Lloyd Biddell

Over the last couple of weeks I've started to ease off the short speed work in favour of increased mileage and longer tempo runs.  At the end of last week I reached 82 miles and I was starting to feel fairly fatigued.  I decided a couple of days rest was in order and a late entry to the Brass Monkey 10k before a planned Half Marathon in early March and then the Greater Manchester Marathon (my main focus) in early April. The course was four and a bit laps of Rockingham Speedway which is a fairly flat oval circuit.  I knew from the previous race winners time that in all likelihood I was going to be at or near the front and it end up being a bit of a time trial.  At the off I led from the very beginning and it was clear within the first 100 metres that I was going to be on my own for the entire race.  Its always a lot harder to race by yourself with no one ahead and no one within shouting distance behind. The start - on the right.  Hat and gloves - it was...

Since the fell race on New Years Day I've managed to pull a muscle in my calf which has resulted in doing very little mileage and a lot of icing.  At one point it was touch and go whether I would be able to race the Warwickshire County Championships.  After lots of icing it was just about acceptable to run on although remained a worry right up to the start of the race. I haven't done a cross country race for a long time, last one would have been the North Staffordshire League in 2008.  I entered this race as I felt my fitness was there or thereabouts and whilst I knew I would be nowhere in terms of being in contention for a top 3 finish, I thought that there was an outside chance of a reasonable overall position.  Only the top three are guaranteed automatic qualification to represent Warwickshire in the Inter County Championships with the remaining 6 positions being down to captain selection.  Therefore a top 9 overall position means that at the very least you...

The short story was that this was a cracking race... I came 4th last year in a time of 33.41 in what was my first ever fell race.  I really enjoyed the course and decided that I should give it another go and see whether I could improve my time.  This year the plan was to run to my advantage by going hard from the outset and see what I could do on the climb and try and defend where possible on the way back down. Waiting at the start. After we started I went as hard as I dared but even so I was about 9th early on with two lunatics deciding to go as hard as possible before dropping away and everyone else then strung out.  After the first km on the road I was about 6th, just behind a group of four and the leader about 20 metres ahead.  The first km was gently uphill, yet I did the km in 3.16 and was basically nowhere near the front - this was not the plan! Over the second km the climb gradually started to increase and we ran on a well made farmers track...

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...

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 run...

I entered the Great Birmingham Half Marathon with some trepidation several months ago.  Up to now the biggest event I'd ever entered was the Derby Ramathon that had 3,500 entrants.  By contrast today's race had circa 18,000 entrants so was on a completely different scale to anything I'd ever experienced.  In my mind I'd always viewed events such as these quite negatively so it was going to be interesting to see how the event compared to what I was expecting. My Derby Ramathon time was 75.16 so my main priority was to beat that time and come in under 75 minutes, if not a little quicker.  That said, I knew the course was going to be tough, lots of little undulations plus a 40 metre climb at mile 11. I got to the start about an hour before the off and frankly the weather was bucketing it down.  Eventually the rain eased off so at least all of the waiting before the start was going to be in the dry.  I had a number that meant I was classified as a 'Faster P...

Since the Tamworth 5 mile my sesamoiditis has been flaring up again making it quite painful on the ball of my left foot.  In some ways a few rest days before the Tamworth 10k was not a bad thing but I hope it soon starts to improve otherwise its going to be hard to train effectively. Today was the Tamworth 10k and the 2015 edition was my first race back in the running world so it was always going to be interesting to see how I compared.  This time round I made sure that I had a good position at the start line and from the off I immediately settled into a fairly relaxed pace.  Straight away I was about 4th or 5th but well in touch with those in front who were just a couple of metres ahead. Just after the start.  I was about 4th or 5th at this point. After the first km I moved into 3rd and gradually the three of us pulled away from the rest of the field.  The first km was run in about 3.25 and I felt really relaxed; I decided not to go too fast and just s...