Titanic Quarter 10K (2018) Race Day!

If you’ve been reading the blog regularly, you’ll know that recently I was training for my next 10K, the Titanic Quarter 10K in Belfast. Well, that race took place on Sunday 8th April and today I’m going to tell you all about it. 

(If you want to catch up on my previous posts first, I’ll have them linked at the bottom of the page!) 

That morning, I was really nervous and quite panicky. I didn’t want to have breakfast because I felt a little ill but I knew that it would be a horrible idea not to have breakfast before a race, so I forced myself to eat. I had so many nerves because in my first 5K race, I had a few panic attacks and when we had done the trial run of the Titanic route, I had a slip up in terms of my anxiety and I started to panic. So understandably, I wasn’t surprised I was nervous. 

(Pre-race smiles!)

We hadn’t picked our packs up beforehand so we arrived there earlier than usual to make sure we weren’t running behind and to give us good time to pick up the packs. We weren’t expecting to get our t-shirt before the race so we kept our regular t-shirts on and put them in Scott’s bag instead. From what Scott said, they had changed the route slightly from the last time he had taken part, but he said that it was a better route than before. We started out in front of the famous Titanic Belfast so if you were a vistor to the city, it would have been the perfect opportunity to see a tourist attraction. 

I was nervous up until we all started to run, I don’t know why but I have the “first run” fear when I think I’m going to be out of breath in ten seconds, which is crazy because I know I can run a fair distance and be absolutely fine. Once we started though, I was fine. We stayed pretty much at the back from the beginning because we thought I might get caught up in a big crowd and run faster than I should be at the beginning, then be completely exhausted half way through. We were able to pass people easily because we had started at the back, but passing people was the furthest from my mind.  

(Photo credit to Athletics NI who managed to get a running shot of me that I’m pretty pleased with.)

I didn’t take any photographs when we were running; I don’t mind stopping while I’m running but for me, it’s different if I’m taking part in a run. Fortunately for me, the Titanic Quarter route is not a scenic one so there weren’t many opportunities for photographs. It’s a fairly boring route to say the least but I’m very glad I had ran it beforehand so I knew what to expect. I think that was part of my problem with the Connswater 5K race; I hadn’t ran it before so I didn’t know when we were turning, and especially with a large crowd, I got myself worried with the uncertainty.  

(This is the map taken from my Strava so if you know Belfast, you’ll know the route we were following.)

Generally over the course of the race, I felt fine. I had one moment where I thought I might panic but I was able to catch myself fast enough to pace my breathing so I ended up not freaking out. I wasn’t overly exhausted, I knew physically I was fine but about half way through the race, I knew that my mental energy was draining fast. I don’t know how many times I said “I can do this” inside my head, but it was a hell of a lot and it seemed to work. The weather was nice to us, the sun wasn’t splitting the trees but it wasn’t cold either. I’m glad I put my coat in Scott’s bag or I would have been sweating buckets. 

Towards the very end of race, we could see the finish line and I knew I wanted to get there as soon as I could. I had started to speed up but I asked Scott was I going too fast too soon and he said yes, so I scaled it back a little until I knew I could really speed up. For this race, I wasn’t aiming for a time, time did not matter at this point because my main aim was to finish. I finished up with a time of 01:07:35 which was naturally, I was over the moon with. 

(Post-race smiles with our medals.)

Looking back, I wish I had have been able to do a little more training leading up to the race but with a sore toe and the snow disrupting the first few months of the year, it was out of my control. I guess that’s what happens with races during the start of the year, right? Apart from that hiccup, I’m really happy with how it all went and I think I’ll be sticking with 10K distances for a little while before attempting a half marathon distance. I want to try and improve my timing before I try that. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post today and as I mentioned at the beginning, if you missed any of my running posts, I’ll have the most recent ones linked below. 

Training for a 10K Race: Wait, again? 
Training for a 10K Race: Three Loops and One Long Run. 
Training for a 10K Race: One Last Check In. 

Training for a 10K Race: One Last Check In.

If you’ve been following this particular running journey for the last few posts, you’ll know that I’m running a 10K race on 8th April which means that this will be my last running update before that race. I understand that there hasn’t been that many but even in these few posts, my running ability has grown massively and I couldn’t be prouder. 

We’ll start off with St. Patrick’s Day; not an occasion I celebrate personally but I knew I had to work for a few hours that day so I wanted to get out and get some exercise done, so I planned out my usual loop route that I had ran quite a number of times last month. It wasn’t a particular warm day but it wasn’t the coldest one that we had been seeing a lot. However, this was the first run in a while where I didn’t stop once (apart from to take a few photographs) and I was so happy about it because it was a battle that I kept losing, but not this time. 

