The Knowing of The Beast

Carrick Armer / 03.08.2017

So, the Beast of old has escaped Ballyhoura for the first time, it's been set free to roam the hills and dales around Letterkenny, County Donegal. It's may have moved north for the summer, it may have new hands holding the reins, but it's still a Beast though.

So what do we know? 

We know that the Beast's willing vict... participants (ahem) should be starting to make their way towards the Emerald Isle - well, those who don't live there already. Looking at the teams list, that's the Danish team Delta Denmark and the Swedish team 24hr Meals. Everyone else seems to be on home turf, so we'll see whether that's an advantage. The Swedes were last seen stuffing their faces with pizza in Belfast so hopefully they make it. We know one of the Irish teams have had their own trauma getting here, a trailer with some of their gear, including a bike, having been stolen before they even set off. Sometimes the journey can be as arduous as the race. 

We know  that there's a lot of mountain biking, a good amount of trekking and running, and a couple of stages of kayaking pretty much at either end. That's not a lot of guidance to anyone, but we're sworn to secrecy on a lot of things so we're keeping schtum. We know there's 55km of trekking, 205km or biking and 13km of kayaking. We know there's some steep climbs, some rivers and lakes, some easy lanes and some trackless expanses of fell. we also know there's some other stuff, but again, we're sworn to secrecy.

We know the start time - 5pm Friday - and location - Letterkenny. We also know the cutoff times - 4am Saturday, 1pm Saturday, 1am Sunday, 9am Sunday. We know, from conversations with Race Director Ivan Park, that he'd love to have no cutoffs at all and to just let the teams manage as much as they can, but time constraints are time constraints, and some of the terrain out where the Beast roams is slow going, boggy and tussocky, steep and scree-ridden. We also know that there are hidden gems in the same terrain, high mountain loughs with beautiful beaches, astounding views, wild pine forest and open moorland.

And lastly, we know that the teams are in for a wild, hairy, Beast of a race. They'll gather in the morning in the relative safety and luxury of the Letterkenny Radisson hotel to kit check and get their maps (so, from 10am, our lips will be a good deal less sealed). And we know that we'll be roaming alongside the Beast itself as it rambles the hills and dales of Donegal for the first time.

See you all out there.

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