Lloyd Biddell

In what is starting to become a tradition I entered the Wheaton Aston 10k a few weeks ago.  Last year I came 9th in 35.25 but I knew my fitness has improved considerably since then, so much so that I was expecting to beat my current 10k pb of 33.58 by some margin.  I was hoping for sub 33, but in all honesty anything in the range of 33.00 - 33.15 would have been more than satisfactory. At the start I was initially around 8th but quickly pulled into the last of a group of three with the leader stretching off into the distance.  After about 500m the two in the group just ahead of me settled down into a slightly slower pace so I was now second and after the first km I was about 6 seconds adrift. In 4th about 400 metres into the race.  Courtesy of racephotos.org.uk Note the black hat - it was barely above freezing and very icy on the roads. Moving out of the village I was still losing ground but not as slowly and between the 1st and 2nd km the gap got to about 8 seconds before I

I did the Petzl Nightrunner last year and enjoyed the novelty of it so much I made sure it was in my diary for 2016.  Whilst the race is technically a fun run, the event demands respect - the course is roughly 10k, but over the first couple of miles there is an ascent of some 160m with some fairly sizable sections at over 10%.  To add some extra spice its all on forest tracks and at night.  As before I used my old orienteering torch with a battery pack strapped to my back.  The downside is the weight but on the upside the light is like a car on full beam! In recent training I've felt that I've improved quite a bit in recent months.  Whilst the race is not comparable to anything on the flat I would at least see what improvement I've made compared to this time last year.  As we set off there were a couple of other runners who were going at quite a pace followed by myself and the runner who won last year next to me.  As we gradually climbed, the two runners at the front quic