2014 Beast of Ballyhoura - Ireland's longest AR

Enduro

shotgunmcos wrote: »

If you were given maps and as master map with CPs premarked for you to copy to your maps, why not just be given a marked map(s)?

Think of it from the organisers POV... they have enough to keep themselves busy as it is In international races if you get maps which have the CPs on them they would more than likely be pre-printed rather than pre-marked. I don't think the Beast's budget would stretch to a custom run of OS maps (Personally I'd prefer to mark the CPs myself rather than trust a volunteer to get all the CPs on my maps right if they were being hand-marked).

lgk

shotgunmcos wrote: »

If you were given maps and as master map with CPs premarked for you to copy to your maps, why not just be given a marked map(s)?

Along with Enduro said, it's also another element to the test, most orienteering events are run the same way, though at least with the Beast, you're not on the race clock while marking up maps. But how quickly you can mark up maps and decide on route choices, and how you plan and pack food and gear for the various stages determines how much rest/sleep you get prior to starting the race.

mossym

aye, used do a lot of orienteering when younger, you always had to copy down the maps yourself. i imagine for the beast though the checkpoints are large enough, so you'll spot them. for orienteering, finding the flag was as much down to the accuracy of those who marled up the original maps as it was your accuracy in taking them down

Causeway

The plan for 2014 event will be for us to have 1 or 2 sets of master maps which will be marked up by me, it's then over to you to copy them over to your set of maps.

Think the main reasons for me not marking them all up are covered above, think how long it would take me to mark up 25 sets of maps, plus some teams like to mark up the maps themselves, maybe adding other bits of info as they go.

shotgunmcos

Anyone up for Ballyhoura spin this weekend?

career_move

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Anyone up for Ballyhoura spin this weekend?

Yip - Saturday after 6pm or Sunday afternoon

sconhome

Update on Facebook:

Maps for this weeks Beast planning session, cut, ironed, taped together and laminated. (yes i did say ironed! New OSI maps come folded which can get a bit fiddlely to laminate on your own) Anyway total area at the moment is 50km x 90km or 90km x 50km depending on which way you look at it

buzzingnoise

mossym wrote: »

aye, used do a lot of orienteering when younger, you always had to copy down the maps yourself. i imagine for the beast though the checkpoints are large enough, so you'll spot them. for orienteering, finding the flag was as much down to the accuracy of those who marled up the original maps as it was your accuracy in taking them down

while you may imagine they are large, you would be wrong. they are often hidden in rocks, marked by approx 6 inches of red/white hazard tape or under a waterfall. in fairness they are accurate to the coordinates on the map but this gets pretty difficult after 24 hours!

Ivan, sir, you are a masochist!

Causeway

buzzingnoise wrote: »

Ivan, sir, you are a masochist!

In fairness if the control is on an OSI map we try to use something which is marked on the map but you may also have to use the route book which will give you more detail (so the control may be on a small tree) On the map the control will be marked as a forest track junction, which should be big enough to find, in the route book it will be Track Junction/On Small Tree 5m NW, get your team working well together and it all becomes easier, nav to the track junction, have another team mate reading the route book, he/she tells you it's on a small tree 5 meters North West of the Track Junction and it should be on said small tree, now you might be in a forest but all the other trees will be big so that should help as well as does the little bit of red and white tape.

Controls on orienteering maps may be slightly more tricky to get but then you have more detail on the map

BTW we're now down to the last few places, 10 spots left but at least 6 of them I can almost account for as being taken.

shotgunmcos

http://vimeo.com/92941214
12 weeks to go...

Update on Team Tri harder

Our honorary hoochie career_move had an off road win at the weekend!

Nerraw111 is back from injury and running again, woop!

AKW is logging some bike kms

I snap into a 10 week block of beastly training after a dip in a lake in london

nerraw1111

12 weeks. Shudder.

I had my first Beast nightmare the other day. Couldn't run or read a map. Actually, that wasn't a dream

shotgunmcos

Any interest in a long MTB spin Saturday?

career_move

.....preceded by an 11.3k progression run

Dilbert75

career_move wrote: »

.....preceded by an 11.3k progression run

Huh huh - now you're measuring your runs in km...

shotgunmcos

Dilbert75 wrote: »

Huh huh - now you're measuring your runs in km...

