The annual Conna 5km road race organised by St.Catherines AC was held on Thursday the 30th of July 2015. The following report was written by Tim McCarthy…

Conna 5k – 30/07/15

With 3 local races in a row this week on offer, I took the 5k option in Conna because I haven’t done it before and it isn’t too far from my base in East Cork. You can get there in 25/30 mins from the Dunkettle roundabout, so it’s within easy reach for anyone travelling from the city.

Registration took place in the community centre and it cost €8 to enter. Here I got a glimpse of the mountains of cake and sandwiches that were waiting for me when I finished. Local club St.Catherine’s AC organised the race and 243 athletes took part in the main event and there was also a 5k walk that started at 6:30.

The start line was 200m from the community centre and it started on time at 8pm. The 1st mile takes you back past the community centre on the main road to Tallow and is relatively flat and fast. Just after the 1 mile mark we turned off the main road and started climbing on a quite country road that lasted until the 2nd mile mark. I heard from a few people before the start that you’d lose may be 30 seconds on the second mile. “It wasn’t too bad… they said …. It was very tough! :o)

There was a family handing out water halfway up it and they were very encouraging as we passed them…very slowly. Once we hit the 2 mile mark, it was a lovely downhill all the way to the finish line where loads of locals cheered us on.

If races are measured on the spread they put on afterwards, this race has to be right up there. Endless supplies of everything and they even had a gluten free table of food. The results were up on the wall by the time I finished my coffee, cake, sandwiches, biscuits, more sandwiches and more coffee :o)

My time was 20:05 and my mile splits were 6:03, 7:27 (192ft elevation gain) and 6:04. It’s certainly not a PB course but I love the community feel you get from these small local races and I would certainly recommend it and I’ll be making the trip north again to do it.

Results & Photos