Lloyd Biddell

After final preparations we were walking along the road leading out of Coniston onto the famous Walna Scar Road which is anything but a road. It was only very near to the start did I realise that I forgot to put my ankle brace on so knew that my left ankle was in for a severe bashing. I knew I was going to go over, it was just a case of how many times and how badly. After a few minutes deciding upon our general route we ran along the Walna Scar Road at a decent pace before turning off to a well made track heading past Goat's Water. Everything was fairly straightforward to this point and we made our first steep ascent to Goats Hause before contouring round to the control. We made a small navigational error and descended too steeply before realising the mistake and finding the control. We lost about 5 minutes which was a bit annoying but we were still trying to tune ourselves into the map but on the plus side no real damage was done. We decided to head to the next control call...

A few weeks ago a work colleague suggested doing one of the fell events organised by Dark & White. It didn't take my fancy but noticed a Mountain Marathon advertised on the same weekend we were going to do pre OMM (Original Mountain Marathon held in last weekend of October) training. One thing led to another and we eventually entered this as a two man team with the intention of it being a good training event. Its a two day mountain marathon held in Coniston , Lake District with a score format - 6hrs day 1 and 5hrs day 2 with a self sufficiency camp in between. From Thursday onwards I was getting the various bits of kit together, forgetting how much preparation is required. Foolishly I was tasked with getting the team food for the event. For the Friday pre -event camp I settled on Hot Dog Rolls, sausages and onion. Except I forgot the sausages. So I went to the petrol station and got some bacon. Unfortunately I then left that in the fridge at home so it was looking like a mea...

Right I wasn't going to post again before the event next weekend, but just been having a mooch at my site hit count for the week and stumbled across this link . It appears I've been linked from their site (see June 13 entry). So what, you might ask? Well its a site that appears to be devoted to the advocation of prosthetic limbs! Maybe there is an answer to sort my toes out after all...

This week I have decided to retire my Nike Triax 9 trainers which I bought in February. They are only seven months old but the soles have pretty much worn out as has the cushioning. Although I've upped the mileage recently I was just beginning to get slight knee pain after each run so now seemed the suitable time to get a new pair. What have I replaced them for? Well exactly the same pair but bought on eBay and shipped from the USA - for the princely sum of £46 including shipping compared to the £70 I paid in the shop earlier in the year. Although I've had several foot problems, I thought you cant argue with the price and it was a case of 'better the devil you know'. I've worked out that if a pair of trainers is supposed to last 500 miles and I'm running an average of 35 miles a week (lower than the mileage I'm currently doing, but then in race weeks I'll be doing very little) they are going to last just four months!! The state of my toes have bee...

Well the first six months of training is complete and I thought it worthwhile to review current progress (both good and bad) and the six months ahead. As usual I've thought of lots of things to write whilst I'm out running, but when it comes to putting pen to paper (or whatever the computer equivalent is) I've got a bit of a mental block! Here goes... After my entry to the MdS was accepted in March its been a case of steadily building up my mileage. I knew (or thought) I had a decent level of what I call 'residual fitness' - the ability to be able to do events such as the OMM and orienteering which in effect keeps me ticking over, but nowhere near full potential. Up until the start of the year if you don't include events my training was quite literally nil and had been for several years. In effect this meant that my training was doing one event one weekend as preparation for the next and so on. Clearly this had to change if I am to have a chance completing t...

Well finally after weeks of annoying injuries and colds etc the 50 mile barrier has finally been breached : Mon - Rest Tues - 7.1 miles Weds - 12.0 miles Thurs - Rest Fri - 7.4 miles Sat - 10.0 miles Sun - 13.5 miles Total: 50.0 miles Since my last post I ran home from work on Weds and felt generally lethargic all of the way, probably as a result of a long day. I therefore rested on Thurs before doing a 7.4 mile run on my country loop on Fri. As I'm still not running with my HRM I just went at a pace that I felt comfortable with and felt really good all of the way round. I was surprised at the end when I found that I was running 7.13 min mile pace which is a bit quicker than average. I have realised that I enjoy my running more when I'm not with my HRM which I guess is because I'm not checking and sometimes chasing set times. Yesterday I did 10 miles, 7 of which were on my usual country route before adding a further 3 on a short loop near home. I went too fast and knew th...

Although this blog is almost exclusively devoted to training I have had one of those strange days which I think warrants its own entry. First of all on the train to work someone got on the train with a wheelie-bin. It was obviously quite heavy as it took the bloke some effort to get it on. The guard then came over and chucked him off the train. Later on in the morning we had a power cut at work which was probably the first for a couple of years. Nothing too unusual there, but then my computer wouldn't turn back on once the power had been restored. I got one of the computer guys to take a look and it turns out its been fried so had to get a new one. On the way home at New Street Station I was in a semi doze on the train then heard loads of screaming a couple of metres away from me. Turns out that a young woman fell in the gap between the platform edge and train. A few people pulled her out then she sat on the platform for a while waiting for the paramedics to arrive. As far as I c...