Summer League #4: Regional Park Ballincollig Tuesday June 2nd Results and Report

The Regional Park Ballincollig was the destination for the fourth event in the CorkO Summer League and after a long weekend of atrocious weather the fine fresh conditions on Tuesday evening drew almost 100 eager orienteers to the park. The park has undergone numerous changes since our last visit with the addition of a new playground, basketball courts and wild flower meadows to name but a few of the alterations. It seems this wonderful amenity is now more popular than ever and orienteers added to the mix of runners, walkers, joggers and football players who were all active in the park on Tuesday night.The flat parkland terrain with its vast network of paths meant that the courses were very buggy friendly and it was great to see so many families in attendance and enjoying this landscape. The event started from the middle car park and the bright red club tent signalled the event registration. The tent survived some rather stormy conditions on Monday on the Sheep’s Head peninsula during the final day of the 19th Shamrock O-Ringen and its walls which took some hammering from the driving wind and rain on the day could be seen spread along the ground near registration in an effort to dry them off.Tuesday’s event saw a return to the old style manual punching and several of our old school participants opted to pin their control card to their clothes to allow for fastest punching and to prevent misplacing it on the course. The Long course began by taking competitors to the Eastern section of the map where they got to see several of the ruined building which once formed part of the Gunpowder factory. The leg from 6 to 7 required careful observation of the crossing points on the canal. The course then headed west along the banks of the canal.

The leg from control 13 to 14 required competitors to navigate around a high wall. Although I believe some competitors didn't spot this detail on the map and having taken the direct route to this control opted to scale the wall rather than squander precious time going round it. Many of the legs in the Western section of the map had competitors traversing the soccer pitches and the pleasant smell of freshly cut grass greeted competitors on these routes.

Throughout the course the running was fast and in places some nimble foot work was necessary to avoid tripping up on the many roots which encroached on the paths. Following all the hard running competitors got to enjoy some light refreshments while conducting their post run analysis with their rivals. For some their Bank Holiday weekend antics took its toll on their performance on Tuesday night while for others their long weekend activities inspired them to some outstanding achievements in Ballincollig.

Following his absence from the event last week Josh O’Sullivan-Hourihan continued where he left off in Currabinny and claimed his third Summer League event win on Tuesday night. Josh was representing Ireland in the steeplechase event at the Intervarsity International in Belfast at the weekend and he showed no signs of tiredness from this competition as he completed the 5km course in a time of 29:15. If Josh keeps this form up it will make it very difficult for any of the chasers in the field to deny him the title of 2015 Summer League Champion. Let us hope he has some long holidays planned for the summer to give the rest of us a chance!