Tipperary002

Preview of the Faugheen 5k road race...

Directions.......Faugheen is a very small village located to the north of the town of Carrick-on-Suir in S.Tipperary. It is located less than a mile off the R697 road which goes from Carrick-on-Suir to Kilkenny.

If you arrive in Carrick-on-Suir then follow the N24 road. In the centre of the town at the Garda station, take the R697 north. This will be signposted for Kilmaganny.

Keep the park on your right hand side. You then need to take the left at this junction below. Again, it's signposted for Kilmaganny.

From the junction above, it's 3.3 miles / 5.3 kms to the tun off for Faugheen. Look for the left hand turn which is on a wide sweeping bend to the right...

From here, it's about 1 km to Faugheen. Follow the directions for parking.

Course Preview....The race route is in the shape of a triangle. This is the same route as used by the famous Faugheen 50 Motor bike circuit...

As you can see from the map above, it's basically 1.5 loops of a circuit which is just over two miles in length. The start line is located about 0.9 miles from the village itself, ideal as part of the warm up for the race itself.

The race starts on a narrow country road...

Within 200 metres, you turn left on to the road head back towards the village...

One aspect of this course is that any hills that are present are very short and are very minor. This is the view as you approach Faugheen...

At the junction near the church, you take a left first time around. This is about the 0.9 mile mark. When you come to this junction for the second time, it will be just after the 3 mile mark and you'll be turning right towards the finish line.

Around the one mile mark at the western end of the village...a long straight road ahead...

At the end of the straight stretch at about 1.5 miles, you take a left on to a narrow road...

Pretty soon, you encounter another 'hill' if you could call it that. As you can see from the photo below, it's a small drag about 100 metres long....a very minor affair.

On the other side, the road opens up again for a long straight flat section. You're roughly at about the 1.7 mile mark here.

From there, you run back through where the race started and then back towards the village again. Right at the junction shown earlier and the finish line is near Flemings pub...

Overall.......It should be a very fast course. Any hills are very small and there is plenty of gradual downhill running to make up for any time lost. Nice 5k race on quiet country roads.