Wrekka fell race

Finally took the plunge yesterday and joined the saltwell harriers. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time now but just never got round to it.
This meant I was able to compete in the wrekenton fixture of the nehl which seeing as its on my doorstep would have been a shame to miss it.
As it was my first cross country race I didn't really know what to expect, all I knew was that I would be starting in the slow pack with it being my first race.
After the gun went off it was immediately apparent that there was nothing slow about this pack as the leaders flew off into the distance.
The track is 3 laps of a roughly 2 mile course on the fields between wrekenton, Springfield estate and lean lane including 6 grueling ascents of the pit heap.
As it was just below zero the ground was pretty solid (although slightly churned up in places), which meant that my choice to wear my fell shoes instead of buying a pair of spikes worked out ok, although I had the usual heel blister on my right foot by the end of the race.
I felt like I started off ok, but didn't have the energy to really push on much after the first lap and was overtaken by more people than I was overtaking which was pretty demoralizing as I normally like to start further back and try and overtake people.
I did manage a final sprint for the finish line, but ultimately this only meant I prevented the runners behind from overtaking me and didn't quite manage to catch the few runners I front of me.
Overall I enjoyed the race and according to my nike+ I went round in 38:04 on a 5:68 mile course overall. Not sure about my position yet but Donna reckons I was about 40th out of a few hundred runners which sounds about right.
Things I take away from the race are:
1. At the minute I think I'm probably a better road runner than cross country runner.
2. I want to get better at cross country, and to do so I need to work on my technique (running downhill and pacing myself for starters) and do more training on rough terrain.

Next race is beginning of march in alnwick.....