Richmond Triathlon Club has experienced a new lease of life since returning to activity after lockdown, including an expansion of their coaching team which has enabled the club to diversify their activity over the winter months.
Like many clubs, the challenges of negotiating the pandemic was particularly challenging for the North Yorkshire club, but as their club secretary, Hannah Munro, explained Richmond Triathlon Club has experienced a “whole new lease of life” as they returned to activity.
“Since September last year we have expanded our coaching team massively and we now have a really broad coaching team,” Munro commented.
“We’re experiencing a real range of people joining the club; from youngsters through to members who are joining in their 60s and everything between.
“Anybody who is coming along recently is just like ‘wow, the atmosphere in the club is fantastic’, it’s just really, really positive and really friendly, which is fantastic to hear because we pride ourselves on being family friendly. We kept things going through COVID and now have a whole new lease of life. There’s a massive amount of commitment from the committee and the coaching team as well.”
This “new lease of life” has continued through the winter with the club organising regular swim, bike and run sessions along with additional strength and conditioning workouts.
“All the way through the winter we’ve been doing our Saturday training sessions at Brompton Village Sports Hall,” Munro said. “Prior to Christmas, due to COVID, we couldn’t be inside as much, so our Head Coach, Jon Mortimer, and some of our newly qualified Level 1 coaches were leading bike and run sessions for the juniors exclusively at that point outside.
“Since Christmas, we’ve opened those sessions to adults as well because we’ve got the coaching capacity and, for the last few sessions, we have had more than 25 people at every session as we’ve also encouraged parents of junior members to come along and join in too.
“It goes by in a flash with lots of laughter. It’s fantastic because we’ve seen juniors through to brand new members joining us in their 50s and 60s all working together and challenging themselves at their own pace. They’re proving really popular.
“We’ve also got Sunday rides, usually about 60km every week, which is a social ride. Our Head Coach Jon suggests a route and anyone part of the club who wants to join. We also have two swim sessions each week too so there’s lots going on.”
The club has found combining junior and adult sessions incredibly valuable for its members and it’s an aspect the club are keen to continue going forward.
“When the weather gets a bit brighter, we’ll be going outside and having run and biking sessions,” Munro said. “While we will have juniors and adults doing separate elements, we want to also try to keep everybody together for part of the session. So, there will be an element at every one of those Saturday sessions where we bring together adults and juniors.
“Swim sessions include both adult and junior members. It’s really helping the juniors, seeing what the adults do, they can aspire to and see what the adult athletes are doing, and I think it’s really motivating for everybody to have that mix going on. There’s a really good feeling around the club.”
Flexibility is another key part of the club, with Richmond Triathlon Club ensuring their members are able to find as many ways as possible to enjoy swim, bike, run.
“We’re doing whatever we can to be as flexible as possible for members, so if they can’t make it, they can still keep that training momentum going,” Munro added.
“We have a turbo set going out each week so people can do that at home in their own time. Our swim sets are also put onto our WhatsApp group, so if members can’t make it to the Monday or Wednesday sessions, they can still do that at a time convenient to them.
“Our Head Coach and Chair, both Level 2 coaches, are also adapting training programmes to support those athletes who are training for particular events, such as IRONMAN, or have injuries that impact on their training. All adult members are offered individual swim analysis and one of our coaches, Dan, has spent quite a bit of time underwater filming recently to get footage for this.
“We’ve got that breadth in the coaching team now, so this is something that is completely new that we haven’t been able to do before. We just keep trying to offer up opportunities to support people.”
