Munster League #1: Glengarra Wood Results and Report

Post date: Feb 12, 2013 12:12:5 AM

The 2013 Munster League got off to a fantastic start on Sunday in Glengarra Wood at the foothills of the Galtee Mountains. With in excess of 90 participants on the day there was plenty of competition on all the courses. The club was delighted to welcome several local families to the wood and are very grateful to the Avondhu Newspaper for publishing details of the event. We really hope you all enjoyed your woodland adventure and will come along to some of our other events in the near future. Despite the unpredictable weather of late we were very fortunate to experience a dry day. The only evidence of the heavy overnight rain was in the volume of water flowing in the river which runs the length of the map. The resulting audible surge was a clear indicator you were approaching the river and all the courses required competitors to traverse it a number of times. Thankfully there are nice bridges which made the crossings very easy! The forest has a vast network of paths and the old red sandstone on which the forest is situated was evident on many of them. Much of the runnable forest was interspersed with numerous areas of forest fight which mainly consisted of Rhododendron. Some folks risked taking direct routes through these areas and managed to successfully navigate a way through while others reported loosing valuable time getting tangled up in the Rhododnedron and being diverted off course. The planner incorporated plenty of route choice on all the courses and also took competitors close to some of the main attractions of the wood from the old hunting lodge to skirting around the perimeter of the Millenium forest. While the longer courses not only afforded competitors the challenge of some open mountain navigation but also offered some spectacular views of the surrounding Galtee Mountains. So who selected the most optimum routes on the day? Josh O’Sullivan Hourihan was very keen to get home in time to see the rugby match and as a result set a blistering pace on the brown course completing the 8.85km course in a time of 80:35. This gave him a winning margin of more than six minutes over second place finisher Brian Corbett 86:20. While Danny O’Hare just held off the challenge of Rob McEvoy to secure third place with a time of 92:17. Derek Conerey took the honours on the blue course finishing it with a time of 69:56. Not too far behind Derek was Sean Murphy who completed the course with a time of 71:32. Gerald Duffy took third place completing the 6.8km course in a time of 75:33

Liam O’Brien led the way on the 5.55km green course and completed it in just under the hour mark with a time of 59:06. Willie Fitzgerald was second with a time of 66:12 and Jim Callanan finished third with a time of 68:09. 

On the Light Green course Tim O’Sullivan was first completing the course in 49:50. Bernard Creedon was second with a time of 54:21 and Liz Deane took the final podium spot with at time of 61:19.

Swid Worms took the honours on the orange course completing the 3.17km course in just 24:48. A team effort from Justin Hayes & Aaron Hogg saw them achieve second place, finishing the course in exactly 27 minutes. Jacques Kinane from Midleton CBS took third place with a time of 32:41.

On the yellow course Ellie Mulqueen was first completing the 2.18km circuit with a time of 28:48. Aidan Marshall took second place with a time of 30:01 and David Burke was third with a time of 31:14.

Full individual results and splits are available here. The event has also been added to route gadget so please do upload or draw in your routes or simply check it out to see what challenges the other courses presented. 

Thanks to John Scannell for planning some great courses and organising a most enjoyable event. Thanks also to Robert O’Connor for helping put out and collect the controls, to Fiona O’Riordan for taking care of registration, to Brian Flannelly and Dave O’Donovan for handling the starts on the day and to Rob McEvoy and Gerald Duffy for assisting with control collection. All the help ensured everyone got to see some of the rugby match!

The next club event will be the fourth event in our Cork League and will take place on Sunday the 10th of March in Tir na Spuideoga. This area is classic west Cork open mountain terrain with an excellent map created for the 1996 Shamrock. It has lots of repeated ridges and well mapped small hills and is ideal terrain for getting some practise in ahead of this year’s Irish Champs.