Location........The village of Coolagown is located about 4 miles to the east of Fermoy in Co.Cork.
The easiest way to get there is to drive into the town of Fermoy and follow the N72 road which is signposted for Dungarvan and Waterford.
As you leave the town, you'll pass under the M8 motorway. The turn off for Coolagown is at a crossroads 3.6 miles or 5.7kms from this flyover.
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| M8 Flyover just east of Fermoy |
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| The turn off for Coolagown is clearly marked at a crossroads |
Course.....The course is basically a loop to the north-east of Coolagown...
Profile.....One hill but lots of downhill running...
Course description....The race start on the approach road to the north of Coolagown. From the off, there is a gradual descent......
After about 400m, you enter the village proper and continue the gradual descent past the church...
Way off in the distance, you can make out a small yellow dot which is the Farriers Pub.. This is also the finishing strait for the race so it's really fast....
At about 0.4 miles, you take a left at the Farriers Pub and the gradual descent continues...
Approaching the end of the straight section at about 0.6 miles. This is also the lowest part of the course. As you can see, the local Tidy Town's committee are very busy in the area improving the appearance of the village.
Around the corner, you begin a long straight section that is mostly flat...
At about the 1 mile mark, you come to the hardest part of the course. There is a two part hill. The first part is shown below.....
...it flattens out again and then climbs again to the hairpin bend where it meets the N72. In total, the two part climb is about 700m long and the ascent is about 35 metres.
You are now on the highest part of the course and you begin a gradual descent. At 1.6 miles, you pass Kilmagner National School...
The gradual descent continues and it levels off at 2.3 miles where you turn left at the crossroads...
...and head south towards Coolagown...
From here, it's a gradual descent......past the start line......past the church which is around the 3 mile mark......and then down the road to the finish line by Farriers Pub.
Overall......A 5km course with one serious hill to contend with. This however is slightly offset by the fact that the finish line is 10 metres lower in elevation that the start line. All of the climbing comes in a 700m long stretch whereas the downhill running is pretty much spread out over the rest of the course. Nice small tidy village.
