Lloyd Biddell

Training has been going quite well up to 3 weeks ago when I decided to do my first Parkrun in over 4 years.  A good time (15.54) showed that I still have a bit of pace in the legs despite my now advancing age, but unfortunately the pain returned in my right ankle that caused me to take over a year away from running.  I've done very little activity since and with the Spine now on the horizon I've been starting to get concerned about whether I will be able to have a decent training block, or even start. I was therefore more than just a little worried about my last race before the Spine, whether I'd be able to get round, or get round but cause even more damage.  Sometimes I've had these minor injuries in the past and somehow after a race they just sort of melt away, so this was what I was hoping for. Day 1 I had it in my head that as the first day was 'just' 50k, to treat it similar as I would a marathon in terms of relative effort.  Writing this with the benefit o

Five weeks since the High Peak 100k I have fully recovered from the race that coincided with the hottest day of the year.  Today was my next event, the Yorkshire 3 Peaks 100k and the weather could barely have been more of a contrast.  A bright day, but very fresh and probably the coldest day since Spring with a high of about 12c forecast in the valley around lunchtime, but nearer to freezing at the start and end of the day as well as up on the fells. Where's Wally? The plan for me was always the 100k, but since the majority of entrants would stop at the 70k mark, you never are truly sure of your relative race position until late on.  All you can do is pace what you think is sustainable over the 100k and not be too concerned about what others are doing as ultimately its almost 50% further, plus two additional ascents of Great Shunner Fell.  Despite this, I was well placed at the start and near to the front with my position moving up and down depending which bits of the first ascent

Over the coming months I've got three 100k races coming up and the High Peak 100k was the first of these.  On paper it should have been the easiest, more so as the weather in September is usually benign.  The reality was somewhat different, weather forecasts were stating it was the hottest day of the year hovering around 30c with very high humidity levels.  It was clear that the weather alone was going to make this a sufferfest and it didn't disappoint. I decided to be quite conservative with fluids, reverting to my expedition pack which is designed for multi day races.  It holds 2 x 750ml bottles, plus space for my 2 litre bladder.  Although there were 7 water stations along the route, I wanted to ensure that I could drink freely from the start and get a feel for my consumption until I was properly settled into the race.  The downside to this strategy was a rather heavy race pack... At 9am the race started and it was my initial plan to try and finish the 100k in somewhere betw

A bit of a strange race this one, let me explain.  I have been doing some training and arguably plenty of it in the last few months, albeit averaging 25% less volume than at my peak a few years ago.  However, most of the training has been steady state stuff / endurance with no focus whatsoever on speed work.  What sessions I have done have been well adrift of my capabilities at my peak in 2019.  The figures do not lie.  Nonetheless, I felt training had been going well enough in recent weeks alongside a gap in diary commitments allowing me to enter a road race for the first time in ages just to see where things are at, with zero expectation set.  I had thought my last road race was pre-covid in 2020, but actually that is not true as I also did the Wheaton Aston 10k in December 2021. The Burton 10k is a race that I know well, having won it in 2017 (32.38) and 2019 (32.56).  I was very borderline on entering the race and my original intention was to enter on the day depending on how I fel

Since the Spine Race I have had a bit of a void that needed filling.  I spotted the PB270 as it is more commonly known that would fill the gap whilst still being a significant challenge.  The Bridleway runs from Middleton Top, near to Matlock in Derbyshire through to Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria, running slightly West to the better known Pennine Way.  The Bridleway runs along well defined tracks and roads and there is still some 6,500 metres of elevation to contend with, albeit there were no real individual ascents over 400 metres. Start at Middleton Top Start (Middleton Top) to Checkpoint 1 (Hayfield) - (37 miles) The first 15 or so miles are along an old railway bed so were very flat and runnable.  I knew this was going to play to my strength so the plan was to just go out at a pace that felt easy and expect to take an early lead.  This was pretty much exactly what happened and despite there being some long straight sections I was out of sight.  I always knew that I would eventually run

Since the Winter Spine my focus has primarily been on rest and recovery and only more recently have things got back to some form of normality.  Unfortunately my back has started to spasm/stiffen again so has limited my ability to do any speed work, although barring the odd day here and there I've still been able to run.  I entered the Pennine Bridleway 18km as a warm up to the much longer 270km full length of the Pennine Bridleway that takes place in 3 weeks time. Just before the off. Although the distance is 'just' 11 miles, the sting is that there is c.640m of total ascent (and descent) along the out and back course.  In theory it requires navigation too, but on the whole I found it to be pretty obvious.  The first 5km has a 250 metre climb so I knew that early pacing was key; get it wrong and it would make a pretty miserable remainder of the race.  However, what comes up must also come down, so effectively the final 5km are steeply down hill, so in some ways the difficul

I might have revised my plans had I known in advance that within 15 minutes of leaving Bellingham the hallucinations would start so soon.  Again, more caffeinated gels came out and again they did nothing.  I was beginning to think I could be chucking away a potential finish of the Spine Race for just sheer stupidity.  However, I made my bed (excuse the pun) and now I needed to make the best of it. I decided to make decent progress in this section by going at a good walk and no more, not knowing how I would fare later on.  I was having wave after wave of new hallucinations, occasionally interspersed with some normal thought.  Thankfully a useful distraction was that my wife turned up at one of the road crossings and Ultrarunning Sam was also there who was doing media work for the Spine.  This time I was happy to stop and have a chat for 10 minutes and both my wife interviewed me for the Youtube channel she puts daily updates on as did Sam.  With hindsight I think a lot of the material w