Kilkee Half Marathon and 10km Race 2019
Introduction
I can’t get up. I’m in bed it’s 6 am. My phone flashes ‘run time’ as my wake up message. I’m drained. My head is heavy. I can’t find the will to get up. I roll over and go back to sleep. This drags on for two weeks. I get worse. I run less, my concentration isn’t there at all, my productivity plummets, I sleep a lot and still feel like I haven’t slept at all, the outside of my nose and the back of my head burn. I’m relying on 6/7 cups of coffee a day, Nurofen cold and flu and anti histamines. This happens enough to be annoying I’m not even suffering from Hayfever. I have that under control. I have a sinus infection again but I’m a glutton for punishment so I ran the Kilkee Half Marathon on no worthwhile training, no sleep and in the middle of a dose of broad spectrum antibiotics. As my friends put ‘Usual Saturday for you so Andy’. Cheers lads.
Delighted to finish the Kilkee Half Marathon
The Race
Firstly, Kilkee is a beautiful course from start to finish. It undulates in a mean way on the return journey but the coast is an absolute joy to run around. It’s the only course that I’ve run where I was honestly looking around in awe the whole way. The Wild Atlantic way project is definitely worth keeping forever. None of the beauty of the course was lost on me even if I did suffer through it.
I did ok by which I mean I finished. After the opening 6k I was in trouble. I had dizzy spells at first in the middle I coughed quite a bit and towards the end nausea was a problem. Thankfully the sun was sitting behind the clouds and the sea breeze stayed gentle otherwise I might have had to walk. Once I start a race finishing is the emergency plan should things go badly.
The most challenging part of the course was the hill on the way back from the turn about. It isn’t especially steep but it’s long and teases you a little leveling a little on a corner then dragging on for another while.
With such a long climb after the halfway turn around it’s very important pace yourself on this course. I got caught here. I misjudged the length of the hill a few times because it meanders left and right so it wasn’t immediately obvious when it would end. I am a strong hill climber but I went up too fast here and this sapped the energy out of my legs. Below you can see that my pace dipped significantly after the long ascent. I didn’t really recover my easy run 5:00 per/km pace until the last 2 km. Not that recovering my pace was something I wanted to do either by the way remember the course scenery was distracting for all the right mental health reasons even more so on the way back to the finish line.
Special Mention
Kilkee is the first road race I attended where they used the reusable cups. I despise cups because I cant drink out of them on the run but since I want a planet to live in the short to medium I have decided two things
If a race must provide drinking water the these reusable cups must be the way to deliver it
I’m investing in a hydration vest because failing to drink out of a cup is my problem
Pacing after the Hill was rough
Conclusion
I would put Kilkee on your list of must run half marathons if such a list exists. It’s a hard course with jaw dropping scenery. The buzz in the town for the weekend was fantastic. The organisation was smooth and environmentally conscious.
Finally, I’m now on half marathon number 13 and with politics now on the back burner I’ll need to get cracking on increasing that number to something a little more remarkable.
Crossing the finish line Kilkee Half Marathon