error.
At the race start, I realised that I was rather too far forward in the start pen, so wasn't too worried as lots of runners streamed past me early on the initial climb. The first climb is about 200 metres, and I managed to keep running the whole way. Then there is an interminable flattish section on the top of the moor, before the first descent. The second half of the race consists of three shorter climbs and descents. The first of these was at a gradient that I should have been running up, but my legs just didn't want to. The last part of the last climb was actually repeating a section of the initial climb, but this time I walked more than half of that as well.
I finished 129th out of 190, in 67:30 against Ben Sharrock's winning time of 41:50. I was 4th out of 9 M60s, which seems OK until you realise that 3 of the 5 M70s were ahead of me: Anthony Whitehouse, Graham Barnes and Mick Moorhouse. I have done this race once before in 2015, when it was only the third race I had done after returning to racing on the fells: I remember that Anthony Whitehouse was there on that occasion, as an M60 who beat me when I was M50.
The race HQ is at Totley Cricket Club, and the RO had advertised the availability of changing rooms and showers. All the time I was in there, having my shower after the race and getting changed, I only saw one other runner using the facilities. Obviously the concept of showers at a race venue is so alien to fell runners that the idea just didn't register with them. They can understand the concept of a pub, or a field with no facilities at all; but showers?!