SATURDAY 3rd JULY
TOCKHOLES GALA FELL RACE
5.8m/1100ft
TOCKHOLES, LANCS.

Celeb spotting again... no sooner had I started my warm up than I made eye contact with Bolton striker Kevin Davies who was out with the family at Tockholes Gala. As a Wanderer myself, well, back in the Burnden Park days, I gave him a smiling nod when in actual fact I wanted to stop and tell him that if I was Fabio I would have taken him to South Africa. He can hold it up, he can lay it off, he has a silky touch, he is great in the air, he can flick it on, he has real physical presence and he works hard. No offence Emile, but Roon might have thrived with Davies as a decoy doing all the dirty work up front. 
So on to the race anyway, and I was a bit disappointed that Kevin wasn't on the start line for a bit of pre-pre-season training. However, Stuart Edmundson of  Horwich was present which was nice to see. He is a former Chorley Harrier like myself but hasn't been on the scene much this year. I rate him very highly although Stuart doesn't rate himself quite so much and openly admits that he lacks confidence for some reason. After the long list of setbacks he has had, I would like to see him reach his full potential one day and so start feeling good about his own performances. 
Today though I was thinking we might run close and that proved to be the case. This was the first race of the Darwen Dashers Summer Series in which I was a debutant. Feeling quite good early on, I pushed on up to second spot and quite fancied my chances of holding on to it to be honest. A new lad on the scene called Andy Robinson surged past me down to Sunnyhurst Woods but then suffered a bit going up the main climb to Darwen Tower and dropped back again. I could hear somebody on my shoulder though and it was no suprise to see it was the red vest of Mr Edmondson in the corner of my eye as we drew up to the trig point side by side. I pushed on again hoping to put a bit of distance between us as we dropped off Darwen Hill via the choppy little descent known as Aggie's Staircase. But cruising down towards the Tockholes road I could hear more than just Stuart behind now and as we dropped further in to Roddlesworth woods he says to me, ''Push on John, they're coming.'' Erm, you push on if you want Stu, I'm running my own race here! 
Although there was less than two miles to go, I was told it's a grind to the finish so I wasn't going to start any push for home at this point. Finally Stuart did get himself a few strides ahead of me and from the steep little climb out of the woods he showed his class and went on to put twenty seconds between us by the finishing line. I had little answer and was happy in my own mind to cling on to the excuse that my exploits up Lakeland way earlier in the week had taken their toll. Sure enough I had to dig deep to hold on to third spot but hold on I did.
A nice cold pint in The Rock Inn was accompanied by amongst a few other goodies, my very own Darwen Dashers mug which I was quite delighted to recieve. (And I mean genuinely delighted, is this normal behaviour?) However, just a couple of brew-ups into it's new life as my favourite coffee cup, a hairline fracture appeared and the said mug has now been relegated to the less functional role as a pen and pencil holder.
Time: 40:30   Pos: 3rd/77