End of Season.

I couldn't of wished for a better end to finish off my season than a win at the James Herriot Trail Race at Castle Bolton.Especially with some stiff competition.
The race started nice and steady until we hit the bottom of the first big climb. Andy Hilton from York decided to push the pace , at this early stage in the race it was to hard for me, so with Terry Wall from Morpeth we watched as Andy opened up a good lead. As we reached the top i thought i had better close the gap as quickly as possible to Andy. I left Terry and slowly but surely caught Andy , i then decided i had better try and get my breath back before my next move. The very second we turned to descend Terry joined us. I attacked instantly and blasted it down the hill , i was not expecting to get rid of Andy but at the bottom of the hill i decided to try and keep my lead from now. I was about 2km from the finish and thanking the marshall when i stepped in a cow pat , i thought i had hit an ice patch. I had a very close look at the stone walling as i nearly put my head into it. Phew ! better concentrate now until the finish and watch were my feet are going. With only the fields left to run i was starting to think i should now win. Especially with all the grass training we have been doing at Thirsk Harriers . I've seen better fell courses than that athletics track at Thirsk. I managed to stay ahead and win with a new course record with Terry second and Andy third.
Job done, a visit around the castle and time to relax in the grounds you would of thought i would of been last one there. Wrong ! There was still loads of people left hours after the finish.
I got speaking to Eric Nutter of Swaledale who had originally helped make the route for this course. With 319 runners and many returning each year he certainly did a great job.
I'm now looking forward to getting back into training with my newly won Puma TrailFox shoes from Dale sports , i'll be hitting the trails more often now, the Dog says thank God for that i was getting sick of those boring roads you keep making me run round.