10 Things I Think About The Eyeries 5 Mile 2026

1. West Cork Grand Prix

I think that the best thing about doing the Eyeries 5 mile is the drive down to West Cork. They are magical roads, roads which for some reason have no line painted in the middle despite being N roads. The drivers are different down there, almost Italian, on the drive down to Eyeries this time we were stuck behind a slow moving vehicle in a big queue until the Y junction for Dunmanway or Keakill, the slow vehicle went for Dunmanway which meant that all the cars heading to Keakill were released like in the Formula 1 once the safety car pulls off. We were left behind like a Minardi arriving in Eyeries a little behind schedule.

2. Express Lane and Mobile Number Delivery

I think that the service in Eyeries is top class. On arrival in the picturesque town on the fine sunny day we were greeted by Mark Gallagher in his red Beara A.C hoody. He directed us up to the car park, met us there and using his phone and the excellent Popupraces app registered me for the race and gave me my number there and then. It was an impressive service, a service that most races would and should charge extra for. They would in America.

3. Anyone But Mark Walsh

I think that as I was receiving my number from the mobile express service it was horrifying to see Mark Walsh walk by. I was hoping that he would have had enough last year but no he was back for more glory. To make it worse I had given him an extremely bad beating in the Cork County Senior XC so I knew he was out to absolutely destroy me. Despite the pending enmity we did a nice warm up doing the last mile of the race in reverse. We didn’t really talk about who was going to win as that was obvious.

4. Astigmatism

I think that there is a gap in the market for sunglasses for the sun in West Cork in November. It was a very sunny day in Eyeries, there were no clouds, even the water in Castletownbere was still, it was amazing. Unfortunatetly the sun was extremely low and very strong, my goodr sunglasses did nothing except make the glare dimmer. Perhaps it isn’t the sunglasses and is just my astigmatism. Anyway, I felt it was best to go without sunglasses for the race sacrificing the complete purple head to toe outfit.

5. Road Race Related Adrenal Insufficiency

I think that I should investigate why I can beat Mark Walsh very badly in a cross country race but can’t get anywhere near him in a road race of a near identical length. It makes no sense. I do think that if there was some sort of adrenaline meter, sort of like a lactate monitor I would measure way higher for a cross country race than in a road race. Once the race went off I just let Mark Walsh open a gap immediately, it was like my brain didn’t want to battle him. It was probably right; I should just be happy with my cross country races.

6. The Eternal Second

I think that I must be the road running equivalent to cycling’s Raymond Poulidor. Using my new favourite website splits.ie I could see that in 2026 before Eyeries I had finished in second place nine times. That is pretty good going. After one mile of the race in Eyeries it looked very much like number ten was on the cards. Mick Corbett had caught me on the little sharp hill before the turn onto the road by the school but I quickly dropped him again once the road flattened out. I was quite happy with second place as it meant €150 which is excellent.

7. Pathological Fear of Hills

I think that what happened on the hill in the second mile of the race was very scary. I thought I had Mick Corbett dropped but as soon as we began the ascent to the highest point on the course I could hear the red Puma Fast R3s of him approaching, then just before the summit he flew by at almost twice my speed and opened a gap. It seemed impossible how fast he was going up the hill. Luckily the summit arrived quickly and we began the descent.

8. Newton’s Second Law of Motion

I think that mile three and four of this race could be used to teach physics. I flew down the mile long descent with its winding roads like a running version of Tom Pidcock. It would have made an excellent video, the speed and bravery of my descent was something to behold. I opened a huge gap on Mick Corbett but the minute the road turned upwards again, significantly upwards at that, it took only one of the many small steep hills for him to appear on my shoulder again.

9. €50 Downhill Sprint

I think that I was very luckly that the last mile of the race is downhill. Mick Corbett was way stronger than me on the hills, I knew however that the last mile was my forte so I just waited and waited for the hills to end which they eventually did. Then I ran over the top of the last hill and ran as fast as I could down the hill into the village and around the final sweeping left hand bend into the finish. As I was sprinting down the hill I did wonder why? All this pain and misery and suffering for €50, it’s not like Mick Corbett is a great enemy like John Meade or Viv, he’s a very nice man. But I suppose if you can do it, you should do it.

10. Eyeried

I think that Eyeries is a special race. The course does things to your legs that not even a cross country race will do. There should be a scoring system on Strava that tells you how hard the race was based on how slow the warm down is. The race was so hard that Mick Corbett skipped the warm down leaving myself and Mark Walsh to jog along at 6 minute kilometres for five kilometres. Unfortunately, this meant we were late for the prizegiving in the hall which had to be rejigged to facilitate our legs which had been badly eyeried.