Lloyd Biddell

I'd entered this race at fairly short notice, but despite this I managed to get a bad dose of gastroenteritis about four weeks before the event.  It took a couple of weeks to be over the worst of it, but I still did not really feel right until a few days before the start.  As a result I knew my fitness was already way down, but more so because of the illness.  The aim was to just enjoy the day out and to see what happens.  Day 1 was 50k and Day 2 is 42k. Fifth from right (including the two standing side on) in all black. I took a very conservative approach at the start and sat back in around 8th.  Over time people came together into small groups and at its height there were six of us, sometimes running together and at other times it was more fragmented.  To say the course was wet underfoot is a bit of an understatement, the amount of rain we have had over the last couple of months turned the paths and tracks into little more than a bog resulting in my slipp...

This a belated blog of the Tahoe 200 that took place way back in June (I'm writing this just before Christmas).  To cut a short story even shorter, it didn't go to plan.  The Tahoe 200 takes place in California, USA and involves the circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe that follows the ridge line of the lake itself.  This year, due to ongoing issues with some sections of the course that were out of bounds it was an out and back course rather than a proper loop. The idea of entering was that I could combine it with a family holiday in the area and I had no aspirations other than to complete it, and I certainly didn't want to finish dead on my legs that would ruin the rest of the trip.  In the end I dropped out at the end of the first day, but I have no regrets for reasons that will become clear towards the end of this post. Start At the start I felt fine which from memory was already at elevation (c.6,000ft - 1,800m), which is not far off twice the height of the highest mou...

Its now been over a year since my last ultra race, the Cheviot Goat in December having been cancelled the night before the race.  Prior to that I entered the Pennine Bridleway 270km last April but only made it about 20 miles into the race before illness forced my retirement.  I therefore have to go back as far as January 2024 (Winter Spine) before reaching anything remotely comparable. I've long been fascinated with the Coast to Coast route and have in fact done it twice, once in 2008 and the other in 2020.  The former was with a colleague from work where we fast packed in just under 5 days and the latter was with my wife as support where I made as much distance as I could in the day, before stopping somewhere overnight.  I completed the latter in about 86 hours including the stops so it is the benchmark to beat.  I was therefore broadly familiar with the route, albeit there have been changes since and also to the route specifically for this race. For those less...

This is an update to a post I originally published in 2023 and annually since. Over the years there have been a number of stats published about the Spine races, usually focusing on finish percentages etc.  I decided to take a look and see whether I could do something different with the data.  I've focused purely on the Winter Spine Race and none of the other races in the series. Some headline stats: 29 countries are represented in the finish results (increase of 1 as a result of 2025 event). There are 686 recorded finishes by 535 people Only 24 people have gone sub 100 hours (exc. 2015) - 8 of which occurred in 2025.  (There were actually 11 sub 100 hour finishers this year, but 3 had recorded a faster time in previous editions). I've attached the spreadsheet I put together.  To explain it in a bit more detail take Jasmin Paris (row 7): She was the 230th recorded finisher The 185th individual to have ever finished the Spine The 6th fastest recorded time (includes peo...