CX trip to t'other side of the Pennines

There was a gap in my cx calender that needed filling and the North West CX series had a race to fill it at Leverhulme Park, Bolton. I've raced there before and love the courses and usually do fairly well.
The weather was autumnal to say the least, lots of rain the week before and sideways drizzle / rain before and during the race. This lead to a saturated course that i knew would turn into the Somme.
A 100 riders lined up for the start sprint across long soggy grass and this start sprint ended in tears for several riders as i saw a guy go over the bars out of the corner of my eye, followed by the crunch of many bikes but i avoided the pile up.
The race was going at a good pace and i got into a nice battle with Ag, former bike shak rider, we swapped places several times for 2/3rds of the race until a back marker came in useful and slowed Ag down after i got past and gapped him. By this time my nice clean Velocake kit was covered from head to toe in Leverhulme mud, a proper CX race :-)
I was a great race and as a bonus i managed 17th which i was well chuffed with. I'm really getting into this cx lark now, cant get enough :-)