My next run was a much earlier run because even though I was off all week, I wanted to make the most of the mornings and I knew I was going for brunch with a friend so it made sense to head out early. I done something on this run that I had never tried before, it was unplanned. Now, maybe that doesn’t seem strange to many of you but I liked to know the exact distance and the exact route of each run because sometimes I find it hard not being in control especially in running circumstances. However, I went by the words of this quote “Change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” and it seemed to work wonders. If you know Belfast, I ran down the Shore Road into Belfast, down at the Lagan Weir, crossing the bridge and up by the BT Tower and back into the city centre before making my way back up the Shore Road. Again, I had no concept of the distance at this stage and it was only when I arrived home, I stopped Strava and realised the time and the distance. While the distance wasn’t ground-breaking for me, I was over the moon that I was able to run and not have a plan in place. Much like the last run, I didn’t feel the need to stop except to get a few photographs, but that was it. 

I stuck with the previous comfort zone quote and went one further with my next run. This was quite a few days later because on the same day, as well as running the 8.4K, I also clocked up over 30,000 steps. My feet did not love me for a few days so I had to take it easy. Back on Saturday I woke up early again with the intention of another early morning run and had the same mindset of not planning out my route, so that’s what I did. The only difference with this however, if you see by the map, I didn’t run through the city centre streets and when I was coming back home, I ran the opposite way to what I would have done in previous runs through the industrial estate. This one tired me out but I stopped two or three times which I was happy with because I knew that it was going to be a slightly longer distance than last time, I just didn’t know by how much. I was running back home and I knew I was near the street where I had to turn off and I looked at my phone and it said “10.9K”. My first thought was “Oh my god, I’m almost at 11K” and my second thought was “I’m almost at 11K, I can’t stop until I get there” so I didn’t. I ran 11K and as soon as I hit that mark, Strava was stopped. You have no idea how happy I was! It was my longest distance, I didn’t think the time was too bad either and I had a runners high.  

Now because I’m still a new runner, you would think that after my longest distance, I would take a day off. Scott and I had set a plan up to go and try out the route for our 10K race coming up and I didn’t want to cancel on him, because we hadn’t been able to run together for a few weeks. Unfortunately, my “comfort zone” came to a standstill and a number of issues popped up for me. This could have happened for a number of reasons but my guessing is that because I had ran the day before, I was physically and mentally exhausted. I got into a major panic at about the 6K mark, I had zero fight left in me and I wanted to stop and cry, and I almost did. It was not a nice run at all, I’m hoping that now I know the route and the markers that on the day itself, I’ll be okay but that’s a huge worry for me now. On our first 5K race together, I had several panic attacks and cried while running and I don’t know if I could deal with that again. If it does happen, I’ll have to strongly consider whether running in races is for me but we’re going to cross our fingers that it doesn’t. Once we finished, I was so glad and Scott said for the distance I had ran the day before, he was surprised that I kept my pace up at a good rate. If I took anything away from that trial run, it was that.  

Despite my bumpy last run, I can say that I am proud of myself. Last year I doubted I could run more than 5K without getting tired and now I’m running further at 11K. I’m still breaking down that mental barrier that my head and my feet play with each other but that’s not something that is easy to do with a few runs. It will take many more months but I know it is getting better, one blip doesn’t mean I’m back at square one. 

If you’ve missed my last two posts on my latest race, I’ll leave them linked below. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post today, I really do appreciate it 💕 

Training for a 10K Race: Wait, again?
Training for a 10K Race: Three Loops and One Long Run.

Training for a 10K Race: Three Loops and One Long Run.

Recently I wrote about signing up to my second official 10K race and in that post, I said I would write about my running progress every two weeks, so that’s what I’m doing today.

Altogether over the last two weeks, I’ve had four successful runs. Ideally, I would like to get about six in but four isn’t bad considering the amount of bad weather and snow we have had. These four runs consisted of three loops around the same area and one long run so I’ll start with the three loops first.

This particular loop Scott introduced me to and it had daunted me because it’s around an industrial estate that I didn’t know too well but once I had been around it a few times, I knew what turns to take and knew when to cross over. When I ran with him, he stopped us at the 5K mark so I could mark my timing correctly and see how well I was doing. However, when I ran on my own, I decided to start a little further back than the last time and I ran past the last point, so what first became 5K then became 6.5K. I didn’t realise I had added an extra 1.5K to the route entirely.

Saturday Afternoon Loop Route

This run was my favourite run out of the three, mainly because this was the first day of sunshine we had seen in weeks and it was when I discovered I had added on an extra 1.5K so I was over the moon. In terms of pace, I find it very difficult to determine my speed if Scott isn’t there. I never know if I’m going too fast or too slow because he keeps me in line but this is something I’m trying to work on. I may have went overboard on my running gear on this run, I knew it was sunny yet I continued to wear my warm hat and my fleece coat so I was half way done with the run and I was so sweaty. I got about three quarters of the way finished and that’s when the mental battle started because you would think that when I knew I was nearly done, I would push through to tell myself I’m “almost there”. That’s where my head differs, it does the opposite and makes me feel like quitting at the last hurdle. Understandably, I was running then walking for twenty seconds and then back to running, I had a few of these periods towards the end. This is another issue I want to work on because this could potentially hold me back from breaking personal best times and I don’t want that to happen of course.

