Records tumble at Eskragh Lough as Irish titles decided

ROY Castle used to say ‘if you want to be a record breaker, dedication is what you need’ and that mantra was proved at Eskragh Lough last weekend when the local Try Limits Triathlon Club hosted their most successful ever Try Tyrone event, which doubled up as the Irish Middle Distance Championship.

Extreme levels of dedication were on show, not only from the triathletes, who re-wrote the event’s record books on the day, but also by the organising club, whose members went above and beyond to ensure the race and day as a whole was one that participants will remember for years to come.

“This is the ninth year of Try Tyrone and it’s by far our best ever,” beamed race director, Mark Farquhar.

“It was our fastest race ever and we had our biggest field – it was a stacked field of athletes with a couple of pro athletes over from England and we knew they were going to raise the bar a bit. We had all our winners from last year, the best middle distance triathletes in Ireland and some local talent.

“It was an absolutely amazing day and I’d say it was our best event to date. But it’s so important to surround yourself with good people and there is a cohort of people there and they come with solutions, not problems.

“There were more people wanting to help this year, it’s all voluntary, so you have people taking days off work, losing day’s pay, people who are self-employed taking time off work to come and help – we have a good club set-up and those guys are just fantastic.”

For the first time ever, the top four men broke the four hour mark over the half Ironman distance of a 1900 metres swim, a 56 mile cycle and a half marathon run to finish and the top three smashed the previous course record, set in 2022, with winner, Malachi Cashmore taking a whopping seven minutes off that mark in a stunning time of three hours and 51 seconds.

Hailing from England, it meant that Cashmore couldn’t claim the Irish title on the day, which meant runner-up, David Higgins took the national crown in three hours 52 minutes, with Tyrone athlete, Dunamanagh’s Adam Ward third overall and second in Ireland in three hours 57, while fourth placed Matthew Kinkaid took home Irish Championship bronze in three hours and 59 minutes.

“Malachi was first out of the water, he broke the swim record, which meant he was about three minutes up on Dave, who won it last year, and he and Adam had to bike really hard, which meant they stormed the bike course,” Farquhar observed.

“They were only 40 seconds off Brian McCrystal’s bike course record from 2018, so we had four men under four hours, which is phenomenal. Large European races don’t tend to have that many men under four hours and the top three all beat the male record.”

It wasn’t only the men, who tore up the Try Tyrone record books, so too did the women, with Becky Woods taking six minutes off the previous best time, also set in 2022.

She completed the course in four hours 23 minutes, two minutes ahead of Aisling Wyer, with Aoibh Clarke third, just 25 seconds off the silver medal spot as all three went under the four hour 30 mark – another new achievement at the local race.

“The top three females all broke the previous female record,” Farquhar beamed. “The previous record was a phenomenal record so for that to be beaten and the men’s record too, is phenomenal.”

After such a successful day of action, Farquhar and his team will take a short break before turning their attentions to next year’s event, which will be the 10th Try Tyrone as they bid to make the race even better than ever.

“We were even looking [at next year on the day of this year’s event] because you have to look at how you can improve things,” Mark added.

“For example, our transition guy was taking notes on how we can improve that for next year and we had the best finish line experience ever, but the finish line guys were taking notes on how to improve that next year, so they’re already talking about the lay-out and structure.

“We’ll have a debrief after we decompress because you need to take a step away and take a break after a day like that.”