Skip to main content

A 1,500 metre swim on the upper lake in Glendalough, a 47km cycle out of the valley and up and around the Sally Gap, and to top it all off, a punishing 10km run hugging the hilly roads of the valley wall. Held on Saturday 13th September, that was the 7th running of Beast of the East, one of Ireland’s most challenging triathlons.

Organised by Wicklow Triathlon club and Dermot Hickey, their new race director, the team of volunteers ran a superb event. From the team that attended the registration nights at Base2Race in Ballymount and the Glendalough Hotel, to the army of volunteers that set up the transition stages and marshalling of the route, this was a triumph in organisational excellence and community spirit. Wicklow Triathlon club should be proud of their achievement and for Big Red Cloud, as sponsor, it is a privilege to work with such a well organised team as it makes our job on the day so much easier.

Beast of the East Top Three

For Big Red Cloud this was our 4th year as lead sponsor and we were as eager as the team at Wicklow Triathlon club to see how the new course would fare and how the participants would react. The reaction was positive, the weather on the day was magnificent and location for the event was ideal as the National Park was majestic and there is no doubt that we will see a sell out for Beast of the East in 2015.

Not forgetting the athletes that took part. Travelling from Liverpool and from all over Ireland they showed real mettle in taking on the Beast of the East. This was a challenging course as the swim is in a glacial lake and both the bike and run tackle the steep walls of the national park. All starters finished and achieved a great accolade in having ‘tamed the beast.’

Marc O'Dwyer

After completing a Graduate program in Marketing, Marc’s impressive sales career began at Allied Irish Banks, Pitney Bowes and Panasonic where he received numerous Irish and European sales performance awards and consistently exceeded targets and expectations. In 1992, Marc’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to set up his own business, Irish International Sales (IIS). Initially, this company was a reseller for Take 5 Accounts and Payroll software. Within four years, IIS became the largest reseller of Take 5 in Ireland, acquiring four other Take 5 resellers. He also found time to set up two mobile phone shops under the Cellular World brand and a web design company offering website design services for small businesses. In 2001, he bought the majority share in a small Irish software business, Big Red Book. At that time, the company was losing money. The company became profitable within two months, and Marc then acquired a payroll company to compliment Big Red Books Accounting products. In 2003, IIS were appointed as Channel Partners with SAP for their new SME product, SAP Business One. Marc sold his Take 5 business and concentrated on developing this new market for SAP As a result, by 2007, IIS was recognised as the largest Channel Partner for SAP in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa). In 2008, the IIS Sales Manager bought the Company from Marc in an MBO. He launched Big red cloud in June 2012, the online version of big red book, to date the company successfully converts 59% of trials into sales and the number of customers is growing rapidly. Marc continues to run both Big Red Book and Big Red Cloud which now support 75,000 businesses. He is a very keen sportsman, having played rugby for 20 years, represented Leinster at under 16 and under 20 levels, and league squash with Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club for 10 years. Marc has competed in 11 Marathons, including the London and Boston Marathons, and has completed several Triathlons and Half Ironman races. He has also completed six Ironman Races in Austria(x2), Frankfurt (Germany), Nice (France) , Mallorca (Spain) and Copenhagen (Denmark)

This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.