Waterford002

Preview of the Butlerstown 10k road race....

The Butlerstown 10 km road race takes place just to the west of Waterford City.

This race is just off the N25 Cork/Dungarvan/Waterford road. If you are coming from the west then you can turn off at the roundabout on the N25 and follow the directions for Kilmeaden.

Stay on the R680 road and drive towards Waterford on what was the old Cork road. After a few kms, you will come to the Holy Cross Bar....

Parking is available behind the bar or at the Butlerstown GAA grounds which is only 200 metres away up the road to the left of the bar.

The race course itself is basically in the shape of a square with each side roughly half a mile or 800 metres in length. To complete 10 kms, you will have to complete just over three loops. The start and finish is on the western part of the loop. This is a nice quiet road which has a very gentle slope from north to south.

The southern leg is inside a hard shoulder and is a gradual uphill to the roundabout. The eastern leg is on a footpath alongside the ring road and is a gradual downhill. The northern leg is by far the hardest. As you can see, it's named as Oliver's Hill for a reason! ;o) The is a good pull uphill for about the first 500 metres and you have to do this three times. It's the only really serious hill in the course.

Profile...

Now for a closer look at the loop...

The start line is about 400m up the road from the GAA grounds. As you can see below, it's narrow but the run back towards the Holy Cross Bar is a very gradual downhill...

At about 400m, you run past the GAA grounds for the first two laps and you finish near the grounds on the last lap...

On towards the T-junction ahead and then left at the Holy Cross Bar...

You can see in the distance that the road rises. It's pretty flat at first and then rises slowly until you come to the first roundabout at about 0.85 miles...

It's left here and most people here run on the wide footpath. Note that the road is not closed and may well have a fair degree of traffic on it. As you can see below, there is a gradual fall in ground ahead as you go through the one mile mark...

The downhill section lasts until the next roundabout at 1.3 miles and then it's left...

Initially it's flat but very soon, the road rises as you can see below...

As you get closer, the going gets harder...

This tough section lasts for about 400m and then levels off around 1.7 miles. At 1.8 miles, you come to the next junction and then it's left....

 Once around the corner, it straight and slightly downhill to the start line...

....and that's the end of lap 1. Two more loops and finish near the GAA grounds....10 kms in total.