A total of 399 runners turned out for the first running of the John Treacy 10 Mile Classic road race in Villerstown, West Waterford on Sunday, the 17th of May. The rain threatened for a while but held off so that it was more or less dry for the duration of the race. Course.....It turned out to be a tough enough course although not as bad as I thought it might be. The 1st mile was a slow but steady uphill ascent as predicted. The 2nd mile seemed more or less flat so if it was uphill, it wasn't really noticeable. The 3rd mile was more or less a steady downhill so it was pretty fast. After that, it was reasonably flat until we got near the 8 mile mark and a good steady climb. The last mile was more or less downhill with a fast finish. Overall, tough, a good challenge and I'd guess probably not the fastest of 10 mile courses.
Besides the 'undulations', the route was on nice quiet rural country roads with little or no traffic. And what about the 'Dromana Gate' (shown below). What a dramatic feature to pop out of nowhere during a road race. 
Comparing it to the other 10 mile races in Munster, it was on a par with any of them and no doubt will become a popular race on the annual fixtures list.
Room for improvement???......some suggestions...
a) Improve the signposting for the race. I heard that a few people had trouble finding Villierstown as there seems to be a lack of signposts out on the main rain road for it. On the way home, I noticed a 'blue' arrow in the village of Clashmore........was this for the race?? Perhaps it might make more sense to direct the race traffic towards Aglish and then from there, have stewards directing cars towards the car parks?
b) Delay the start of the 5k fun run. Most people are there for the 10 mile race, not the fun run. It seems a bit crazy to have slower runners at the start of the 10 mile race making way for the 5 k runners.
c) Get rid of the generators at the start. Way too much noise, especially if someone is trying to make an announcement. It's not exactly in the middle of nowhere....maybe an extension lead into someones house might make more sense?
d) More sandwiches!!........and more West Waterford ' Taaay ' ;o)
Other suggestions??? Why not leave a comment here? Click on the Comment link.
Results.......the results are now available HERE.
Photos........there are a set of 92 photos available HERE.
5 comments:
Hi John,
really enjoyed this race and will be back next year.One comment would be on the water stations, felt the one at 8 mile was too late, was parched by the time I got to it after the hill on 8th mile. Maybe if it was to be moved to 7 mile / 6.5mile mark.
Kevin
I agree with all your suggestions. But I felt that the water stations were too far apart. There should have been another at about mile 5 or 6. But all in all it was well run.
One other point about the chip timing. Why was there no mat at the start line to get your true finishing time for the race.
Regarding the mat....I think if you look at the photo at the top, you notice the black frame which I think they used to pick up the chips at the finish. We all ran through a similar frame at the start rather than over the usual mats.
This was a great race.
The weather was a concern, but thankfully it held off for the entire race.
As for water, there were two water stations in this race. I felt myself that this was sufficient.
It wasn't a particularly hot day.
I only stopped at the first one.
Any one who went to Ron Hill's talk the night before the Ballycotton 10, would have heard, that "in the good old days", in the 1960s when Ron was at his peak, the UK Athletics body would not allow *any* water whatsoever to an Athlete in a race, before reaching the 10 mile mark, and then only at 5 miles intervals.
Competitors could have been disqualified for accepting water from onlookers.
In all fairness, one could have as much to drink as you want before the race, and you got a bottle at the end.
Two water stations on course, averages out at water at 0, 3.3, 6.6 and 10 miles.
Three water stations equates to water at 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10 miles.
Perhaps people make the mistake of passing on the first one, thinking "I'm okay - I don't need it yet".
Then you really could feel parched by 8 miles, if you had little to drink before the race.
The CHIP timing in use at Villierstown is the same as successfully used in the recent Waterford-Tramore 7.5 race.
http://www.dag-system.com/
Perhaps the system with mats suffers more wear and tear ?
My own stopwatch finish time, starting from the sound of the air-horn was within a second of the official results. But my start position was only about 10m back from those poles. It’s not like Ballycotton, where the people at the back take two minutes to reach the start – and they’re still walking ;)
I'm sure some reader could give us the "official" AAI / EAA / IAAF position on timing.
One concern I had with the start, was the rather narrow road, and the fact that the road had not been cleared of cars parked outside people's houses.
They can manage to clear the roads in Ballycotton, where there are no driveways, and far far more entrants.
Perhaps they could address this next year, and get an ESB feed from a house or a pole, or move that generator in a driveway.
Once we had left Villierstown, the roads were pretty much clear, and fully supervised by Gardai and Race Marshalls at all junctions.
Those brown contour lines on the official course map had me worried, but we seemed to go around the fringes.
I'm sure a lot of people must have got a surprise when they reached 9 miles and heard the loudspeakers in the distance, and thought the markers must be wrong. Little did they know that they had to take a half-mile detour towards the river before reaching the finish line ;)
As for the refreshments, I seemed to queue forever, only to find there was pretty much nothing left!
I'd highly recommend this race to all, if it's staged next year.
"Two water stations on course, averages out at water at 0, 3.3, 6.6 and 10 miles".
yes, thats what would have been nice to see in the race.instead they were at 0,3,8,10.
I wonder how many of the 399 runners stopped for water at the 3 mile mark.
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