Lloyd Biddell

In the week leading up to Christmas my left Achilles suddenly pulled and has been tender ever since.  Its been a bit of a shame as things were starting to look like they were back on the up but by all accounts I'm back to square one again.  It was therefore touch and go whether I could run the Wheaton Aston 10k which I had entered some time ago.  On the day of the race my ankle just felt 'weird' rather than painful so decided to run but it was very much a last minute decision. Whilst you don't lose fitness over night I hadn't been running for best park of a week before the race, so thought a bit of rust my be there and didn't think there was much prospect of a super fast time, but you never know.  In the first km I was quite some way back as seems pretty normal for me but I gradually picked off people one by one.  At the end of the first km I had moved into third and about 15 metres behind the leading pair.  What was surprising though was that my first kilomet

Today was my fourth Petzl Grizedale Nightrunner event, having come second the first time I ran it and won it the last two years.  Last year there was significant snowfall during the event and each year I've done the event the conditions were very different and this time was no exception - drizzly rain and fairly poor visibility with occasional fog patches. As in previous editions of the race I set off pretty much in the lead straight away so was expecting to just tempo my way around the course.  It soon became clear though that one runner was on my shoulders and after about 500 metres we were side by side.  On the flat we were more or less even or he was pulling away a little and on the descent he would pull a couple of seconds ahead.  Even on the early ascents which are my strength, we were fairly evenly matched.  I was thinking "right, we have a race on here", although wasn't sure whether the runner was putting too much effort in early on as he was breathing fairl