The Beast of Ballyhoura
Steady Progress for All Teams in the Early Stages
Rob Howard / 03.08.2013
The 2013 Beast of Ballyhoura began under starry skies just after 2am with the teams setting off on stage one, an 8k trail run on which passed through the ruins of the 13th Century Bridgetown Priory. The promised twist was a double crossing of the fast flowing Awbeg river – the announcement of which caused a few groans at the briefing, especially when Race Director Ivan Park said some may have to swim. As it turned out everyone was able to wade across the river with no real difficulty and they could change and leave wet clothes behind before setting off on their bikes.
The first ride of the race took them steadily uphill onto Nagles Mountains, where there was the option of a bike orienteering stage for which they were given a new map with 4 checkpoints on. Park said two were on a fairly direct line across the hills to the next mandatory checkpoint, so he hoped most would get those, but Defence Forces AR1 were having none of it. The made a snap decision “not to muck about orienteering in the dark” and moved ahead of the other teams, reaching the swimming stage first. (Although some watching the trackers suggested they might just have been lost!)
Other teams collected some of the checkpoints and Skandia got the most, describing the section as “rideable but rough in places”. Others said the tracks were very degraded and rocky requiring some carrying from time to time, and most teams seemed to have difficulty at some points on the stage.
Team 20, The Patsy’s, had a problem with one of the bikes when a mech hanger was twisted but managed to keep going, pushing and towing to get around the section and to Hennessy’s bike shop in Fermoy. “He was great,” they said, “he didn’t have the part but fixed the problem straight away and didn’t event charge us. Fantastic!”
It looks like Skandia may have been the only team to clear that section (it is probably easier for those following at home to know this kind of information than it is for those of us at the race). Skandia knew the Outfront Events team had gone ahead of them on the course but felt they must have missed an additional checkpoint to do so, and that is one of the difficulties for the competitive teams here – they don’t really know what the relative positions in the race are as there are no updates at transitions. At least they are then free to concentrate on their own race!
Teams were sceptical about Park’s suggestion the reservoir water for the swim was ‘quite warm’, but once they were in agreed it was surprisingly pleasant. They had to jog up from the car park where they dropped the bikes, the swim across the small reservoir the far side and run back to the bikes. Buoyancy aids were there for those who wanted them and most of the running around was on grass, so it wasn’t too hard on their feet. Any early morning visitors might have wondered what was going on though, with groups of stripped down racers jogging through the trees!
From there teams continued the ride to reach Transition at Fermoy, set up in a Judo club hall. Here they had to pack the bikes and get into their paddle boxes ready to kayak down the Blackwater river. Outfront Events were first on the river, which did not seem to be running too much faster than the original predicted race times, despite the recent rains. Unfortunately those rains returned in the form of intense but short downpours which became increasingly common throughout the afternoon.
Early in the paddle there was a weir with the option to portage, but the safety staff persuaded the doubters to try it and everyone went down with no one going swimming! The marshals gave many a GoPro so there will be some footage of the descents after the race.
Toward the end of the paddle there was another optional section, street orienteering around the town of Lismore, which is dominated by the Castle owned by the Duke of Devonshire. The river runs below its impressive walls and turrets, and shortly after passing it teams could pull in to be given another orienteering map. Most opted to do so as Park had hinted strongly that these were ‘easy points for the effort’.
This map had 5 checkpoints on, at interesting places scattered around the town and surrounds. One was at the gates to St. Carthage’s Cathedral, another inside the old Lismore Ice House and a third at the now disused Railway station, next to a plaque saying Edward VII used the station when visiting the castle. (I doubt they will add another saying the Beast of Ballyhoura visited!)
The paddle stage ended at the town of Cappoquin, where there was a spacious gym to use to keep out of the heavy rain, which thundered on the plastic roof from time to time. Here the teams could use the kitchen to get hot drinks and warm up if they’d been caught in the downpours, before setting off on their bikes for the next stage, which includes the secret task, now revealed as archery.
At this point all the 20 starters are still in the race and making good time around the course.
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