Lloyd Biddell

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