With international travel not possible at the moment, Bayside Tri have made their way to Australia by swim, bike, running the distance from themselves in Hampshire to their namesake in Melbourne, Australia.
“A big part of the club is our weekly spin and swim sessions, with the lockdown we’ve had to suspend these as the leisure centre has been closed, this has obviously impacted on our ability to meet, socialise and train together,” commented Lee Rhodes, member of the British Bayside Tri who came up with the idea for the challenge.
“It was something I’d been planning on doing for a while, inspired by other virtual road trips and knowing that there was another Bayside Triathlon Club on the other side of the world.”
The Bayside Tri Virtual Road Trip saw the club’s members cover the 10,567 miles to Melbourne, setting themselves a four-week deadline by which to make it.
“We smashed our target and arrived in Melbourne ahead of schedule,” Rhodes said. “Not quite enough to get us back to the UK so we’ll have a virtual holiday in Australia for a few weeks.
“The total included a few miles/kms of sea swimming, with a few of our members swimming in the Solent on a regular basis.
“We wanted to do something that everyone could take part in, whether you recorded 1 mile or 100 miles in a week it would all count to our overall target.”
With members completing their miles individually, the challenge helped to maintain the club’s community spirit throughout lockdown.
“Club members have really engaged and have been eager to share with their club mates their weekly totals,” added Rhodes.
“We’ve had some returning from injury who have used it as a means to ease themselves back into training and even someone recovering from Covid who was unable to do any running/cycling but could walk.
“We think it’s been a pretty good motivator and a good way to stay connected with club mates.”
If you’d like to share your club’s lockdown activities with Triathlon England, please get in touch with your Regional Manager Jen Granger at jengranger@britishtriathlon.org.
