Swim, Paddle, Go To The Pub

Rob Howard / 02.08.2014

That was the order of activities this morning on the Beast of Ballyhoura after teams finished the first foot stage ... the pub being Larkins Bar, which was packed out in the early hours of the morning with a unique clientele as it was serving as Transition One for the race.

Around half of the teams appear to have made a quick decision to collect only the mandatory checkpoints on the first stage and groups of 4 headlights were bobbing along the lough shore towards the jetty where the swim began after only a couple of hours. 

Given that the night navigation was tricky for the bonus checkpoints and there is a long way to go in a limited time, it was probably a wise choice.  (Even more so because the teams expected to contest the higher places, who went for all the bonus CP’s took a very long time to collect them, despite their faster pace and expert navigators.)

Even the mandatory points were not so easy to find, particularly M2 on the summit of Moylussa which many teams struggled to locate, despite it being on a boulder on the summit. A couple even rang the Race Director to say they thought it was in the wrong place  - he assured them it wasn’t as he’d put it out himself and it was attached to a plaque saying ‘This is the summit of Moylussa’.

The quicker than expected return of teams from the first run meant many undertook the 300m swim in the dark, and it was intimidating setting off towards a small, distant light on a cool and breezy night. As promised the water was not too cold once teams got swimming – they only got really cold in the wind when they clambered out on the far side. Here they changed and dried off as quickly as they could on the lakeside pontoon before setting off onto the lake again in their kayaks – where they got wet again!

Everyone seemed to manage the swim well, some choosing not to use PFD’s so they could swim more easily, though there was one racer with a cut foot that needed some treatment later on.

Again most teams took a direct paddle to the first Transition, although there was a bonus paddle checkpoint.  This was located by an island where a pair of White Tailed Eagles is nesting and recently raised a chick, and I know the Dutch team collected this checkpoint on their way to TA1 as did Czech AR who followed later.

As the first teams were on the water a squall blew across the Lough making conditions cold and choppy for a while as they paddled into the waves in their sit-on-tops.

This made their arrival at TA1 at all the more welcome. The finish of the paddle is at Garrykennedy Harbour where there is a marina alongside the ruins of a castle tower – and Larkins Bar.  The bike boxes were all set out in the beer garden and inside the pub teams found ample rooms to spread out their maps on the tables, where they could mark them up and laminate them.  There was tea and coffee too and breakfast rolls, so it was a great chance to recoup some energy while planning out the rest of the race.

This made it a long stop, especially for those teams choosing to cut and laminate the maps, which is a time consuming job and was complex as the course criss-crosses some maps more than once in different areas.  (The more competitive teams will not take so long on these tasks as one of the biggest differentials between the more and less experienced teams is in transition time.)

While the early teams were at TA1, those collecting all the bonus checkpoints were still far behind, many still on the first trek/run when others were already through TA1.  This may well prove to be a key decision later on in the race as not all the teams who intended to find the bonus trekking points were able to get them. Paul Mahon from Team Outfront Events, one of the favourites said, “We completely messed up M2, taking the wrong path to it twice and both the Swedish team and Get No Sleep were with us having the same problems. Then we missed some others later on as well, it wasn’t our day!”

Get No Sleep are another race favourite and have one of Ireland’s most experienced racers navigators in Eoin Keith on the team .

The variation in tactics means the more experienced teams are currently behind the novice teams whose aim is to complete the course distance, which is as it should be, given they all have the same finish deadline tomorrow afternoon.

There is a live tracking map and leaderboard showing who has done what and where they are at http://www.beastofballyhoura.com so you can follow all the action.

(At the time of writing it looks like Czech AR are the leading full course team. They have arrived at TA1 after finding all the checkpoints and said they’d had no problems.

Team Delta are shown as having collected all the first section trek checkpoints, but confirmed to me they had in fact missed 4 of them, so it’s worth remembering the leaderboard is an approximation based on the tracker positions, not an official confirmation they did find the checkpoint.)

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