Carantoohill 2010 IMRA race

Peterx

Shiny new route:)
No longer will I flog myself in vain trying to get close to a good time on that concrete road.

Bring on the details!

brownian

Peterx wrote: »

Shiny new route:)
No longer will I flog myself in vain trying to get close to a good time on that concrete road.

Bring on the details!

... failing that concrete ramp from hell, how else to get off that windy, narrow, few-gated road and onto Cahir ? Maybe it's the new zigzag thing beside the Devil's ladder ?

The thing about the ramp is that it's reasonably short, and you're fresh, at least at the bottom of it, and then things calm down a bit, until the steeper climb onto Cahir. That might be one of the gentler ways onto Carrauntuohill, overall?

Enduro

The new route is, in my opinion, the best running route up and down the mountain. It still passes through Cahir, but uses a completely different ridgeline to approach, and a different start point (on the Kerry Way). Map will be up soon hopefully

ocnoc

Good

New route.... new record!
I wonder who'll take it this year... I'm assuming Furey will be making the trip, current top dog? (stir stir stir)

Peterx

Map now up:)
http://www.imra.ie/events/view/tab/maps/id/734/

Very very tasty, fast, runnable, shorter then the old route, no contrete road. All good.
There's a slim chance a top mountain runner may be in the country to set a record that might take some catching - much like mighty Lenihan did years ago on the first route..

GoHardOrGoHome

I posted this on IMRA forum...

Another accommodation option is the Killarney hostel at Fossa.

Scroll down to the bottom of this linked page to see images.
http://www.anoige.ie/hostels/killarney-international

Phone number: 064 66 31240

It's a beautiful old house. Beds are pretty standard hostel bunks but it has great living room communal areas.

20 euro a head for dorm rooms (sleep 8 I think), 25 euro a head for private rooms (sleep 4).

I'll be staying there (it's the hostel our kayaking club use for the October Bank Holiday weekend). Much better than that kip down the road in Fossa that Dermot Murphy, Alan Ayling and myself ended up in by accident last year.

ocnoc

Good

Top mountain runner?

Do tell...

nerraw1111

How much or what kind of experience is needed for this race? hiked the mountain a couple of times and would fancy running it

Slogger Jogger

nerraw1111 wrote: »

How much or what kind of experience is needed for this race? hiked the mountain a couple of times and would fancy running it

Would recommend you do some regular imra races, then some championship (open mountain) races before you tried something like this. You could seriously bonk on the old route when it got warm. Its obviously a stamina sapper so if you'll need good endurance to boot.

nerraw1111

Cheers Slogger.

Antigrav

ocnoc wrote: »

Top mountain runner?

Do tell...

Jono's in Taiwan that weekend. Maybe another time

Peterx

Ah well, it should be a good race anyway even without a current world champion. Former world champion and legend Lenihan should be in the runing with new kids Colm "viseral race reporter" O'Cnoic, Brian "man with momentum" Furey, secret Kerry savages and a cast of 10s from Leinster will give this new course a good Christening.
This Sunday folks!

ocnoc

Good

I can see the head line already - Young Guns go out blazing
Sub headings - Ould lads pace and destroy!

Peterx

The warm up on Wednesday went ok - I've no speed but I knew that, looking at the map strength should be more important on the highest hill in Ireland.
Camping is sorted in Killarney so post race recovery drinks are also now sorted.
Brian Furey ran 9.32 for a track 3k on Wednesday, Jason Reid was one second behind in 9.33. That's a decent sharpening run.
Colm O'Cnoic looks to be in good shape assuming his over active mind lets him get some sleep. Bazman ran 8.42 the same night and the romantic in him might still be swayed by the thoughts of setting a new record on the Legend Lenihan's hill. Speaking of John, he will hopefully be there although it has been a very busy year for him workwise.
The human downhill bullet Eoin MacKenna may or may not resurface and in the ladies Beth McCluskey is rumoured to be holidaying in Kerry for the weekend:)
As Tristan showed on Wednesday it's not good enough knowing where the usual suspects are too!

Slogger Jogger

Good luck to all the Carrauntoohillers. Enjoy and be safe.

donothoponpop

Peterx wrote: »

The warm up on Wednesday went ok - I've no speed but I knew that, looking at the map strength should be more important on the highest hill in Ireland.
Camping is sorted in Killarney so post race recovery drinks are also now sorted.
Brian Furey ran 9.32 for a track 3k on Wednesday, Jason Reid was one second behind in 9.33. That's a decent sharpening run.
Colm O'Cnoic looks to be in good shape assuming his over active mind lets him get some sleep. Bazman ran 8.42 the same night and the romantic in him might still be swayed by the thoughts of setting a new record on the Legend Lenihan's hill. Speaking of John, he will hopefully be there although it has been a very busy year for him workwise.
The human downhill bullet Eoin MacKenna may or may not resurface and in the ladies Beth McCluskey is rumoured to be holidaying in Kerry for the weekend:)
As Tristan showed on Wednesday it's not good enough knowing where the usual suspects are too!

Give up the running, you real talents lie in commentary! Best of luck to all.

Dunebuggy

Its going to be a cracker of a race !! Enjoy !!

Slogger Jogger

Hail Brian Furey. New king of the hills in Kerry. 2nd Irish Champs race win of the season. Looking forward to reading the reports.

Peterx

3k on the track proves to be the best warm-up of all!

Brian Furey is the man this year and cruised to an imperious victory ahead of two Jasons, Reid of the steady climb and good descent and Kehoe of the good recovery from a nasty fall on Croagh Patrick.
So much for rumours though, Karen Duggan had a very comfortable win in the ladies race.

The new route is very good, very steep and mostly runnable for strong climbers, the section where you join the open mountain after leaving the steep zigzags of the Kerry way could be a bogfest in wet years but was "pleasantly" runnable, coming up onto Cahir from this angle gives a great new perspective on the highest hills in Ireland and one wee cimb/descent has been banished with the subsidary Cahir summit now a thing of the past.
Free route choice from the Kerry way stile back to the finish may make for exciting times at the head of affairs in future races but this time it was left to Colm O'Cnoic to make up 3 places with his straight down approach.
John Lenihan did text to know how the new route had been received and was impressed with Brian's finishing time and promised to try to make a decent fist of the M50 record for next year!

I struggled up, then struggled down. Not my race, yet again even the intervention of the SIS gel I picked up from the road after a Giro d'Italia rider dropped it prevented my painfully familar shuffle back up Cahir whilst better lads skipped off into the middle distance.

ocnoc

Good

Great route. I reckon if you have the leg strength you could run the entire climb.
Wasn't expecting the rocks to be as sore on my feet for the descent but lesson learned.

If you attack the zig zags you can make up serious time. You could probably cut the corners sharper and make more time but as recce closer to the date is advisable. I came down through burnt gorze - if it wasn't burnt I could have been very stuck

Pity there are no stupidly steep rocky ridges in wicklow to practise sprinting over....

I reckon sub 80 is doable. Anyone agree/disagree?

Peterx

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36408851

I took a more or less straight down descent from the Kerry Way stile. Very slow coming back from Carauntoohill to Caher. Apart from that all good:)