Beast of Ballyhoura
The Nature of the Beast
Rob Howard / 01.08.2014
All of the 28 teams entered for this year's Beast of Ballyhoura are now in Castletownroche preparing for the race at Blackwater Castle.
Last to arrive were Merrell Denmark, just 30 minutes before the 5pm briefing, which the team captain attended while the others began to busily unpack and repack their kit. They will need to build the bright blue bike boxes the race has supplied and will not get a lot of rest as the bus to take teams to the race start leaves at midnight.
The briefing itself began with an introduction from Fergal Somers of the Ballyhoura tourism organisation and a blessing from local priest Father Scanlon, which was warmly received, though no one was sure whether to clap at the end or not!
Race Director Ivan Park then showed a brief fly-through of the course, which teams don't yet know in detail. No maps have been issued and the teams won't receive the first one until they are on the start line at 2am.
The maps for the first section have been pre-marked for them, and teams won't receive the rest until they reach the first transition where they must mark them up themselves from a master map. (This is a departure from the ususal way the race operates, and has the advantage that teams do not need to spend the night marking and studying maps and can get a little rest before the start.)
Teams do know they will start with orienteering, swimming and kayaking and were told that the start will be in County Clare, the first time the race has ventured so far afield. This drew a murmur from the Irish teams and Park responded by saying, "Yes, it is a very long way away!" He added, "We have a checkpoint on the highest point in the county for you to visit."
The fly through showed teams only the mandatory checkpoints which make up the backbone of the route. These are all valued at 1000 points and the aim is that the slower teams can get to the finish visiting them all in the 40 hour time limit while the stronger teams take in as many of the additional bonus checkpoints as possible. (These have lower values, mostly around 40 to 60 points.)
Tactics will play a key part in the race, especially towards the end and if teams have been unable to clear the course.
There will also be several special tasks on the route, and again, I can't say what most of these are as yet, but the teams do know they will have to complete additional orienteering checkpoints if they don't complete them.
However, one was revealed. Teams were shown a really scary video of a grade 5 white water descent and as they watched it the adrenalin and noise level in the room shot up!
A mischievous Park then revealed that in summer water levels are much lower and racers would be making a canyon descent on foot with a series of high jumps over the falls! The adrenalin level still didn't fall by much and he encouraged everyone to make the jumps by saying it was much safer to do that than to find a way around! (For those who are watching from home teams will not take their trackers on this short stage.)
There are no dark zones on the race and teams can paddle at night if they wish, but they’ve been warned about some weirs on the river, which will all manned by race staff.
All of the teams will finish on Sunday afternoon back at Blackwater Castle and the finish is already set up in the courtyard here … just waiting for the teams to get back to it after their weekend battling the Beast.
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