Feile 10K

Introduction

After a disappointing performance at the Lisburn 10K, the Feile 10K was the comeback that was needed. 

Signing Up

After the Lisburn 10K I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My right ankle felt like it was made out of Weetabix and the left side of my hip was acting like it was 50 years older. Therefore, to keep myself motivated I knew I needed to sign up to race, so I can have a goal. 

Training

With my ankle and hip being sore, I couldn’t follow my normal training plan. I would do a 20-30 minutes run a couple times a week to test the body. However, most of my training consisted of going on the exercise bike and strength and conditioning. It wasn’t till the start of July when I was able to go back to regular running. After doing the Killarney House parkrun, I decided to take heart rate training more seriously. When doing easy and long distance runs I tried to keep my heart rate below 150bpm. This allowed me to increase my running time for my Wednesday run. Every week I would increase it by 10 minutes. Before the race I did a 90 minute run and was able to do 12.5km. To test my fitness, I decided to attempt a sub 20 parkrun a week before the 10K. Although I managed to do a sub 20, I had to work very hard for it. I felt confident about the race, but I threw out the idea of a PB.

Pre-race

The race started at 9 in the morning. Therefore, I woke up at 6:45, ate my breakfast and hydrated myself. I got to Malone college at around 8:20. To wake up the muscles I did a 20 minute warm-up and strides.

Race

Then the race started. I was stuck in a group, so I couldn’t get a fast start. However, I wasn’t bothered as I wanted to start at a comfortable pace. The first kilometre was 4:15. I was gradually increasing my pace for the 2nd and 3rd kilometre, with the 3rd kilometre being a 4:07: 

However the fourth kilometre is when the course went into the falls park. Now, I did the Falls parkrun the previous year as part of my Belfast tour, so I already knew about the massive hill. I also knew about the downhill afterwards and that the return doesn't have as many hills, so I used that knowledge to motivate myself. Once I got to the top of the hill I went down and I started to relax. I had to be careful as the downhill was very steep, so I had to use a bit of energy to control my pace to prevent a tumble. 

Once I left the falls I started to pick up the pace using the momentum from the downhill. I managed 4:04 6th Kilometre which was the fastest at that point, and was a huge jump from the 4:19 of the 5th kilometre. However, during the 7th kilometre I started to feel the fatigue kicking in, and my back started to hurt. Therefore, the 7th kilometre was a little bit slower at 4:09.

Unfortunately, the fatigue didn’t stop at the 7th kilometer as I was still losing pace during the 8th kilometre. Also, during this the point 10K and 5K meet up, so I had to overtake the 5k runners which made things more awkward. At one point, an ambulance went onto the road, so I had to speed up to overtake when I knew it was safe. However, my troubles did not end there as there was one last hill before the end of the 9th kilometre. 

After the hill I knew that there was only a kilometre to go, and the road down to the finish line was downhill. Therefore, I used that knowledge to motivate myself and try to recover the pace I lost from the hill. On the final road down to the finish line I used the downhill to gain momentum. Then I saw the finish line, and I finished off with a strong sprint. I finished with a time of 41:57

Conclusion

In conclusion, I was very happy with my performance at the Feile 10K. I felt like it was the most mature run I have done, as I paced myself very well to ensure I got through the Falls park. Overall, this was a good comeback race to set up the second half of the year.