HYROX Simulation Events in Northern Ireland: Where to Race, and What to Expect

Name: HQfit April Hyrox Sim
Start: 2026-04-19T07:30
End: 2026-04-19T16:00
Location: HQfit

Zolene Massage therapist, 15+ years of hands-on experience September 30, 2026 10 min read

Zolene holding a bottle of Muscle Mint outside HQfit gym in Bangor on the day of its HYROX simulation

By Zolene, Massage Therapist · Updated September 7, 2026

There is no official HYROX race in Northern Ireland. The nearest one is Dublin, and after that you are on a boat or a plane. What Northern Ireland does have is a quiet circuit of gym run simulation events, where a local gym builds the whole thing in a car park and a warehouse and lets you find out what your number would be. I a day last April working at one of them, HQfit's simulation in Bangor, and I have been recommending them to clients ever since.

No official HYROX race takes place in Northern Ireland. Dublin, in November, is the closest
Gym run simulations use the same eight stations and the same 8km of running
HQfit in Bangor runs them roughly every two months, with the next on 11 October 2026
Your simulation time is not an official HYROX time and does not count for qualification
The single most common first timer mistake is running the first kilometre far too fast

What Is a HYROX Simulation, and How Does It Differ From the Real Thing?

A simulation is a locally organised event that runs the full HYROX race format: eight kilometres of running, broken into eight one kilometre laps, each followed immediately by one of eight functional stations in a fixed order. A gym sets it up, times it, and gives you a finish time. It is the same work in the same order as an official race.

What differs is everything around it.

	Official HYROX race	Gym simulation
Venue	Arena, over three to five days	A gym, a yard and a road loop, in one day
The runs	A measured indoor course	Laps of a car park, a road loop, sometimes treadmills
Your time	Official, published, counts for age group qualification	Yours to keep, and nothing more than that
Judging	Trained judges on every station	Varies enormously. Ask the organiser
Field size	Thousands, in waves every ten minutes or so	Dozens, in small waves, because equipment is shared
Cost	Considerably more, plus travel and a hotel	Usually somewhere between fifty and ninety pounds

One thing worth being straight about. Sled times at a simulation are not comparable with an arena, because a sled on gym rubber or turf behaves nothing like a sled on event carpet. Your running lap is somebody's measurement of a road loop rather than a certified course. So treat a simulation time as a personal benchmark and a very good day out. Do not treat it as your HYROX time, and do not quote it as one, because people who race officially will know.

If you want the longer version of the format itself, I wrote about the eight stations and what each one does to you the next day after the Juice Jar full simulation in Belfast earlier this year.

Where Can You Do One in Northern Ireland?

More places than most people realise, and the listings are scattered across Eventbrite and gym social media rather than sitting anywhere central. That is the main reason this section exists.

Gym	Where	What we know
HQfit	73 Green Road, Bangor, BT19 7QA	The most regular of them. Ran simulations in April, June and August 2026, so roughly every two months. Next one 11 October 2026, and they sell out
Juice Jar with Gym Co	Newforge, Belfast	Ran a full simulation in June 2026 with singles and doubles categories
Rep Room	Craigavon	Has run simulations with individual start slots
Smart Gym	Lisnaskea	Has run simulations in small waves
Training Excellence	Bushmills	Has run a simulation event

Every one of those needs checking before you make plans, because a gym decides on a date and puts it on Eventbrite six weeks out. Search the gym's name plus HYROX on Eventbrite, or just message them. If you know of one that is missing from this list, tell us and we will add it.

Aerial view of HQfit gym in Bangor on the day of its HYROX simulation, with gazebos, a full car park and athletes outside — HQfit on the morning of the April simulation. The running loop goes out past the hedge on the right.

What if You Want an Official Race?

You travel. That is the honest answer for anyone based here.

Dublin is the obvious first one. HYROX comes to the RDS Simmonscourt in November 2026, roughly two hours from Belfast by car or train, no flights, no ferry, and you can do it in a long weekend. It is also the one that sells out first for exactly that reason, so if Dublin is your plan, watch for tickets going live rather than deciding in October.

After that you are looking at the British mainland. Birmingham and London both have dates in late 2026, and Manchester, Glasgow, London and Cardiff all appear on 2027 schedules that were still marked as expected rather than confirmed when I checked. Glasgow is the one worth knowing about if you would rather drive and take the ferry from Cairnryan than fly with a kit bag.

