Preview of the Castlemartyr 4 mile road race - Thurs 17th Apr (8pm) This race, the first evening road race on the calendar, always marks for me the start of the Summer. The temperatures might still be a bit on the nippy side but the evenings are really beginning to stretch out.
Registration...
If you have never done this race before, the thing to remember is that everything is centered around the main crossroads in the middle of the town of Castlemartyr in East Cork. To register, you need to go to the school which is about 50 metres away from this major junction (...marked as an X above). There is a limited amount of parking in the schools grounds.
Course...
It's a reasonably fast course so you should expect to get a reasonable time. The start is just North of the crossroads. Once the race begins, they hold the traffic on the main N25 road as we cross this very busy junction and head South towards Ladysbridge. We don't quiet make that village however as we take the first left onto a quiet country road. The running is easy along this section until just after the 2 mile mark when there is a short sharp climb followed by an equally short and sharp decent down to the road junction with the busy N25 road. From here, we run inside the wide hard shoulder all the ways into Castlemartyr.
Just one thing...the finish. You have to remember that it is NOT at the school. You have to go as far as that busy crossroads, take a left and the finish is just there.
Overall...
This race usually seems to get a big crowd. It's almost like a bit of a tradition at this stage...doing the first evening road race every year. But with an 8pm start, you'll see that they are just able to squeeze it in. By the time the last runners are finishing or you finish your warm down, the light will be rapidly vanishing.
If you want to have a closer look at the course, I have put it up on the MapMyRun website. Just zoom in and out to get your bearings.
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