To be honest, I considered that. But in the end, a couple of factors led to the fall; inexperience and the fact that I was leading the group.
Inexperience - well I thought the stretch of mud and slush was too long for me to just carry higher speed into the mud. It felt like i was only going to come down faster. The stretch of mud was long enough for my tyres to loose traction before I got over it. Thats what i thought happened. The front end just washed out immediately as I entered. Just no traction, no warning, just BANG!
And leading the group meant I had a second or so to think and make a decision. Go faster? go slower? Stop and assess the mud? Well duh, I did NOTHING. no change in speed, stood up on teh pegs. hoping to keep the bike as vertical as I could to allow it to not wash out. But thats the first thing that happened.
Only guy who got through without any more speed was the one with knobbies on. I dont like to blame tyres on falls because its always the rider.
But I don't know what I would have done differently though. At that time and place, I thought, higher speed would have just brought me down with greater impact as the tyres were covered in mud already.