Check the official race finder before you commit to anything, because dates move.

The Format, Exactly: Stations, Distances and Weights

Eight runs of one kilometre. After each run, one station. Same eight stations, same order, every time. Here is the full thing with the loads from the 2026/27 singles rulebook.

#	Station	Distance	Women	Men / Women Pro	Men Pro
1	SkiErg	1,000 m	Same for all
2	Sled push	4 x 12.5 m	102 kg	152 kg	202 kg
3	Sled pull	4 x 12.5 m	78 kg	103 kg	153 kg
4	Burpee broad jumps	80 m	Same for all
5	Rowing	1,000 m	Same for all
6	Farmers carry	200 m	2 x 16 kg	2 x 24 kg	2 x 32 kg
7	Sandbag lunges	100 m	10 kg	20 kg	30 kg
8	Wall balls	100 reps	4 kg to 2.70 m	6 kg to 3.00 m	9 kg to 3.00 m

Two details people get wrong. The sled figures include the weight of the sled itself, so a men's push is 152kg in total and not 152kg loaded on top. And the wall ball target height changes by division as well as the ball weight, which catches people who have only ever thrown at their own gym's rig.

Doubles pairs share the station work and run together, using the loads of the matching singles division. Most local simulations offer singles and doubles, and the doubles categories tend to fill first, because it is a far friendlier way to do your first one.

Athletes performing wall balls inside HQfit gym during the HYROX simulation, with the rig and event banners behind them — Station eight, and the reason people talk about wall balls for a week afterwards.

What Goes Wrong at a First One

The rules tell you what the race is. They do not tell you how people come unstuck, and the pattern is remarkably consistent.

The first kilometre is where the race is lost. Fresh legs make your normal 5k pace feel comfortable, so you run it, and you pay for it somewhere around run five. Coaches generally suggest holding the first three runs fifteen to twenty seconds a kilometre slower than you think you should. It feels ridiculous at the time and it is the single most useful thing on this page.

The sled push is where people actually blow up. It arrives second, when you are still feeling strong, and it is the station most likely to turn a race into a survival exercise. The surface dictates the time more than your legs do, so push at a controlled effort rather than emptying yourself into it.

Nobody plans their wall balls. One hundred reps at the end of everything else. Going unbroken and failing at forty is much worse than planning five sets of twenty from the start. Depth and target no reps are the most common avoidable loss in the whole race.

You have probably never trained the transition. Most people train runs and stations separately, so race day is the first time they have ever run hard straight off a sled or a set of lunges. Compromised running is a specific skill, and it is worth two or three sessions before the event.

Grip goes before legs do. The sled pull, the farmers carry and the rower all draw on the same forearms, and there is nothing you can do about it on the day if you have not trained for it.

Zolene, your words needed here Two or three sentences on what you actually found when you got your hands on people at the finish. Which areas were tight, what people said, anything that surprised you. This is the part of the article nobody else could write, so it should be yours rather than mine.

What We Saw at HQfit in April

HQfit ran their April simulation on Sunday 19 April 2026, starting at half seven in the morning and running through to four in the afternoon. Ninety three athletes raced across five divisions: singles and doubles for men and women, plus mixed doubles. Muscle Mint sponsored the day, and I set up a table at the finish.

The gym sits out the Green Road outside Bangor, a black shed in the middle of fields with an Official HYROX Gym plaque on the wall inside. They put the stations in the warehouse and sent the runs out along the road, which meant the whole thing happened in weather, in April, in Northern Ireland. Nobody seemed to mind.

Athletes at the HQfit registration table collecting numbers before the HYROX simulation — Registration, before anybody knew what was coming.

The winning times give you a decent sense of the range on the day.

Division	Winner	Time
Men's singles	Connor Davis	1:01:04
Women's singles	Kirstyn Wylde	1:09:15
Men's doubles	John McConnell and Sam Murray	53:22
Women's doubles	Karen McConnell and Joni Rock	1:03:19
Mixed doubles	Michelle Ballagh and Mark Weaterall	1:00:23

Full results went out on HQfit's own channels. The spread ran from just over the hour to about an hour and a half, which is roughly what you would expect at a well run local simulation with a genuinely mixed field.

