Fancy something long and hard?
Moire brings news of a couple of events to target in the Irish and Northern Irish ultra and off-road marathon scene in the coming weeks and months.
You could do worse than book yourself a holiday for the weekend of the 13th of June in the wonderful Mourne Mountains, as the Mourne Way Marathon is still open for entries up until the 31st of May.
The main event will see competitors race the 26 miles of the Mourne Way from Newcastle to Rostrevor, Co Down. This route is a linear route, almost entirely off road, traversing the foothills of the Mourne Mountains passing Tollymore Forest, Fofanny Dam, Spelga Dam, Leitrim Lodge and Yellow Water before arriving at the finish in Kilbroney Park in Rostrevor.
Full race details, including support events, here
August sees the Connemara 100 takes place on the west coast of Ireland, and that’s 100 miles, not km! The event website isn’t fully populated with the detail yet, however you can email the organisers and no doubt obtain all that you need for this ultra beast…
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Reactions so far
BStoran May 21, 03:14 PM
False advertising on behalf of the mourne “marathon”… It’s not a marathon its 26 miles not the needed 26.2 to be a marathon… and yes it does count!!!
Moire O'Sullivan May 21, 03:37 PM
Sorry about that there… but well spotted.
What about this for a compromise? Us Irish lads will run the 26 miles… anyone wanting to run the extra 200 metres is more than welcome.
Rowan McMahon May 26, 03:01 AM
I’m one of the organisers of the Mourne Way Marathon and would firstly like to thank Moire and Mud Sweat and Tears for placing the details of the event on the website.
In response to BStoran’s comment – The event will be exactly or as close to the 26.2 miles distance as we can possibly get. As you can see from the GPS log of the event we have a distance of 26.36 miles. The GPS log was established to give competitors a chance to have a full overview of the elevation gain / loss in the event and a facility where they could view the full route in Google Earth.
The difference between the “official” marathon distance and our event is currently 0.16 miles or 257.50 meters. We will be able to shorten the event by this amount on the day and no one will be left feeling that they have not completed the full 26.2 miles. They may have to run a few footsteps over the 26.2 but as the majority can probably appreciate it is quite difficult to get the distances to the exact metre in an event of this nature.
Entry for the event is closing on 31 May 2009 and we would urge anyone who is thinking of entering to get their entry in before this date as late entries cannot be accepted.
Cheers, Rowan