Tour du Grand Veymont- My First Ski Mounatineering Race

Well, my first REAL ski mountaineering race anyway.
We both were absolutely blown away by the Tour du Grand Veymont race course today. It started with a about a 400m climb on a groomed run, then some off piste tree skiing. Next climb started on a flat summer road, then the pitch stepped and the skinning got technical, with lots of kick turns. Not as technical as the boot pack section that followed. Wow. I couldn't believe it, it was so steep, and a mixture of snow, ice and rock. Thankfully there was a fixed rope that we clipped into and we had crampons on. The next ski was a traverse of sorts and then some icy skinning and another boot pack with crampons (this seemed like a side walk after the last boot pack). A nice icy ski and a final, short skin brought us to the final ski, about 700m to the finish line. The whole time the mountains around were pretty amazing.
I started out strong, in 3rd place on the first down hill, that was until it all went wrong for me.....
I managed to hit a nice big block of snow, flung my self down hard and pulled my foot and liner out of my ski boot?! I lost at least 3-4mins and about 15 places. I managed to get back into about 11th by the 2nd climb, but was pretty tired as I had to work hard to pass so many people. I was also pretty slow on the fixed rope as it was way beyond any kind of climbing I had done before.
In the end I finished in 10th, but am pretty frustrated as I was feeling strong, but that's racing and all part of the fun. And it was pretty fun.
Jane had an OK race, she finished 2nd, but wasn't feeling her best and was a way behind the winner.
We drove out with a friend Pierre, he placed 2nd over all and won the "old mans" divison.
Nice job Pierre!