A pair of athletes beside the HQfit finish line screen showing their mixed doubles time, with an Official HYROX Gym sign on the wall behind — The finish screen, and the look of somebody who has just done a hundred wall balls.

We handed out 130 samples, which covered everyone racing with some left for the people running the day. I worked on six or eight athletes properly between waves. Plenty more just wanted to sit down for a minute, which is its own kind of useful.

An athlete sitting and laughing in the finish area at the HQfit HYROX simulation while Zolene works nearby — The finish area, which is where the day actually happens.

Zolene applying Muscle Mint to an athlete's calf at the finish area of the HQfit HYROX simulation

Forty five seconds of the day.

The next one is on Sunday 11 October 2026, at the same place, and HQfit have said it is the last simulation on their calendar for the year. They tend to go quickly. Their listings are on Eventbrite under HQfit, and their Facebook page is where announcements land first.

The Bit Afterwards That Nobody Plans For

People plan the race and forget the hour after it. You will be standing in a car park in Bangor in April, soaked, cooling down fast, with a two hour drive home and stairs waiting at the other end.

Bring warm dry clothes and put them on before you do anything else. Keep walking for ten minutes rather than sitting straight down. Eat something within the hour. And know that the second day is usually worse than the first, which surprises people every single time.

Muscle Mint 250ml soothing menthol cream bottle on a table at the HQfit event — What was on the table at the finish.

Muscle Mint is a peppermint and eucalyptus menthol cream in a sunflower oil base, made in Northern Ireland, UK. It creates a strong, temporary cooling tingle on the skin. It is what I was working with at the finish line, and what a lot of people took home in a sample. It will not change what tomorrow feels like. It is a decent full stop on a hard day, and worth having in the bag rather than discovering you want it at eleven that night.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a HYROX race in Northern Ireland?

No official HYROX race takes place in Northern Ireland. The nearest official race is Dublin, which comes to the RDS Simmonscourt in November 2026, roughly two hours from Belfast by car or train. What Northern Ireland does have is a circuit of gym run simulation events that use the full race format, including regular ones at HQfit in Bangor.

What is a HYROX simulation?

A simulation is a locally organised event that runs the complete HYROX format: eight kilometres of running split into eight one kilometre laps, each followed by one of the eight stations in the standard order. A gym sets it up, times it and gives you a finish time. The work is the same. What differs is that it is not sanctioned, the runs are usually laps of a road loop or car park, and judging varies by organiser.

Where can I do a HYROX simulation in Northern Ireland?

HQfit in Bangor runs them most regularly, roughly every two months, with their next on 11 October 2026. Juice Jar with Gym Co ran a full simulation at Newforge in Belfast, and Rep Room in Craigavon, Smart Gym in Lisnaskea and Training Excellence in Bushmills have all run events. Listings go up on Eventbrite and gym social media six weeks or so ahead, so check before making plans.

Does a simulation time count as an official HYROX time?

No. A simulation time is a personal benchmark and nothing more. It does not appear in official results and does not count towards age group qualification. Sled times in particular are not comparable, because a sled on gym rubber or turf behaves differently from one on event carpet, and the running laps are the organiser's measurement rather than a certified course.

What weights are used in HYROX?

For women it is a 102kg sled push and 78kg sled pull, both including the sled, 2 x 16kg farmers carry, a 10kg sandbag and a 4kg wall ball to 2.70m. For men and women pro it is 152kg and 103kg, 2 x 24kg, 20kg and a 6kg ball to 3.00m. Men pro is 202kg and 153kg, 2 x 32kg, 30kg and a 9kg ball to 3.00m. Figures are from the 2026/27 singles rulebook, and the sled weights include the sled itself.

What is the most common mistake at a first HYROX?

Running the first kilometre far too fast. Fresh legs make your usual 5k pace feel easy, so people run it, and pay for it from around run five onwards. Coaches generally suggest holding the first three runs fifteen to twenty seconds a kilometre slower than feels right. The second most common is going unbroken on the wall balls and failing at forty rather than planning five sets of twenty.

Bangor Belfast events HYROX Northern Ireland

Written by Zolene

Zolene is a massage therapist with more than fifteen years of hands-on experience. She created Muscle Mint in Northern Ireland, UK, for the minutes after effort.

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