Cross country's over for another year

In the dim and distant past, quite a few of the blokes on the blog used to partake in xc's (EtU, YJ, JtE, TLoB) but now it seems to be usually just me, although Andy has made his debut this season before going onto bigger and longer things (as I write, he should be completing the TransGranCanaria - 120+ km).
The hardest thing today was getting there. I'd looked at the map and was fairly confident that I new where the location, Rylands Park in Lancaster, was - quite straight forward as it's just off the road to Morecambe. The really difficult part was getting away from Horwich. I set off in reasonably good time but, as I was about to turn onto the M61, noticed that the traffic was at a standstill. I didn't fancy that as although it might clear in ten minutes, I could be stuck for an hour. No probs, I'll go up the A6 - got just past the Cherry Tree and a tailback which could be going all the way to Chorley. Turn round, up through Blackrod and Standish (which was also quite clogged but I persevered). I managed to then make good ground up the M6 and turned off towards Lancaster at about 2pm, now confident that I would make the race but with little time for a warm up.
Morecambe Road is always slow so I eventually got parked and made it to the tent area with about ten minutes to spare, to the delight of two fellow Horwich athletes as we now had a V50 team!
The race was fast and furious. My garmin was playing up so I only have the results and course description to go off. I suspect it was not 9.6km as advertised as I completed in 40:24 which would be close on an all-time PB, so I suspect it was nearer 9km. I was having a really good battle with old fella who seemed to be making fast spurts but chatting after the race he thought I was running unevenly. As my garmin failed to record, I shall never know. I suspect he knows what he was talking about. I told I thought he would be likely to beat EYJ and Paul Murray had they run as I seemed to be running well. He then revealed that he had in fact won the Ben Nevis Race ... not once but four times. And he is not wrong, name is Peter Hall and won in 62/63/64/65, curently ranked 10th V70 overall in UK and does parkruns in sub 22, as well as Horwich BMAF 5k (2013) in sub 20.
TM also ran but I didn't get time to chat with her - no doubt she will post on her six legs blog.
Tolstoy rules ok!