Location....Glanmire is located just to the north-east of Cork City. Getting there is pretty east. Follow the signposts for Glanmire from Tivoli and the Dunkettle Roundabout. Alternatively, take exit 18 on the M8 motorway.
Race HQ is at the Glanmire GAA grounds. This is alongside the main road through Glanmire and Sallybrook...
Course map...
Course Profile...
Course description...The race starts just up the road from the GAA grounds...
...and then runs down past it....
As you can see from the photo,the course is practically dead flat. After about 500-600m, you come to a junction where the race will finish later...
The course continues flat and at the next crossroads around the 1km mark, you turn off left...
The road narrows now as it crosses a small bridge but coming after 1km of running, the field will be well spread out by then...
Just before the 1 mile mark, you pass Sarsfield Hurling Club...
....a very fast opening mile.
The road now continues relatively flat until there is a short climb up to the next T-junction at 1.3 miles....
At the T-junction, you turn right and the course now is relatively flat again. As can be seen from the arrows, the is where the race returns later...
The road goes slightly uphill and at 1.5 miles, you run under the M8 motorway...
Just on the other side, you come to the road junction where the loop to the east starts...
The road continues to climb at a gradual pace until you turn off left at around the 2 mile mark and start the hardest part of the course...a hill about 300m long...
At the top of the hill, you turn left and head for home...
The hardest part of the course is more or less immediately followed by the fastest part. The road begins to drop away resulting in plenty of fast running for the next 800m...
At 2.9 miles, you complete the loop as you turn right at the junction...
From here, the course continues slightly downhill...under the M8....through the 3 mile mark....until the 3.1 mark where the road rises after the junction where you ran out of earlier...
The road flattens out when you reach a roundabout at about 3.3 miles where you stay left...
The road drops away until you pass a school where you have the last hill ahead...a gradual climb about 400m long...
At 3.6 miles, no sooner have you reached the top when you begin the long downhill run all the way to the finish line...
Overall..... Just off the M8. Possibly not the fastest of 4 mile courses but there is only one real hill of note. Some nice fast downhill sections as well. A mainly urban course. Only a few miles from Cork City and easy to get to for a lot of runners.
