Lloyd Biddell

During the week I have been resting the foot again so another nil return on the mileage front. On Friday I visited the podiatrist and told him about my problems. He seems to think that its a tendon strain - we both think its likely to be caused by my unusual running style where it looks like I run with my toes in the air (sort of pointing excessively upwards). This would also explain the state of my big toe. For what ever reason the orthotics seem to be exacerbating the problem. He's put some foam on top of the orthotic in my right shoe which he thought could stop the excessively movement in the toe but admitted that it was trial and error. Today I ran in the footpath relay held in the Derbyshire Peak District. The weather wasn't great as it was raining, sometimes heavily all day. Having said that, although its not pleasant to stand around in, its almost perfect running conditions as it keeps the temperature down. I really didn't notice the rain once I started. This y...

I wasn't going to do anything this weekend, partly because I've got to pick my mum and sister up from Birmingham International Airport at 1.30am on Sunday morning. I wasn't going to do the Sprint event this evening either because my mum conveniently decided to order the Sainsburys delivery at the time when the event was on. The shopping came early so decided to make a late rush to the event. I wasn't exactly prepared, having just eaten four bags of crisps about half an hour before and nothing else that day so was a touch bloated. I decided to park my car at the new flat that I'm not living in yet and walk the rest to the Snowdome . I came across a few of the controls on the way. In the end it didn't make any real difference as my legs were like lead after just a few controls probably because of my bad diet and maybe the exertions from Shugborough a few days before. I had a really scrappy run, hitting most of the controls ok early on but lost 5-10 secs h...

Last night I went to the Shugborough Relays which is a four leg, 2 mile relay around the estate grounds. Its quite a large relay event with 250 teams entered this year ranging from the serious athletics clubs down to the under 11 teams and local runners. Walton Chasers Orienteering Club entered a team with me to go first leg, handing over to Iain Stamp then Mike Barnby and finally Mikey Hopkins. Being a weekday evening event I had to leave work early so got home for 4.30pm. By this time my mild headache which began at work was getting steadily worse so took a couple of paracetamol and lay in bed for 45 mins . When I woke up the head was no better so took two more (slight overdose...) which eventually managed to calm things down a bit. I got to Shugborough at 6.45, met some of the other Chasers and did a warm up by jogging part of the lap. The course was surprisingly firm on foot considering the rain we have had over the last week. It was a warm humid evening but not unpleasantly so...

This week I haven't done much as the toe injury still isn't right. I'm not sure I would have done much running anyway as the weather has been dreadful over the last week in my neck of the woods. I keep feeling that I'm losing loads of fitness - I probably have lost a bit but not that much but its difficult to resist the urge not to go out and do some training. Today I went with Steve (a fellow Walton Chaser and colleague) to recce the leg I'm doing at the Footpath Relay in a couple of weeks. It was good to run with someone else for a change, especially since we are doing the same leg albeit in reversal of each other. I'm doing the second leg of 20 so I fully expect to still be in contact with some others at handover - but for Steve it could be a bit lonely as he is running leg 14. The length is 13.7k but what makes it a killer is that it has over 400m of climb with 150m in the first km after the start. I expect Mike Barnby who is doing first leg to handove...

Not much to report since my last entry. I went out for my first run at the weekend and did 7 miles. I was going to go longer but it was very warm, had no water as usual and my foot problems returned after about a mile into the run. Its one of those injuries that doesn't stop me running, but is really annoying and could manifest itself into something more serious if I don't rest it. I could have done some more cycling but haven't bothered - feeling a bit lethargic and down at the moment with all these niggles. I'm going to leave it until this Sunday where I will be reccying the route for the footpath relay. Hopefully as I'll be running off road its not going to place as much stress on the foot.

Still haven't been out for a run since the weekend as the foot is still sore but is getting slowly better. Instead I have been for a couple of bike rides to keep myself in shape. On Tuesday I did a 34 mile loop from home via Cannock Chase. It was a fair bit further than I expected and quite hilly. On the way to Cannock Chase I took a detour through Longdon thinking it was a short cut to the Marquis Drive area of Cannock Chase but it turned out that I ended up doing a loop and a very large climb for nothing. Having said that the downhill bit was good fun reaching a top speed of 40mph! After 19 miles in the saddle I finally got to Marquis Drive and had a 10min rest where quite a few orienteers were there from the club doing the Tuesday night training (shown by the red dot in the image below). I then decided to try and find a better route home that was a) not on such busy roads, b) shorter as I was knackered and c) quicker! I ended up just guessing where to go and thankfully thi...

I wouldn't normally update the blog so early in the week however my fears at the weekend regarding my foot problem have materialised . It doesn't feel like a muscle injury so am assuming its some sort of joint problem or more likely a minor stress fracture. I was walking today from the train station to work and it was quite uncomfortable. I will try and rest it for the remainder of the week unless there is a sudden improvement and do some cycling instead. Its a shame really as I felt like last weeks training went really well. Oh well!

Since getting the orthotics I've been experiencing some discomfort in my problematic knee. As a result I have only been running every other day, but to be honest I think this approach is a blessing in disguise. When I was running every day my legs were becoming quite fatigued and I think the mindset quantity over quality became a factor. Now I'm trying to focus on longer distance quality runs so I'm still covering the same sort of distances but in a more structured way. On Monday I found a decent gap in the weather to go for a 9 mile run on a new route; about half of which is in Sutton Park. As you can see from the elevation profile its fairly undulating with the climb from mile 5 to 7 fairly arduous. I went at a reasonable but comfortable pace and finished in 59.15 which is 6.35min/miles. The knee was fairly sore during and afterwards so I decided to have a rest day on Tuesday. On Wednesday I managed to find another gap in the rain and did the same 9 mile route through ...