That's how we roll over here in the cool forum :P

Dilbert75

shotgunmcos wrote: »

That's how we roll over here in the cool forum :P

The cool forum is where I'm found these days - but just recently:

career_move wrote: »

Ha I reckon I'm safe enough as long as I keep measuring in miles

career_move

Dilbert75 wrote: »

Huh huh - now you're measuring your runs in km...

When in Rome, one must do as the pesky Romans do

sconhome

career_move wrote: »

When in Rome, one must do as the pesky Romans do

Damm Romans! Mesaure everything in km's but built English roads in miles :rolleyes::rolleyes:

All their fault

shotgunmcos

Ballyhoura trail spin Saturday anyone? Kayne & Kim welcome back too...

career_move

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Ballyhoura trail spin Saturday anyone? Kayne & Kim welcome back too...

I'm busy Sat unfort

career_move

Training not going so well for me for the last few weeks. Back running today though and things are looking a bit better. Hopefully AKW and Shotgunmcos make it home in one piece from this weekends 24 hour race and we can organise some badly needed group training days

Struggling with my nutrition plan at the moment. Made these and these on Sunday. I used prunes, raisins and cranberries in the fruit and nut bars but I don't like dried fruit of any description really so although I ate one, I didn't like it much. I'm just wondering though should I just make myself eat them because they're nutritious and convenient (like gels in a marathon). The granola bars were pretty good. I used dark chocolate to take the edge off the sweetness of the honey + syrup and they taste nice so I think I'll bring a few of them. I found this which has some good ideas for homemade sports drinks that I'll more than likely use but other than I'm not too sure what would be easy to carry and appetising.

lgk

career_move wrote: »

...but other than I'm not too sure what would be easy to carry and appetising.

You may get to a point where nothing is appetising! Make sure you have a mix of foods that work, and try not to over do anything. When you find something that really works, try avoid it too much in training, so you're not sick of it when you need it.

You'll probably find all your team mates pack different stuff as well, so share it out to get lots of variety.

I generally pack a few medical grade food supplements for the kit box. They're a great way of getting balanced nutrients into the body in a format that's relatively easy to take.

Enduro

^^^^ What he said! Multi-day racing is much more about what you can eat as opposed to what you should eat. Personally I find that "real" food is the ideal, so as close to that as possible. Power bars etc are just gack. Gels are for emergencies only.

If you're well fat-adapted you need very little food during an AR. I always end up transporting food around the place and not using much of it (But I'd still rather have some with me, just in case).

But the key thing is to have something that you will definitely like, and preferably have some variety. Definitely not loads of sugary things, as you won't be long rejecting sweet tastiing things if you do that.

lgk

For anyone thinking of entering who hasn't seen this yet, more details than usual have been released about the minimum course. Looking like more paddling and less running than usual on the mandatory course anyway.


Start Short Foot Orienteering 1km
Section 1.1 Kayak 20km
Section 1.2 Swim 600m
Section 1.3 Foot Orienteering 11km
Section 1.4 Kayak 13km

TA1 Kit/Bike Boxes

Section 2.1 Mountain Bike 50km
Section 2.2 Water Based Task 3.5km
Section 2.3 Mountain Bike 38km
Section 2.4 Foot Based Task 1km-5km
Section 2.5 Mountain Bike 28km

TA2 Kit Boxes

Section 3.1 Kayak 20km
Section 3.2 Foot Orienteering 25km

TA3 Kit Boxes

Section 4.1 Mountain Bike 27km
Section 4.2 Foot Orienteering 5km
Section 4.3 Mountain Bike 20km
Finish

sconhome

:eek::eek:

This weekend it all falls into place, or so we think. Lots of recce work to be done and many kilometres to be covered. The parachute trials should be fun.

Hoping this is a windup on the BoB facebook page.

career move

Two week countdown begins ....... dum, dum, dum

lgk

AKW wrote: »

Hoping this is a windup on the BoB facebook page.

I'm reliably informed it is.

