Lloyd Biddell

In what is starting to become a tradition I entered the Wheaton Aston 10k a few weeks ago.  Last year I came 9th in 35.25 but I knew my fitness has improved considerably since then, so much so that I was expecting to beat my current 10k pb of 33.58 by some margin.  I was hoping for sub 33, but in all honesty anything in the range of 33.00 - 33.15 would have been more than satisfactory. At the start I was initially around 8th but quickly pulled into the last of a group of three with the leader stretching off into the distance.  After about 500m the two in the group just ahead of me settled down into a slightly slower pace so I was now second and after the first km I was about 6 seconds adrift. In 4th about 400 metres into the race.  Courtesy of racephotos.org.uk Note the black hat - it was barely above freezing and very icy on the roads. Moving out of the village I was still losing ground but not as slowly and between the 1st and 2nd km the gap got to about 8 seconds before I

I did the Petzl Nightrunner last year and enjoyed the novelty of it so much I made sure it was in my diary for 2016.  Whilst the race is technically a fun run, the event demands respect - the course is roughly 10k, but over the first couple of miles there is an ascent of some 160m with some fairly sizable sections at over 10%.  To add some extra spice its all on forest tracks and at night.  As before I used my old orienteering torch with a battery pack strapped to my back.  The downside is the weight but on the upside the light is like a car on full beam! In recent training I've felt that I've improved quite a bit in recent months.  Whilst the race is not comparable to anything on the flat I would at least see what improvement I've made compared to this time last year.  As we set off there were a couple of other runners who were going at quite a pace followed by myself and the runner who won last year next to me.  As we gradually climbed, the two runners at the front quic

I entered the Great Birmingham Half Marathon with some trepidation several months ago.  Up to now the biggest event I'd ever entered was the Derby Ramathon that had 3,500 entrants.  By contrast today's race had circa 18,000 entrants so was on a completely different scale to anything I'd ever experienced.  In my mind I'd always viewed events such as these quite negatively so it was going to be interesting to see how the event compared to what I was expecting. My Derby Ramathon time was 75.16 so my main priority was to beat that time and come in under 75 minutes, if not a little quicker.  That said, I knew the course was going to be tough, lots of little undulations plus a 40 metre climb at mile 11. I got to the start about an hour before the off and frankly the weather was bucketing it down.  Eventually the rain eased off so at least all of the waiting before the start was going to be in the dry.  I had a number that meant I was classified as a 'Faster Paced Club

Since the Tamworth 5 mile my sesamoiditis has been flaring up again making it quite painful on the ball of my left foot.  In some ways a few rest days before the Tamworth 10k was not a bad thing but I hope it soon starts to improve otherwise its going to be hard to train effectively. Today was the Tamworth 10k and the 2015 edition was my first race back in the running world so it was always going to be interesting to see how I compared.  This time round I made sure that I had a good position at the start line and from the off I immediately settled into a fairly relaxed pace.  Straight away I was about 4th or 5th but well in touch with those in front who were just a couple of metres ahead. Just after the start.  I was about 4th or 5th at this point. After the first km I moved into 3rd and gradually the three of us pulled away from the rest of the field.  The first km was run in about 3.25 and I felt really relaxed; I decided not to go too fast and just stay behind the two ahead

I got back from my USA trip on Thursday afternoon slightly jet lagged and a little worried about how much fitness I might have lost over the last 3 weeks.  The good news is that my weight was more or less the same, but my race during the USA trip showed my legs were quite rusty. A few weeks ago I saw the Tamworth 5 mile race advertised and noticed that the route goes near to my house.  Although I didn't particularly want to race a few days after my holiday, it seemed rude not to enter.  It was also a good opportunity to test some new lighter New Balance trainers I bought whilst in the USA for $50. As I knew the route pretty well I expected the second mile to have a gradual but tough 40 metre climb, followed by an up and down third mile before it being mostly downhill to the finish.  The tactics were to hold off for the first couple of miles and then to gradually wind up the pace. We started at Tamworth Athletics Club track and as we set off the pace was extremely slow, none o

