Lloyd Biddell

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