FIONA Everard jokes that this weekend will feel like her track debut over 10,000 metres.

The Enniskeane athlete (27) will lead the Athletics Ireland team at the European 10,000m Cup in La Spezia, Italy on Saturday as the two-time national cross-country champion swaps the mud for the track.

‘We have a strong enough women’s team going over, six of us altogether, so that’s exciting,’ Everard says.

‘I’d love to think we could be competitive as a team too. Personally, I’m kind of treating it as my proper 10k track debut.

‘I did one a couple of years ago that went really badly – it’s actually the only race I’ve ever dropped out of – so since then I hadn’t really gone back to the distance on the track.

‘I’ve done another one in the middle of training before, but I’m not really counting that because it went fairly badly too,’ she laughs.

‘So I’m calling this one my proper debut anyway, hopefully when I’m actually in shape for it.’

The Bandon AC star heads to Italy in good form. In the last six months, Everard powered to her second national senior cross-country title, finished tenth at the European Cross-Country Championships and inside the top 25 in January’s World Cross-Country Championships.

In March, she ran a personal best of 31:58 to win a road race in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, France. Earlier this month, she added a 3000m PB to her CV, running 9:04.76 at the Belfast Classic in a race she describes as ‘messy’ after she was clipped and fell.

‘I’d be hoping later in the summer to run a good bit quicker, but I think the whole point of that race was to get a good stimulus before the 10k on the track, and we still got that from it, so it wasn’t too bad.’

Everard also had a pep in her step after a high-altitude training camp in Font-Romeu in the French Pyrenees went as well as she had hoped. It has set her up for the summer ahead, starting with the European 10,000m Cup this weekend.

Fiona Everard after winning the 2025 senior women's title at the national cross-country championships.

‘That camp was organised through Athletics Ireland. I actually hadn’t been at altitude for a bit over a year because I hadn’t fully figured out the timings of it before,’ she explains.

‘Sometimes you can come back and feel a bit flat racing afterwards, so I just hadn’t gone back for a while.

‘But this time I think we got everything right. We eased into it better and I probably had the best camp I’ve had over there.

‘You can still do really good quality sessions at altitude and I think aerobically it gives you a huge boost. Your threshold levels really improve.

‘You can also see the amount of elite athletes training over there all the time and it kind of proves how important it is if you want to keep moving up a level.’

Based at home in Enniskeane right now, Everard is only a 15-minute drive from Bandon AC’s fantastic new 400-metre track, and that easy access to a quality surface is helping too.

‘It’s been a lifesaver, honestly,’ she says.

‘It’s just so handy. You’re back home so much quicker after training and able to recover better because you can get food and everything straight away.

‘It’s also a lovely track to run on, so it’s been a massive help.’

Another huge help is the support of local businesses, Graingers Wood and Carbery, as well as the Jerry Kiernan Foundation.

‘It’s definitely helped me keep everything going and I’ve been delighted with the support,’ she says.

‘It honestly makes such a difference because travel to races can be really expensive when things come up last minute.’

Her full focus now is on the Centro Sportivo Alessandro Montagna stadium this Saturday, and targeting a quick time that could put Everard in contention for the 10,000 metres at the European Athletics Championships later in the summer.

‘This will probably be our best chance to get the European qualifying standard, which is 32 minutes flat for Birmingham,’ she explains.

‘If I qualify from Italy then that will obviously become the big focus for the summer. If not, I’ll probably drop back down to shorter distances like the 5k and 3k and just try to keep bringing those PBs down.’

Everard is enjoying the switch to the track after a winter of cross-country.

The change of scenery and discipline is welcomed.

‘You do feel ready to switch things up a bit,’ Fiona says.

‘And especially when the weather gets a bit nicer, it’s definitely nicer being cleaner on the track rather than slogging through mud somewhere.’