So, what do you do when you are a small triathlon club that takes pride in training together as a team where you can learn and motivate one another under coach guidance?
Well, lockdown meant that we had to make a few changes and quickly!

The lack of a pool meant quite a few paddling pools were bought but I’m not sure of the results here. It turns out that the water is really really cold outside in March/April and staring at the bottom of the same spot for more than a few minutes can send you insane.
Once things started to ease we moved to swimming in the river Thames and then to the local lake.

Our coach James took the normal strength sessions, mindfulness and yoga online to Zoom straight away and were a great success. Being able to see how something was done was great as new exercises were provided and improvising due to the lack of kit for most became quite a thing.
Did you know that a spade across two chairs becomes a great pull up bench and hand stands against a wall are a superb arm workout.
The tristars, run by coach Mark, also took their classes online which was great to see.

In order to keep the team spirit up we took on an event to raise money for charity. This was dubbed “Arch to Tokyo” and we aimed to rack up 10,000 kilometers of swim, bike, run. Everyone got involved including Grans and Grandads, school friends, brothers and sisters to reach the goal and raise thousands for charity.

We also did quite a lot of bike sessions on Zwift with an accompanying Zoom call for banter throughout the pain. These worked really well once we all got the technology working. Some are still trying to get it set up right!

Once lockdown was eased we met in our ‘pods’ of six to run or bike at the first session where we met in the park for the first time in months was a great, almost moving, experience.
Unfortunately our normal pool is still not open which is frustrating so river, lake and individual pool swims (where they are open) is it for now.

For many this was a tough time from a mental health perspective and having the online sessions organised by James (coach) was a much needed activity for many of our members.

We are all looking forward to getting back to ‘normal’ and the 2021 racing season.