After navigating the suspension to multisport activity during the lockdown period, Durham Tri’s club chair, Andy Biggs, sees a bright future for swim, bike and run.
Speaking about the club’s approach to activity over the last few months, Biggs said: “Our schedule has not changed, what’s happened is that our ability to carry out the schedule in groups has disappeared. We’ve kept the activities going, we just haven’t done them together.
“We’re lucky to have a very strong head coach who’s been the rock of the club for many years and we’ve also had a very organised schedule.”
Instead of creating an entirely new schedule for the lockdown period, the club instead maintained the same timetable, making necessary adaptations to the sessions themselves to ensure the safety of participants.
“The first week of the month will be a 10-mile time trial and instead of all gathering in a car park and setting off at 30-second intervals, we set a 48-hour window in which people can individually ride and then email their times to the coach. These then get published on the leaderboard like they would do if everyone were there together,” said Biggs.
This approach to socially distanced sessions has featured in other club activities too, such as duathlon training sessions that employ certain methods to avoid close contact.
“We don’t time the transitions because we don’t want to put pressure on people getting close if anyone happens to turn up at the same point,” commented Biggs. “We’re just adapting what people are now already in the habit of doing.”
One thing that the pandemic has had a large impact upon is the social aspect of multisport, however, to combat this, a number of club members decided to organise regular social bike rides.
Biggs added: “There’s always been Sunday morning social rides which aren’t part of our schedule but are there on the Facebook group and, whilst participation in those had been sporadic in the past, it’s actually leapt up during lockdown and there’s been several people in the club who have been initiating the rides and they’ve been sensible with their social distancing.”
As the club transitions from lockdown to gradually increasing its activities, Biggs said: “People are keeping fit and enjoying their training, but with a lower level of mental focus and intensity. As a club, we’ll encourage people to follow their conscience and put on enough activity to allow people to test their competitive edge when they’re ready.
“Our club duathlon training sessions are an entry point, they simulate race conditions, using a transition area and a timing board and we encourage people to practice the disciplines of racing and pacing. This would be our next gateway, training sessions that are beginner friendly.”
Virtual events have become increasingly popular, with Biggs regularly taking part in Nick Price’s virtual duathlons using Zwift.
“It’s all about having a focus for stuff,” said Biggs. “What it’s taught me is that there is plenty of opportunity out there for virtual, timed competition where people can still find their competitive fix. It’s certainly kept many people ticking over.”
Looking ahead to future training sessions and events, Biggs is hoping to gain more of an understanding of how members want to approach a return to training, saying:
“We’re working on getting an active survey process to members to send out through email so they can let us know what their intentions are when they come back to training so we can build an understanding about how many members are interested in certain sessions.”
