Reward for the efforts at last!

Today we hosted an interschool Cross Country event in Aireville Park which attracted a few schools, most notably Ripon Grammar and St Aidans. The course was yet again 3 long laps but this time took in the woods as well. Conditions were fairly firm in the park itself because of last night's frost and a few snow showers today, but up towards the top of the woods there was mud in abundance!
I set off steady knowing full well what was in store (3 laps of hell!) leaving Billy Pinder, Dan Cheeseman (5th at NY Schools here 2 weeks ago), Alex Sinclair and Duncan Birtwhistle to do the work. I pulled through nicely feeling very strong and made my way into 2nd as we started the last lap with Cheeseman chasing hard. My stomach felt a little dodgy and had done since the steep climb up the golf course on the 2nd lap. I fought hard right until the end but Cheeseman's trademark 800m finish was too strong and coming out of the woods I was summoned to 3rd. A very comfortable 3rd at that and a good result, coming in just a few seconds behind Cheeseman (closest I have all season) and around a minute behind Pinder. Alex Sinclair finished 4th and considering he is one of the candidates for the final 2 places in North Yorkshire's English Schools' team, I certainly won't have done myself any harm in staking a claim for selection. It's good to have a bit of individual silverware in the form of a Bronze Medal; all the races lately feel as though they have been to no avail but based on today's performance things are coming along nicely.