This race is organised by Clonakilty Road Runner AC.
Location....Clonakilty is located some 40 kms to the south-west of Cork City...
Map of the start/finish area...The start and finish area is at the Model Railway Village on the road to Inchydoney...
Map of the course...
Course Profile...
Course description....The race starts in at the Model Railway Village on the edge of the town of Clonakilty...
...and heads south alongside the bay...
At 1.6 miles, you leave the road to Inchydoney and you turn right over the causeway...
At the far side at 1.9 miles, you come to a crossroads...
The course goes across the junction and onto a quiet country road. It remains more or less flat with one very short downhill section.
At 2.5 miles, you come to another crossroads. This is the start of the loop on the 10 mile course...
On the way out, you turn left. As you can see from the photo, on the way back you'll be running downhill to this junction and retracing your steps home.
You continue on a narrow country lane until you turn right into the uphill section around 3.7 miles...
This section is a gradual ascent of about 45 metres in height over about 1.5 miles. The steepest section tends to early on while the gradient becomes a lot gentler later on. As such, it's not really that bad and you shouldn't lost much time on it.
At 5.2 miles, you meet the road from Clonakilty to Rathbarry. If you are familiar with the Clonakilty Marathon route then you'll know that you have been running on it since the start. At this point, the marathon would proceed downhill towards Rathbarry. The 10 mile route however turns right and heads for home..
The road now continues to climb with about 20 metres in height gained over the next 0.8 miles until you reach the 6 mile mark, the highest point of the course...
Now for the fastest part of the course as it descends roughly 60 metres in height over the next 1.2 miles. It ends when you cross a stream at 7.2 miles and a short climb on the other side...
The climb is only about 200m long as no sooner have you reach the top of it when you beging the decent to the crossroads at 7.4 miles where you were earlier on in the race...
From here, you retrace your steps back to the finish line by the Model Railway Village.
Overall...Nice scenic course. About 2.3 miles of gradual climbing followed by 1.2 miles of descent. Possibly not the fastest of 10 mile courses but a lovely spot for a race.
