Beast of Ballyhoura
Back to Front on the Suir
Rob Howard / 03.08.2014
The heavy rains passed through Saturday evening, leaving some misty conditions on the hills, but fortunately the teams did not get any wetter during the night and raced into a fine Sunday morning.
There was one casualty of the weather however, and that was the Clare Glens canyoning stage, which had to be called off on Saturday evening when the water rose too fast and conditions were no longer safe. (It rose well over 2m in just a few hours quite recently.) This affected a few teams, including the Czech AR team, who had completed every checkpoint until then. Race Director Ivan Park decided that those teams forced to miss the descent would be credited with the checkpoints and would have to finish the race in 38 hours. So 2 hours earlier.
Through the night the teams arrived and left TA2 at the pub car park transition at Golden. This was set beside a magnificent double bridge with a castle remains in the centre but teams were perhaps more delighted to see the pizza take out shop next to the pub – those who arrived while it was still open anyway!
On the final part of the ride into Golden they pushed their bikes up a steep hill to get to a shooting challenge. Here they were given air powered rifles firing small pellets (biodegradable) and their task was to fire 5 shots at 5 beer bottles. They had to hit a bottle just once to avoid running to an additional orienteering checkpoint as a penalty, and despite a strong cross wind it didn’t prove too difficult for the majority. (The first team to arrive were clearly marksmen and needed only one shot each to make a hit and hear the ping of the pellet off the glass of the bottle.)
After passing through the shooting and riding into Golden teams set off on the paddle down the river Suir, starting by passing under the bridge and down a small weir. In places there were shallows to push through, and there were race staff at any tricky points as teams paddled through the night.
The biggest drop came right at the end of the stage as teams arrived in Cahir and saw the impressive caste ahead of them. Before taking out at the transition behind the castle they had to paddle hard at a weir and bump their way down it while trying not to capsize.
The last teams didn’t leave Golden on the paddle until around 08.00 on Sunday morning (teams 4 and 10) and they said they had been struggling not to crash while falling asleep on their bikes during the night. Before leaving the U.K. team Beacon AR were eating the freeze dried, half heated breakfast, and judging by the faces they were pulling they were not enjoying it! This is a family team of parents and son Ross, Emma and Will Phillips (plus the brave Andrew Wayland) and it wasn’t hard to guess that from the arguing in transition as they got ready to go!
These teams brining up the rear are novice teams and are effectively now at the back of the race and will probably have to miss some or all of the final trek to make the finish line in time, but the ‘leaders’ were not too far away. Team Czech AR didn’t finish their paddle until around 08.30 on Sunday morning and were packing up for the long final trek across the Galtee mountains in the sunshine by the castle when we found them.
They said they’d found the race much harder than they’d expected, particularly the ‘unstable’ weather. The team drove all the way over from the Czech Republic and are also taking part in the Itera expedition in Wales starting in a weeks time. They thought this race would be ideal training, but it’s clearly been a lot tougher than they expected and they don’t plan to continue their attempt to get all the checkpoints – they won’t have time. Their aim on the final trek is to do only the mandatory controls.
Overnight a few teams pulled out of the race through fatigue, injury and illness and though I don’t have the full details I do know the Swedish team Mind for Adventure have withdrawn.
After the long mountain trek, which most teams are now on, there are a couple more special tasks, archery and an abseil, and then it’s a ride back to the finish at Blackwater Castle.
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