Since January we had a planned trip to the USA and being the way I am I couldn't resist the temptation to see whether there were any races I could enter.  As luck would have it I found a 5 mile race in the middle of my trip in Burlington, Vermont.  It is labelled as the oldest race in Vermont (2016 was the 44th edition) and as far as I could tell I was the first ever international entrant excluding Canada. My build up to the race was far from perfect - I had to have most of the week off following Race the Train to recover and then relatively little training whilst in the USA combined with mostly eating food that is bad for you.  In addition the temperature was hot and humid and in the days preceding the event I was probably walking 5-6 miles a day touring various sites etc. On the morning of the race the guest house I was staying in forgot to leave any breakfast so I had to settle for a handful of peanuts.  After a 45 minute drive I arrived at the race centre, did a quick warm

Several months ago I entered Race the Train - a fairly iconic race among the running community.  The format is quite simple, you run a challenging 14 mile cross country course and aim to beat a steam train on a narrow gauge railway.  This is not the sort of course that will result in a pb, so priority one was just to enjoy it but second priority was obviously to beat the train!  I was expecting to be around 20th to 30th, but hopeful of perhaps 10th at best judging by previous results. After a 3 hour drive to the race centre I arrived to a far from pleasant August Saturday.  The forecast was heavy driving rain but also 40mph winds - the forecasters were not wrong! I knew the race was tougher in the second half and we would also be running into the wind at that point as well.  As a result I made the decision to take the first half of the race fairly easy and to start going full gas in the second half, well that was the plan anyway! I tried to stay as warm as I could at the start and

Today was another 10k and this time I thought I had a reasonable chance of beating my 2008 PB time of 34.35.  A couple of weeks earlier at the Ramathon Half Marathon I went through 10k in about 35 minutes so I was sure that I must at least have a pretty good chance. I entered the Wythall and Hollywood 10k, a fairly small race and mostly geared to raising funds for their charity.  There were actually two races at the same time, a 5k loop and then a second loop for 10k runners.  As a result it was going to be impossible to tell what position I would be in until the second lap. Start I tried to start relatively easy and after 200 metres I was 10th, quickly moving into 8th and then over the remainder of the first km I moved into 5th.  I knew the second km was uphill although to be honest I didn't think it was all that bad but I knew from my watch that I ran the km about 10 seconds slower.  I was still 5th and about 10 metres behind fourth and third and about a further 15 metre

Whilst I've done a few 10k and off road races in the last few months I wanted to test myself on a half marathon to see how I fared on a longer race.  Back in 2007/08 I did four half marathons but always felt I never really cracked the event with my time of 1.20.29 being pretty poor considering my level of fitness back then.  Roll on 2016 and I was not sure how I would do as I've done relatively few races in recent months so didn't have much to benchmark against.  I knew that barring a total disaster my pb was likely to be broken and when I entered the Ramathon I put 1.18 as my estimated time.  In all honesty though I thought circa 1.15 might be a possibility, but then so could 1.20 if I had a poor race or seemingly not being as fit as I think I am! As I was in the front pen I knew I would get a reasonable starting position and I started a couple of rows off the front and try to get into race pace straight away rather than legging it with everybody else.  After the first 2

A few weeks back I did the Warwickshire county selection fell race at The Wrekin where I came second so gained automatic qualification to the county team.  Fast forward a few weeks and today was the inter counties fell race held near Llanberis.  Any aspirations of getting a decent placing were out of the window for this race since it contained multiple national champions, people having represented GB etc.  The plan was to just enjoy the race and see what happened.  I did recce the route a few weeks back so knew what was ahead and whilst I have done two previous fell races, I'd never done anything on this scale before since it was 12.8km and contained 915m of climb.  I was one of three members of the Warwickshire team with three to count (the fourth was unfortunately injured the week before) so all of us needed to finish. Me on the right just before the start The start was extremely cramped; a very narrow lane going straight uphill and it took 10 or so seconds to get through

Over the last couple of weeks I've not been feeling too well and have pretty much done no training.  I've caught some sort of bug, resulting in a temperature and a chest infection.  I'd entered the Ronnie Bowker 10k some time ago and it was touch and go whether I would recover enough in time.  Had I not pre-entered the race a few weeks earlier I would definitely not have run today and a jog earlier in the week confirmed my legs were dead.  In the end I decided to do the race to a) get my monies worth but also b) I was more or less fit enough but with a residual chesty cough and c) it was a good way to get a quality session in after a couple of weeks out. As a result of my illness I decided to keep it fairly easy at the start and although try to run as best I can, not to expect too much.  The event was very low key, perhaps just 150 runners although the park was full of other people and I knew I'd have to do lots of people dodging en-route.  I started at a fair pace bu