Lloyd Biddell

Over the last couple of weeks I've started to ease off the short speed work in favour of increased mileage and longer tempo runs.  At the end of last week I reached 82 miles and I was starting to feel fairly fatigued.  I decided a couple of days rest was in order and a late entry to the Brass Monkey 10k before a planned Half Marathon in early March and then the Greater Manchester Marathon (my main focus) in early April. The course was four and a bit laps of Rockingham Speedway which is a fairly flat oval circuit.  I knew from the previous race winners time that in all likelihood I was going to be at or near the front and it end up being a bit of a time trial.  At the off I led from the very beginning and it was clear within the first 100 metres that I was going to be on my own for the entire race.  Its always a lot harder to race by yourself with no one ahead and no one within shouting distance behind. The start - on the right.  Hat and gloves - it was only about 4 degrees at

Since the fell race on New Years Day I've managed to pull a muscle in my calf which has resulted in doing very little mileage and a lot of icing.  At one point it was touch and go whether I would be able to race the Warwickshire County Championships.  After lots of icing it was just about acceptable to run on although remained a worry right up to the start of the race. I haven't done a cross country race for a long time, last one would have been the North Staffordshire League in 2008.  I entered this race as I felt my fitness was there or thereabouts and whilst I knew I would be nowhere in terms of being in contention for a top 3 finish, I thought that there was an outside chance of a reasonable overall position.  Only the top three are guaranteed automatic qualification to represent Warwickshire in the Inter County Championships with the remaining 6 positions being down to captain selection.  Therefore a top 9 overall position means that at the very least you have to be cons

The short story was that this was a cracking race... I came 4th last year in a time of 33.41 in what was my first ever fell race.  I really enjoyed the course and decided that I should give it another go and see whether I could improve my time.  This year the plan was to run to my advantage by going hard from the outset and see what I could do on the climb and try and defend where possible on the way back down. Waiting at the start. After we started I went as hard as I dared but even so I was about 9th early on with two lunatics deciding to go as hard as possible before dropping away and everyone else then strung out.  After the first km on the road I was about 6th, just behind a group of four and the leader about 20 metres ahead.  The first km was gently uphill, yet I did the km in 3.16 and was basically nowhere near the front - this was not the plan! Over the second km the climb gradually started to increase and we ran on a well made farmers track.  I started to mov