Blarney Half Marathon

Cartman78

Howdy all,

Just wondering if anyone out there has ran the Blarney Half Marathon before? Can't find any info on the course anywhere.

Have done halfs (halves?) in Achill and Wexford this year so hoping for a flatter course.

ClashCityRocker

Cartman78 wrote: »

Howdy all,

Just wondering if anyone out there has ran the Blarney Half Marathon before? Can't find any info on the course anywhere.

Have done halfs (halves?) in Achill and Wexford this year so hoping for a flatter course.

Avoid Blarney then! One of the hilliest races I've done. My time at Blarney last year was around five minutes slower than I did in the Dublin half a couple of weeks later, the hills would have been a significant (but not the only) factor.

That's not to say it's not an enjoyable race though.

RoyMcC

Rotten gits didn't say anything about hills when I was signing up. Better get running up Howth and Killiney again in preparation then

Surely to God it can't be hillier than Achill though

TFBubendorfer

It doesn't have hills as such - instead you're running uphill for the first half and downhill for the second.

Apart form a short, sharp uphill stretch just before the apex and a corresponding downhill one just afterwards it's not steep at all, just relentless. In fact, half of the downhill gradient is so gradual that I could have sworn every year that we were running on a level road.

I actually set my half-marathon PB on that course three years in a row. It's not as bad as it might just have sounded.

Cartman78

The hills in Achill nearly killed me alright - was well on target for a PB but blew up completely on the last hill. I did Achill a couple of years ago when the course was in the opposite direction - the hills were obviously less severe but the 3 mile straight stretch into a gale force head wind is still the most horrendous running experience of my life.

Blarney sounds ok -- doesn't sound like theres any Category 10 climbs a la Achill and the Tour de France

Condo131

Blarney is a tough enough course. It's more-or-less an 'out and back' course, with a loop in the middle. The course starts out slightly uphill and stays that way for most of the first 5 miles, then you have quite a tough drag for nearly 2 miles, after which you have a steepish downhill section, followed by going down the same drag you previously went up. Beware the road camber over a good deal of the course - stick out towards the centre of the road where appropriate!

Course Map is here.

eliwallach

The Blarney Half Marathon follows a "pan-handle" shaped course as shown on Condo's map above.
The organisers (St' Finbarr's AC) don't advertise the hills for obvious reasons, but from mile 2 to mile 7 is ALL uphill with varying degrees of gradient. It was (for me) energy sapping, I wasn't aware of the extent and the longevity of these hills. The running downhill was none too comfortable either.
It'a an unforgiving course, but what do I know; TFB seems to run it for fun....:rolleyes:.

At least you are fore-warned, and sometimes when a course is built-up to be a shocker, you can be quite happy with the course, having expected it to be worse.

Good luck.