Tuesday Evening Loop Route

Tuesday evening’s run went quite well but there was a significant difference in this one and the one on Saturday afternoon, I hadn’t worked on Saturday so understandably, I was feeling tired from work but I pushed myself out of the door anyway and the majority of the time, I am always glad that I do. I wrapped up warm for this run because it wasn’t a nice sunny day and it was a very cold night, but by the end, I was very sweaty. I earned every little sweat drop though! I was over a minute slower than the previous run which I tried not to be too disappointed with and I did slow down towards the end (just like the previous run) and that currently held my time back too. Apart from those few points, it was a good run.

Sunday Morning Loop Route

Fresh early Sunday morning air. I want to say that I was running at around half seven on a lovely fresh Sunday morning which was so refreshing. I absolutely love running at that time because your body hasn’t quite woken up so it gives you an extra boost and that certainly helped me time wise with this. While I still had the mental block towards the end of the route, this was my fastest solo time on this route so far and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

Last but not least is my big run for the two week period. The full 10K, now it might sound strange that I’m running 10K distances even though this training series is for the purpose of training for a 10K race. Well, fortunately I know that I’m perfectly capable of running that distance but I have a number of objectives. I want to track my progress for this race like I was meant to for my last race, I also want to get better time and pace wise because that is something I can aim for.

Belfast City Centre to Dundonald (via Greenway)

This 10K started in the centre of Belfast, around by the Lagan River, up towards the Albertbridge Road heading for Connswater and finally heading up to Bloomfield Avenue where I knew there was continuing part of the Comber Greenway. I don’t know where the Connswater Greenway starts in the centre of Belfast so for me, I knew that route from walking it a few times and I then began running on the Comber Greenway route. By the time I was getting on it, it was coming up to about half five and it wasn’t too dark but by the time I got to the end of it, it was considerably darker. I was still able to see and I thankfully didn’t need my head torch but it was cutting it close. If you’ve never been on this particular Greenway, it’s not very well lit and the only light you really have is in front of you when you can see the next set of traffic lights so it’s quite closed off apart from coming up to the next stop.

There were a few obstacles for me on this run. Firstly, I was heading to an appointment back where I used to live so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to run back there. In doing that however, I had a backpack with me filled with my work clothes and everything that I take to work. Mind you, it wasn’t very heavy but it still had some weight in it and it was on my back the whole time. Another obstacle was again, the mental block but it didn’t seem to pop up as often as I thought it would, it still popped up here and there but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I over dressed for this run again, I would say that it was even before the half way point where I felt like I didn’t need my hat or my coat anymore but because my bag was so jam packed, my only option would have been to carry them in my hand and I didn’t want to weigh myself down further so they stayed on.

The Comber Greenway is really gorgeous in the day time so I would be tempted to run down it more at the weekend during the day to build up my endurance because you don’t see the distance go in as much as you would if you were running up the main Newtownards Road right up until Dundonald, and it’s always nice to run with very pretty views, right?

That’s all for this fortnight’s running progress. As I said, I’m hoping to keep this up every two weeks until the race itself so I hope you’ll keep reading along with me. Thank you so much for reading!

Training for a 10K Race: Wait, again?

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll know that in the middle of last year, I decided to take up running. This was partly influenced by my boyfriend but it was something that I had wanted to do for a long time and I didn’t really know where to begin. Luckily for me, he was more than happy to come running with me, teach me how to run properly and be my support system.

(Back at my first official 5K race: The Connswater 5K)
Through my running, I’ve taken part in about a dozen parkruns, quite a number of my own personal runs with various distances, mini run club runs, a charity fun run, a 5K official race and a 10K official race. While I documented my running journey of building myself up to a 5K race, I didn’t do that as well as I had hoped for the 10K and that’s one big regret of mine. Not so much for the blog, although I would have liked for it to worked as inspiration even just for one person; it was more so for myself because I would have liked to see written progress of that process too.

Being the romantic that I am, for Valentine’s Day, I signed us both up for the Titanic Quarter 10K race happening at the beginning of April. He told me that he’s done this particular race before and because it’s in a newly developed part of the city with views of the water, it’s a really nice backdrop for a run. He didn’t know I was signing us both up but he seemed really pleased that we would get to run together in another race, and this also means going out on more training runs together whenever we can.

(I don’t stop to take photographs too often on a run but on occasion, it’s nice to take a breather)
My plan of action for the build up to this race is pretty simple. If you follow me on Instagram, more often than not, I post my runs on there so I plan on still doing that and additionally, I’ll be doing a blog post every two weeks talking about them more in-depth. I don’t want complicate it because running shouldn’t be complicated so why make my blog that way?

I hope you’ll follow me along on my latest running journey because it’s something I’m very passioniate about and I love that I can share it with others too. While you’re here, you can catch up on some older running posts too:

Training for a 5K Race: An Introduction and My First Run.
Training for a 5K Race: Running and Negative Mental Health.
Training for a 5K Race: The Lone Run.
Training for a 5K Race: My First (Unofficial) Park Run.
Training for a 5K Race: Last Minute Training.
Training for a 5K Race: Race Day!