Home Race Report Ballycotton 10 2017

Ballycotton 10 2017

Report by Naoise Waldron

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On Sunday 12th March a number of Sportsworld runners made the trip to Ballycotton in Cork for the 40th running of the famous 10 mile course.

I had been in two minds all week about whether I would run, but when I woke up in Passage West that morning to glorious sunshine, I decided that it would be a shame to miss the race. I had combined the trip to Cork with a visit to a friend on Saturday to avoid having to complete the round trip in one day.

I left my friends house with plenty of time to get to Ballycotton and spent an hour in the car park psyching myself up. Having arrived there I realised that Ballycotton was a lot windier than Passage West had been and I was beginning to question my decision.

I met Anne in the car park and we wandered down to the start area together. This year they changed the route to the start line and as we were dropping off our bags we were met with the most spectacular view.

We made our way to the start with only minutes to spare and tried to squeeze our way as near to the front as possible but made very little progress. And then we were off.

As we set off down the main street music was blaring and the crowds were cheering. As I left the them tune from Baywatch behind me, I couldn’t help think that I might need rescuing later on!

The course is roughly 2 miles down hill out of the village, a 6 mile loop and then the same 2 miles back in to the village again. Starting so far back, my first mile or so was slow and I was trying not to get too caught up with weaving in and out of people.

Once we were down the hill, the race field started to spread out a bit and I got in to a rhythm. There was a bit of cross wind for the first few miles and when that eased off, the conditions were perfect.

One good thing about starting at the back was I could see the Sportsworld singlets up ahead of me, so I was using them as targets and I slowly made my way up through the field. There was lots of encouragement from club mates I met along the way – thanks to Ann, Aoife, Tom and Phillip to name a few.

After the half way point I found the sun was over powering and started to wilt a bit with the heat of it. The final 2 miles up hill were tougher than I had remembered them being the previous year.

I spotted Peter ahead of me and focused on keeping him in my sights for the final mile. There was a huge crowd cheering on the main street again. The race organisers have countdown signs every 200m with 1000m to go. There was discussion after about whether this was helpful or not – not being the general consensus. Sometimes 200m seems so long!!

A few of us gathered after for the walk back to the car park and post race analysis. In general people were happy with the run, there were a number of PBs gotten and the trip down had been worth it. Our top man was Karol in 32nd place overall and Sinead was our first female to cross the line in a spectacular 5th place. Not bad going for her first 10 mile race! Race winners were Mick Clohissey of Raheny in 49:20 and Siobhan O’Doherty (Borrisokane) in 58:02.

Sportsworld Results

32nd Karol Cronin 55:53
5th Sinead Tangney 1:01:45
Martin Doyle 1:05:18
Diarmuid O’Suilleabhain 1:05:52
Michael Lillis 1:05:48
Damien Geraghty 1:06:54
Jose Chapa 1:07:24
Alan Hynes 1:10:14
Naoise Waldron 1:12:03
Adrian Lanigan 1:12:09
Kathleen Horgan 1:12:30
Peter Knaggs 1:12:44
Aoife O’Leary 1:13:29
Neil Purdy 1:13:50
Philip Kerr 1:14:44
Noel Lynam 1:15:11
Thomas Kinsella 1:16:50
Ann Higgins 1:19:41
Peter Duggan 1:22:55
Anne Belton 1:25:35
Siun Tobin 1:29:37
Declan Horgan 1:34:31
Kathryn Potterton 1:36:55