Glenariff Preview

This Saturday the hill running action moves north to Waterfoot for the Glenariff Mountain Race. This is also known as the Potato race as every runner receives a bag of spuds from the sponsor – Glens Of Antrim Potatoes.  Forget your technical tees, good form was built on a feed of spuds.  This is the first race in this years NIMRA Grand Prix series.

Alan Bogle first off the hill and first over the line last year

The Parcours

The race is 9.4km with 362 climbing.  You start by stampeding down the Garron Road in Waterfoot before turning into some muddy fields and lanes.  This short diversion leads onto the flat grassy Glenariff River path which twists for the guts of 2 miles.  After skipping over a couple of stiles you arrive at the main course; the climb up the side of the glen.  The 1 mile order imitrex 25mg climb starts in a mucky, too much livestock field, over a stony lane and onto reasonably runnable Glens Of Antrim hill material. At the top a longer line from the cairn takes you down to meet the oncoming runners and it is flat out from here to home.  Check the strava.

A view down the glen

The Form

For the ‘amateur’ runner this can be a tough race to judge.  How hard can you run on the long flat lead into the climb and not cook when climbing?  If anyone knows the recipe please post it to me.  As for the sharp end, the smart money is probably going on last years winner, Alan Bogle, or local boy Jonny Steede who may be out to prove a point after the mayhem on Gullion last week.

For further details see here.