Butterfly .....

..... ripples.

This evening I have run the last race proper in this years Harrogate road Leauge ( HDSRL ) at the Nidd Valley in Harrogate. The leauge is suposed to be road races, but at best tonight's could be described as a trail race boardering in a fell race. There was very little road or track and most of the route was either very slippy muddy grass paths or muddy bogs. Despite the tough going ( really not my favourite surfaces to run on ) I enjoyed the race and ran well. All my training is paying off and tonight I finished ahead of a few Ilkley harriers that have been ahead of me in the rest of the leauge races. The last 500 yards were a tough slog with myself and another Ilkley Harrier, called Ben, battling it out to beat each other. My slower pace on the boggy sections meant I had enough left in my legs to finish ahead of Ben.

There is a Handicap race left in the leauge, which involes anyone who has run the majority of the previous races. the slowest runners set off first and the fastest last, with runners setting off every few seconds depending on their speed and positioning in the previous five races. The idea is that if everyone is running to form then all the runners should cross the finish line at the same time. Of course this dosn't happen as the faster runners are always determined to get in front of the slower runners in front of them, but at least it creates a level playing field and in theory every runner taking part has an equally good chance of winning the race. It should be fun :-)

Todays photo isn't really anything to do with the race apart from being taken on a walk back from the local running shop this afternoon. I have been trying to find an arm strap bag that will fit my camera in it, so that I can carry it around with me whilst running. Unfortunately I've not been able to find anything locally, but I will have a trip in to Leeds tomorrow and hopefully find one there.

On my walk back home from the running shop, along the river, I decided to try out the zoom function on the new camera. I'm impressed with how clear the images are on zoom, this is one definate advantage over the iphone. I photographed birds and squirrels in trees, rabbitts bounding through the undergrowth, pigs rolling in mud and this little butterfly that had fallen in the river and was frantically beating its wings in a futile attempt to escape the surface tension. After taking a couple of photographs I switched the camera off and it was at that very moment that a fish decided to surface for a snack and the butterfly was gone. after a few seconds the ripples dispersed and the surface of the water was still again.

Nature can be beautiful, but cruel. The fish had a nice snack and the butterfly's suffering had ended, in a way I was relieved I knew it hadn't carried on frantically creating ripples until it drowned. I will carry on trying out different features on the new camera, as this one was trying out the zoom, todays blip is .....


..... Butterfly ripples.