Top 10 the target for eager Keelan Kilrehill ahead of European Cross Country Championships
MORE, MORE, MORE: Keelan Kilrehill of Moy Valley AC, Mayo, celebrates winning the Senior Men's race during the 123.ie National Senior, Junior and Juvenile Even Age Cross Country Championships at Castle Irvine Estate. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
“I definitely feel like it's all starting to click,” says Keelan Kilrehill, who will lead the Irish senior men’s team at Sunday’s European Cross Country Championships in Antalya, Turkiye.
“I’ve been coming to Euro Cross for so long now that experience goes out the window – you want to get results. I came 17th last year. If I could do better that would be good, but you want to get into that top 10.”
The 24-year-old Sligo native comes into it in sparkling form, having unleashed the best performance of his career to win the national title in Fermanagh last month, finishing a whopping 28 seconds clear of the runner-up.
“It’s probably not how I envisioned it,” he admits. “I thought I might have a nervous last (kilometre) where lads were still behind me and I was having to shake them off, but it worked out perfectly.”
Kilrehill had been running 100-110 miles a week in training, stringing together month after month of consistent work which convinced him he was “very much capable of winning”.
After several years in Dublin – first studying at DCU, then working as a substitute teacher – he returned to Sligo this summer, transitioning from coach Emmett Dunleavy back to Philip Finnerty, who guided his career at underage level. Given he was paying “colossal money” for rent in the capital, it was an “easy decision” to move back.
“It was hard leaving Dublin, but I definitely have no regrets,” he says. “It’s been working out well so far.”
Kilrehill does a few days of substitute teaching each week, the students at a school in Ballina giving him a memorable send-off this week before he left for Turkiye.
“They did a big ‘good luck' for me, that was nice,” he says. “There’s a lot of the kids that are in my club (Moy Valley AC) in that school.” What’s been the key to his breakthrough season?
“I could list 100 things to you why it's going so well. It is the culmination of the work I’ve done over the last few years. I did probably start in August in a good spot. I did good work with Emmett for years up in Dublin but a few things have changed, training wise, down here. But it’s kind of just consistency.”
In 2021, Kilrehill finished a superb sixth in the U-23 race at the European Cross Country in Dublin, helping the Irish to team gold. That stood apart as the highlight of his career until nationals last month.
“Enniskillen was a little sweeter from a personal point of view because since Dublin I hadn’t really had a result that big,” he says. “I felt like I’d been waiting a while to hit those heights again.”
Kilrehill’s 5000m best of 13:53.03 or 10,000m best of 29:04.67 might not strike fear into many European rivals on the track, though over the natural terrain he’s a different operator.
He’d love to one day commit to life as a full-time athlete, but that means getting a sponsorship deal, for which fast times are a necessity.
“For every distance runner you want to get some big brand on board, throw your whole life at (running) and give it the best shot you have, but it is hard,” he says. “In the future I’d like to get my times down and get in contact with a few brands to see if it’s possible.”
After an unspectacular track season that featured a “few dark days”, Kilrehill hit the ground running in the autumn, taking comfortable wins at the Castlegar International Cross Country and Autumn Open in Dublin before routing the field to win nationals.
And now a far bigger challenge awaits. On Sunday he will line up against 94 of Europe’s best distance runners, racing 7.8km at Dokumapark in the coastal city of Antalya.
In a bid to stay true to the event’s tradition, organisers have included a few tiny hills on the course, along with sections of sand and mud. But this will essentially be a glorified track race: flat and fast.
Kilrehill has been getting ready for it by clicking off 400m reps in 60-61 seconds in training and for the first time in his career, that four-minute mile pace has started to feel “smooth”. Still, he knows cross country is above all a test of strength and endurance.
“If you’re strong enough, you’ll be fine,” he says.
Norwegian star Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the red-hot favourite for gold, though it looks a wide-open race thereafter.
Kilrehill was the second Irishman home in last year’s edition in Brussels, his 17th-place finish helping the Irish team to fourth. The swamp-like conditions he faced then will be nowhere to be seen on Sunday, but he’s hoping the Irish can be just as competitive.
“We’ve a similar team again if not better this year so I don’t see why we can’t challenge,” he says. “There are four or five other very good teams but I think we’re as good as any of them, so hopefully we can squeeze into the top three.”
