Lisbon Saint Anthony 10K 2023 Race Recap

The Lisbon Saint Anthony 10K 2023 Race took place this month and I raced in it. This is an annual race linked to the Saint Anthony festivities, and I will tell you all about it.

Just a teaser, I improved my 10K PR by one minute!

Introduction

I already mentioned that this is an annual race, but due to the Covid pandemic, it didn’t happen in the last few years.

This return brought some changes that some of the usual runners did not appreciate. The race course has moved from the city center to Belém, a well-known tourist parish, but further away from the city center.

With this change, the race lost some of its charm and joy, but gained an excellent course for PR chasing. If you don’t know Lisbon, then let me tell you that Lisbon is known as the city of the seven hills so you can already guess that it’s not easy to chase PRs in Lisbon. But in Belém, we have a flat course with long avenues, and this is what we need to chase PRs. This is the course where I have my half-marathon PR and now also the 10k PR.

So, the ones chasing PRs were happy with the change, and the ones that only wanted to have fun while running in Lisbon were not so happy about it.

Organization

This race is organized by HMS Sports and that’s one of the best organizers (in my opinion of course). Also, the race had LIDL (a German supermarket chain) as the main sponsor, and this team has given us amazing races.

For instance, we always have nice offers from LIDL, and in the hours before the race LIDL team was offering coffee, tea, and sunscreen to all runners.

I always wear sunscreen on sunny days and I forgot to put it on before leaving home, so this offer was great and I surely took advantage of it.

The race started in the first hours of the morning but the temperature was already above 22ºC which is more or less 10ºC above the ideal racing temperature. So, the LIDL sunscreen was a great offer at that time.

By the way, if you didn’t read my post with tips for running in the heat, then take a look at it here.

Starting boxes and pacers

This race had only 3 pacers. One running at 4 min/km (6:26 min/mi), another at 5 min/km (8:03 min/mi), and finally another at 6 min/km (9:40 min/mi). This 1-minute difference between pacers is too much and certainly, a lot of runners didn’t have a pacer for their goal. It would be better if there were intermediate pacers as well. But, it’s better to have few than none.

Regarding the starting boxes, we had the appropriate ones with very well-controlled entrances, so I started behind the elite guys and got no slower runners in front of me.

The course

The race course is pretty simple.

The race starts in Belém and then it goes from right to left always in one big avenue, so it’s a flat and almost straight course, starting and ending in the same spot.

Water Stations

We only had one water station, the standard for a 10K race, and it was situated at km 6. There were some complaints because the runners were expecting a water station at km 5, but I think that they moved it so that the waters (and the volunteers) would be protected from the direct sun.
For me, I don’t care. I don’t need water for a 10K race and if you need it and you are healthy, then it’s time to rethink your daily hydration and preparation for a 10K race.

After the race

At the end of the race, we had more goodies from the main sponsor.

We received one more bag with water and fruit and instead of a medal, we received a “Manjerico” (bush basil), a plant from the Basil family. 

The bush basil is the Saint Antony festivities' official plant and that’s why they offered one to the finishers.

Besides these initial offers, we were still offered ice cream, but we had a queue for it. 

And we also were offered a non-alcoholic beer, and it was not bad! 

My performance

During the last months, and after Seville Marathon, I am not being able to train properly. First, I deserve the rest 😀, but also, my family got bigger recently and between family, work, content creation, and running, I don’t have time left and sometimes I have to cut on the time for running.

So, because of this, I didn’t have any hard goals for this race. Still, I got a crazy idea to run along the 4 min/km pace (to end the 10K below 40 minutes), when my best 10K time was with a 4:17 min/km pace.

And I did it for the first 3K as you can see in the image below.

After the first 3K, I felt that the effort would be too much and I wouldn't make it so I left the pacer and ran the following 4K at an average of 4:20 min/km allowing me to rest for a while and then I attacked again running 2K at 4:10 min/km pace and the last 1K at 4:00 min/km. I ended the race in a 3:30 min/km pace.

In the end, I did the 10K in 41:56 minutes (chip time) with a 4:10 min/km pace having improved my PR by 1 minute. This was without proper training, both in volume and in quality because I only train for marathons. Marathon training is a very complete training but it’s not speed focused so it's not the best training for a 10K race. Despite that, I am more than happy with the PR.

I don’t like to start strong and then slow down. I always start with a confident pace and then I’ll follow what the body is telling me and start to increase the pace. So, I don’t know why I did not follow my usual strategy, but it was fun nevertheless.

Recently I raced an 8K race in a 4:04 min/race, but this story is for another post!

My opinion

In the end, this is a great race, very well organized, and with a perfect course for PB chasing. It was the first time that I raced this one, but I will be there next year trying to drop the 40 min mark for the 10K (if I don't succeed in it earlier).

There were a lot of tourists racing, so if you plan to visit Lisbon next summer, don't miss this race.

If you were in Lisbon and raced this one, let me know your thoughts.

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