Races in Cork over the Easter period........
There are no shortage of road races in Cork over the Easter weekend with 3 races on offer. If you are prepared to travel then there are at least 8 races in the Munster region. For these, check out the Running in Munster website.

Sunday 4th Apr......
The main event this weekend is of course the 4 mile road race in Belgooly to the south of Cork city. This race usually takes place on St.Stephens Day over the Christmas period but had to be cancelled last year due to ice. Perhaps it justs goes to show how vibrant the local running scene is when you consider the fact that it took until April to find a free Sunday that did not clash with any other local or championship race.

Here is the info from the flyer......

Run, Jog or Walk

The Annual Dick Copithorne 4 Mile Road Race

Easter Sunday - April 4th 2010- 12 noon

promoted by Belgooly A.C.

Entry fee €10.00 - 50% of the entry will be donated to the Bowel Cancer Treatment Fund at C.U.H.

Entries taken at Belgooly G.A.A. Grounds from 9.30 a.m. to 11.45 a.m.

Start and finish in Belgooly

Open to all athletes, joggers, fun runners and walkers.

Details and entry forms available from Rose @ 086-8411193 or John @ 086-1713500

Getting there.......the race starts and finishes in the village of Belgooly which is on the main Cork to Kinsale road. The sign on is in the local GAA hall which is shown as a Red X on the map above. The start is about 400m from the GAA hall.

Route......the race starts on the main road and you run back towards Cork City. With the exception of a small hill just after the start, the first 2 miles are pretty flat. Please note that this is a very busy road. It's very likely that they will want all runners to stay on the left hand side of the road as there will probably be a lot of traffic heading from Cork City towards Kinsale at that time of the day.

After 2 miles, you take a sharp left and then there are some hills for the next 1.25 miles. The last 1km or so is more or less flat or downhill into the finish.

Usually this race attracts a very large crowd on St.Stephens Day. Will it be as large on Easter Sunday? I'd kind of suspect that the numbers might be down but there should still be a big turnout.

Remember.......big turnout = big queues registering........get there early to get easy parking and avoid the hassle.

In the next post, I'll look at what is happening on Easter Monday.