The Beast of Ballyhoura
When The Going Gets Tough
Rob Howard / 03.08.2013
As the race moved beyond the 12 hour mark the race became gradually tougher for the teams, who are all still racing. Fatigue, pace judgement and tactics will increasingly play their part as teams tackle the longer stages of the race, night falls and the weather deteriorates. Experience, endurance and teamwork will come into their own tonight as teams move onto the Galtee mountains for the 42km trek (longer with all the bonus checkpoints).
When teams left the transition at Cappoquin on their bikes they rode back towards Lismore, heading for checkpoint 24, which was the mystery challenge. The checkpoint was at ‘The Towers’, a gothic folly buried deep in the woods, where the archery shooting challenge was set up. (The Towers are the remnants of gatehouses built for a grand estate house in 1850, but the funds were never there to build the house. Only the gatehouses were built and they then fell into ruin.)
Using an extra map they were given, teams found the Towers in the woods and fired down from their walls at archery targets set up below. They were allowed 3 practice shots and 3 counting shots, all taken ‘on the clock’. It wasn’t necessarily wise to hurry though, as all the points scored were added to their totals, and there were 120 on offer ... if all team members fired maximum scores! (The best total of the day was 64, and the worst 25, but the leaderboard won’t show these points.)
From The Towers they rode northwards towards the Knockmealdown mountains on the longest mountain bike stage of the race. Here they could choose to cross the main summits, collecting the mandatory checkpoints, or to also include a group of bonus checkpoints to the west before reaching the prominent pass in the range known as The Vee. Here there were more options on offer; a hill run up and down Sugarloaf mountain and two more bonus mountain biking checkpoints further to the East.
On the way into the mountains they had to visit a waterfall checkpoint (M25), with the sportident box hung behind the falls, ensuring a cold soaking for all the team members. Defence Forces AR1 said, “We all just stripped off buck naked. There was no modesty at all and it was freezing, but at least we warmed up a bit climbing back to the bikes!”
All the teams were going to get soaked anyway as the wind got up and the rains swept in. Defence Forces AR1 described, “getting blown off the side of the mountain” and added, “it seemed the fun part of the race was now cancelled!” They were testing conditions and the earliest teams to pass through had decided to get just the mandatory checkpoints and move down to the next transition in Cahir as swiftly as they could. (Keeping in mind night was falling and there was the long trek over the Galtee mountains to come next.)
Robbie Heffrernan of ‘Leave No Trace’ said, “It was a bad place to be and we just wanted to get out of there fast, and not be up there in the dark. It was bad enough in daylight! We’ll get ourselves reorganised in transition and set off on the trek in better shape, and we know the Galtees very well ... though it won’t make the trek any easier!” Their team and others took advantage of the take-aways in Cahir to get some hot food, and all of the early arrivals took the chance to take some hot drinks in transition, and make extensive use of the hand dryer in the toilets, which now became a clothes dryer.
Other teams taking the same approach were Roevalley, the all male team ‘Who’s The Girl?’ and Defence Forces AR1. Those behind them had to finish the ride in the dark, and only the stronger teams opted for any of the bonus points given the conditions.
The race is taking teams a bit longer than expected at this stage and those pushing for maximum scores must be careful not to fall behind schedule. If they are forced to miss a mandatory checkpoint towards the end of the race they will forfeit 1000 points, and all their efforts to get bonus points will have been in vain.
They will have to keep this in mind tonight on the Galtee Mountains trek, for which all the teams have to take tents as an additional safety precaution. All the teams will be on this trek overnight and it will be the toughest and possibly the decisive stage of the race.
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