Some 56 brave contestants battled through four counties over the weekend in the formidable Beast of Ballyhoura race, LOUISE ROSEINGRAVE
THEY chased it across Munster. Up mountain ranges. Down raging rivers, through dense forest, across acres of uninhabited territory. The only thing guaranteed in a 36-hour endurance adventure race is that at some point, the athletes involved will face “the beast”. This means facing up to an inner loser, the part that wants to give up in a race in which entrants must transcend their physical limits.
This is no triathlon; a marathon doesn’t even come close. This is one of the toughest adventure races and endurance tests in the UK and Ireland. The Beast of Ballyhoura attracted 56 entrants this year, in 14 teams of four, who took on a circuit that included 200km of cycling, 25km of kayaking and 25km of trekking. Athletes set out at 5am and moved non-stop for between 34 to 40 hours, enduring searing muscle pain, hunger and levels of exhaustion that bring on the beastly hallucinations that give this event its title.
Participants go through a range of emotions, from exhilaration to despair. They eat soggy sandwiches that have been squashed at the bottom of rucksacks and beg locals for directions. Theirs is a world where reality is shelved for a day and a half in order to face the ultimate physical challenge.
Race director Greg Clarke is the brain behind the unmarked trail. Teams appoint a navigator, who is required to lead the team through the toughest terrain, across Cork, into Tipperary, on to Waterford and back via southeast Limerick, taking in two mountain ranges and 60km of purpose-built mountain- bike trails at Ballyhoura.
“This is a thinking man’s race,” says Clarke. “You are not just putting your head down and running, like in a marathon. You are constantly interacting with the map and your surroundings. So while it’s a physical challenge, there is also a mental aspect to it and that creates a buzz.”
He spent roughly two weeks trawling the countryside, exploring mountain terrain and trails to put together this year’s route, and then approached local farmers to gain permission to use their land. “I used the Knockmealdowns extensively this year. It’s just a stunning mountain range, there is so much beautiful scenery. This whole area is full of wee gems, it’s all about finding what is in your immediate area, but is off the beaten track. It becomes almost an obsession, to find something new and fantastic.”
The Beast begins at Blackwater Castle in Castletownroche. The 16 hectares of magnificent countryside sets the scene for the first test, an hour-long orienteering challenge, followed by a 25m abseil down the south face of the castle’s 15th-century tower, which began with a heart-stopping leap of faith from the battlements. Teams then kayaked down the River Blackwater, through Fermoy and into Kilworth. From here, participants biked into Kilsheskin Forest for another two hours of orienteering, before navigating the narrow and winding Avondhu Way across to the Knockmealdown Mountains on two wheels.
The first team to reach the scene of this year’s surprise challenge, archery, clocked in at 4.09pm. Darkness was falling as participants completed a five-hour hike, to pick up bikes in Waterford, from where they headed for Mitchelstown Cave. In a surreal twist, a fancy-dress party in full swing at 2am in Labbamolagga community centre greeted exhausted and bewildered team mates as they stopped for a food break. They then ran cross country until dawn, arriving at Ballyhoura mountain, where they faced a 60km section on the longest mountain bike trail in western Europe.
Teams faced a final hour of orienteering, before getting back on their bikes to pedal 20km back to Castletownroche, and crossing the finish line at Blackwater Castle.
Along 16 sections, teams clocked their times at 37 checkpoints. The winning team of Paul Mahon, Gerry Kingston, Bill Reid and Taryn McCoy crossed the line with a winning time of 30 hours and 57 minutes, which included bonuses. The actual time it took the team to complete the course was 35 hours.
“Physically, it is total fatigue,” says Sean Murray (42), from Blessington. “Cold sweats, lack of calories, your body eating into itself. It makes you want to cry. But you are normal for 363 days of the year. This is only two days, so why not push it?”
Marcus Geoghan, an IT worker from Dublin, described the low point as: “Misery. You go inside yourself, detach from reality and from your team-mates, and for a while you are moving like a robot, just following. But you come back out if it. The team will carry the person who needs to be carried, metaphorically speaking and physically, if needs be. Each team member will go through that at some point.” The result of pushing through that physical low is heightened stamina and increased mental ability.
Completing the race pervades every aspect of your life, according to competitor Richard Nunan (39), from Ballincollig in Cork. “It’s the best non-stop event in Ireland. It’s a super race. You are outdoors, way off the beaten track, and it’s a massive adrenalin rush.
“Your world becomes the race, you become completely immersed in it. You spend 36 hours with your team. You see the very worst and the very best in them.”
For Deirdre Ní Chállanáin, a mother of three from Schull, Co Cork, the experience was a love/hate relationship. She was starving, physically wrecked, and on a bike cycling somewhere in the north Cork hills at 4am when she “met the beast”, and promised herself she would never enter the race again.
On crossing the finish line, however, her despair had turned to exhilaration. “The pain fades fast after you cross the line. I think it’s like childbirth, pain wise. If it wasn’t worth it then you would never have more than one child,” she jokes.
Race creator Pádraig Casey of Ballyhoura Development says teamwork is the crucial element at every stage of this epic test. “It brings out the best in participants, mutually as a team. They carry weight for a weak member, or attach ropes and literally pull each other along. You are always only moving as fast as your slowest member.”
But it doesn’t matter what goes on during the race. Crossing the finish line injects a sense of elation that lasts for days. Participants are bruised, battered, torn and tortured, but they have huge smiles that scream success and stay on their faces for days to come.
