And so to Clonakilty, or as it is more popularly known, the Land of Pudding. I’ve been training for the Berlin Marathon and with a few weeks to go now I was looking for a shorter race to give the legs a blast without the longer post race recovery time required of a longer race. This 4 Mile race on the 26th of August organised by the Clonakilty Road Runners gave me the opportunity to do this and also visit home.
(Above: Yeah, that is a to scale statue of an elephant in a field)
The route of the race is scenic and takes in the two estuaries on either side of the Inchydoney peninsula. The first two miles are as flat as you’ll get in Ireland as you traipse around the seashore. Thereafter the work begins as you negotiate a challenging hill that brings you back into the town. The last kilometre is on a steady downhill so the finish is nice and fast.
(Above: Aerial plan of the race route)
Before the race we were all to assemble at the Model Railway Village. Definitely one of the unusual and memorable tourist attractions. Basically, people have made scale models of the old towns in Cork that the railways used to visit and these little trains drive around and stop at the different stations. Probably needs to be seen to be believed.
(Above: Photograph of the model of Clonakilty Town. There are less livestock in the streets these days.)
A mass warm up had been arranged for everyone in the car park. Mind you it was 20c that morning and 90% humidity to boot.
It was great watching so many people doing the warm up together early in the morning with the tunes blasting. From here we were sheparded to the start line just before the start time.
(Above: One very eager beaver)
The race began and not too long after it came to me that doing the Parkrun the day before hand wasn’t a wise move if I wanted to release the lion within. I quickly came to terms with having to leave the lion indoors for another day and pushed on as best I could.
(Above: Here I am at about mile 2 looking like I’m totally loving it. It was literally all uphill from here, but no photographic evidence exists of that, thankfully.)
It was lovely doing the race on roads I was very familiar with and atmosphere there was buoyant. Although I have ran the distance faster in the past I finished in 5th place which I was chuffed about.
The post race spread was totally class. All home baked or made. I dutifully ate my fill 🙂
(Above: Myself at one of the cake tables in the new sportsworld blue away singlet … ahem.)
Although I had a great experience here it would have been worth doing the race for the tshirt alone.
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