Preview of the Cork BHAA 'EMC' 5km Road Race - Wed 9th of July (8pm)
The sign on for this race is at the Eire Og GAA grounds in Killumney, Ovens. Last year, they had an entry of 261 so going on recent numbers, I would expect that they should break the 300 mark? Looking at the weather forecast, it looks like the worst of the weather will have passed by Wednesday morning and there may be just showers in the evening time.

Directions...If you coming from the City, take the Ballincollig bypass. At the end of the bypass, you pass the EMC plant on your left, the road narrows and you then need to take the next left. You will see a pub at this junction ('Desmonds Bar'). About 800 metres later, you come to the village of Killumney with an old church straight ahead. Take the right here and the Eire Og grounds are on the right just up the road. There is usually plenty of parking inside the grounds. See the map below. The Red mark shows the finish where the GAA grounds are.

Entries...As per normal at BHAA races, there will be 2 queues, one for registered (€5) and one for non-registered runners (€7).

Course...The course is basically a one and a half lap loop. The start is 1 mile from the GAA grounds so you can use this as part of your warm up. Just follow everyone else and head for the start which is on the N22 Cork to Macroom road. Ok, it's not the nicest of starts with the heavy traffic but as soon as the race starts, you are back on to quiet roads again after a few hundred metres. When you do the 2nd loop, you will be using the hard shoulder which is fine as the crowd will have thinned out by then.
2 points to note......
1) The only hill / drag is near the road junction, just before the 1 and 3 mile mark. This is shown on the map as the point on the bottom left corner (South-West)
2) When you re-join the N22 near the pub (top right corner), the hard shoulder is very narrow here for about 100-200 metres and you need to be careful.
For a closer look at the course, check out the map at http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/ireland/cork/559313385

Race Flyers...If you want to see the flyer for this and other upcoming races, look in the right hand column of this page.