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Easter fun with Chesterfield Tri Club

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Over the Easter weekend, Chesterfield Tri Club organised their own virtual challenge by setting members of the club and local community four distances to complete in the four days.

“Like many sports clubs up and down the country through the first lockdown we held a lot of fun mini challenges for our club members to help lift spirits,” commented club chair Lorraine Murphy.

“With a few races getting cancelled recently we wanted to lift spirits once more and help motivate people to keep training for those events still promised for later on in the season, and what better way than a virtual event.”

The challenge set participants four distances, a 5km, 10km and 21km run and a 30km bike, with it up to each individual how they completed the distances over the four-day weekend.

“Easter Bank Holiday would be the perfect time as families would have more time to complete each race,” Murphy added.

“We recently did another intra-club virtual event which was popular but did require a lot of admin. The thought of extending a virtual event out to the masses was a little daunting as we hadn't done it before, but Results Base really helped and Ben Smith one of our members did such a great job in making it all happen.

“Feedback was very good. A few sore legs for those who decided to do all four events in a day, but for those sane enough to spread them out over the four days, they seemed to have enjoyed it.

“We had a total of 66 race entries and I think because we stressed that the aim was to enjoy the weather and finish in your own time, most people entered more than one race.”

With it being up to the participants whether they completed one, two, three or all four of the distances and how and when they did over the weekend, the challenge attracted people of all ages and experiences to take part.

“We always try and get children involved so it was brilliant to see some new names for the juniors taking part,” Murphy said. “We had quite the mix of ages from 8 all the way to late 50s. We even had a junior take part all the way over in France.”

Like clubs across the country, Chesterfield have spent a lot of the past year training and connecting virtually but are now taking their first steps to returning to safe, in-person activity.

“We have been organising weekly zoom /Zwift sessions which have gone well,” Murphy added. “People can chat and ride their bike at the same time, one of our member is an amputee and doesn’t use Zwift so he rides a version of a static electric bike and chats on zoom as does anyone else who doesn’t wish to sign up to Zwift, which makes it more inclusive.

“We have started to organise weekly run sessions around a local country park. One of the coaches allocates members into running groups of ability or session focus and off they go. It’s a loop of around one mile, so achievable to most and juniors.

“We have plans to start coaching our juniors then adults later, and we will also start evening rides and are still trying to locate a track for weekly sessions. Open water sessions are at spring lakes but far too cold for some of us yet.”

British Triathlon have produced guidance for clubs, coaches and participants in helping them to return to activity safely and in line with the national restrictions. To view this guidance, please click HERE

 

 

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