Causeway

lgk wrote: »

I'm reliably informed it is.

What makes you so sure, did you not see the picture we posted from last week

Excuseless

Good luck to all heading to tackle the Beast this weekend.

28 teams including 7 overseas entries so biggest and best line up yet so good job with the promo Causeway and those at Ballyhoura Country.

No doubt some of the foreign teams will be using it as prep for the European championships which the Beast is hosting in 2015.

See ye down there for 40 odd hours of "fun" :eek:

pgibbo

Best of luck folks. I'm looking forward to meeting AKW next week for an update!!! :cool:

lgk

Excuseless wrote: »

See ye down there for 40 odd hours of "fun" :eek:

Only 40? Don't forget the party!

sconhome

pgibbo wrote: »

Best of luck folks. I'm looking forward to meeting AKW next week for an update!!! :cool:

I'm going to have to start drafting a race report now and fill in the blanks next week otherwise it'll be like War & Peace!!

shotgunmcos

Boards team taking on the Beast
Team #26 Team Tri Harder
Nerraw111, shotgunmcos, AKW, career_move

Tracking here http://www.beastofballyhoura.com/live/

Gulp 😨

Edit: Bus leaves at midnight to start location and race kicks off at 2am!

sconhome

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Boards team taking on the Beast
Team #26 Team Tri Harder
Nerraw111, shotgunmcos, AKW, career_move

Tracking here http://www.beastofballyhoura.com/live/

Gulp 😨

Edit: Bus leaves at midnight to start location and race kicks off at 2am!

Best of luck guys!!!







Oh Sh1t, I'm part of it!! :eek: :eek:

ThisRegard

Best of luck guys, should be fun !

Oryx

I will be tracking you guys keenly. Go tame the beast!

RacoonQueen

Best of luck guys

mossym

either the trackers are wrong, or i should be able to see them out my window as they are coming down lough derg? that's a long way from ballyhoura

Oryx

mossym wrote: »

either the trackers are wrong, or i should be able to see them out my window as they are coming down lough derg? that's a long way from ballyhoura

Team 25 seem to be over near the east coast.

mossym

Oryx wrote: »

Team 25 seem to be over near the east coast.

someone on team 25 has been watching spy movies and tied the tracker to the back of a passing car..:)

mossym

oiii AKW, MCOS, get out of my back garden

they're pretty much in it.

this was taken last night, they look like sleep depraved lunatics already..:)



actually, solobally, look out your back window, they are probably climbing your back wall

Oryx

They look like they belong in a monty python sketch. That's Eric Idle there at the end.

ThisRegard

Very early days but they're in a decent position, currently 7th.

Edit, 1st place momentarily anyway.

Dory Dory

Which one is AKW?? (my gut tells me next to shotgun....??)

Go Team #26!!!! Lucky #26!!!

BTH

Dory Dory wrote: »

Which one is AKW?? (my gut tells me next to shotgun....??)

Go Team #26!!!! Lucky #26!!!

No, that's a girl. AKW is on the right.

Dory Dory

^^^ BTH....speaking purely from a girl's point of view, you might want to edit that a little otherwise you could find a pink boot up your skinny bum at approximately 18:00 tomorrow.

BTH

Dory Dory wrote: »

^^^ BTH....speaking purely from a girl's point of view, you might want to edit that a little otherwise you could find a pink boot up your skinny bum at approximately 18:00 tomorrow.

Sean got pink boots?

mossym

the guys are a bit back of the rest of the teams, hoping nothing is wrong and that they are still enjoying it

Solobally8

mossym wrote: »

actually, solobally, look out your back window, they are probably climbing your back wall

- I was up the walls yesterday but got a minute early on to check on the guys using the tracker. Bimbo moment - I said to my husband "there is something wrong with this tracker thing, it's showing up my location, not theirs" Took me a few minutes to realise that they were just down the road from me. Pity I didn't have time of I would have gone down to the lake to scream at them

Solobally8

Ok I just looked at the photos and I'm gobsmacked! I can't believe they had to cycle up to millennium hill! I find it hard to walk up there! Major kudos to everyone who did this. Mind blown!