Battle at Swaledale

I had all intentions of not racing too hard at the latest round of the Harrogate League at Hudswell near Richmond. There's only so many races you can give it all before you eventually become burnt out, so i was only there to enjoy the race. The race started and straight away young Douglas Roberts from Richmond Zetland set off and took an early lead with his team mate Jon Orange and me slightly behind. As i never look back i cant say what was happening behind. Roberts started to extend his lead slowly and i kept a very close eye on the situation and was ready to jump the gap if need be if he got too far ahead. But then Orange cranked the pace up a bit and we started to pull young Roberts back. I was happy with the pace at this time as the three of us pressed on. I just kept with the pace up the long climb and then i started to slowly pull away. As the gap grew i then worked reasonably hard to the turn at around 3 mile, a lot harder effort than i had planned. It was then just a case of keeping a good pace before the long blast back down the hill to the finish. Orange came in second, Ian Fisher of Otley who was running his first race back after a long injury came third. I had better cram in as many races now as quickly as possible, as at this rate he will soon be back to his old self. I was tempted to say how at the start of the race he had said that he had never felt so good and had trained very hard for this event, but that was just wishful thinking. I'll let him off and not tick him off my hit list just yet. To be honest i don't think i would of been good enough this year to beat him if he was on form, but hopefully after a good winter this time round i'll have a better chance next year. I was very pleased to win the race but not that pleased to bring myself closer to being burnt out. I'm pretty sure there's not many hard races left in me for this season. But once the race starts all logic seems to vanish.
The Burn Valley Half Marathon should be good this year with high winds and torrential rain forecasted. With a weather forecast like that i will be expecting an heat wave.