Why oh why?

Do I turn up to do a 33 mile race after no more than ten milers since last June?
Aching today, but it could have been much worse if the weather had been bad. Had planned to retire at Heptonstall, having forgotten it was no longer a checkpoint but luckily the ibuprofen started to work from there so managed to recover a bit of lost time and avoided a PW (by 27 minutes in the end). But whereas last year 6:50 was a doddle with a very gentle first 10 miles, this year's 7:30 was hard. Suppose I can take comfort that it's as fast as my debut - 23 years ago.
I should have held back early on with the rest of the team but seemed to got drawn along. Stopped at Top Withins but no sight of anyone so kept going. Started to suffer on the Calderdale Way and by the descent to the Tod road was in agony. The climb up to Stoodley with the rest of you was enjoyable and would have probably gone quicker but by the time I was descending was becoming very disgruntled and seriously contemplating retirement - just couldn't get running. Having run all the way up to Heptonstall and the option of retirement removed, I seemed to pick up a bit and decided I may as well keep going at Hardcastle Crags. Was able to run most of the rest of the route and finish 18 minutes behind the rest of the group.