Newsletter Oct 2023

Newsletter Oct 2023

Chairman’s Update

Dear Tri2O’ers

Welcome to your Tri2O October 2023 newsletter and another BIG thank you to each member who has taken time to contribute to this issue and of course our Editor in Chief Sunil for pulling it all together.

Congratulations to all members who have raced since our August Newsletter, there have been some great “Post Race Selfies” in our Facebook Group.

Sunday 3rd September saw another Tri2O Club Run Reading Triathlon and I am delighted to say yet again it was another resounding success. Please read the event report below from our Events Team.

I am also extremely pleased to announce that we have appointed Jamie Shillham to the role of Reading Triathlon Race Director. 

As many of you will know Jamie has a wealth of experience running all types of sporting events and he has played a very significant supporting role as Event Coordinator for the Reading Triathlon for the past 7 years alongside other members within our Reading Triathlon Event Sub Committee. Thank you Jamie for Volunteering, you will have the full support of myself and I am sure every other member of Tri2O.

Our departing Race Director Pete Gough has fulfilled this role with great success over the past 7 years. The Events Team led by Pete is a well oiled machine; they always deliver an organised event which is very enjoyable, not only for the participants but also the club members who volunteer to help. On behalf of Tri2O Thank you so much Pete for your contribution to the club you’re a star!

Can you Help?

Tri2O is a great group of like minded multi-sport athletes at all levels, we encourage each other and celebrate each other’s successes no matter how big or small.

However to make the club function we do need volunteers to make it work. We are structured with a Main Committee plus 3 Sub Committees with the aim that “many hands do make light work” 

From my annual round of questioning.… I gather that most of the current Main Committee members are planning to stand again for re-election; however, we will be seeking volunteers at the upcoming AGM for the roles of Treasurer and Club Captain.

The Sub-Committee roles of Swim Officer, Bike Officer and Reading Triathlon Coordinator are also vacant and need to be filled.

More details will be included in the Notice of AGM which will be sent to all members from Nora our Secretary towards the end of October. If you would like to know more please click HERE to take you to the current Committee Members Roles & Responsibilities document on our website. Also feel free to drop me an email if you would like a chat about a role.

I hope you enjoy your newsletter and I look forward to catching up with you soon.

Best wishes

Mike Nash
Chairman

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Membership Update

We would like to welcome the following new members who have joined since the last newsletter in August:

• Matthew Holton
• Kirsten Jack
• Emma Siveyer

We hope you enjoy training and being part of the team.

Please don’t forget to sign up to your sessions on Stack TeamApp in advance and join the club Facebook group. You will have had a welcome email with the links – please let me know if you did not receive this.

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Coaches’ Corner – Running with Tri2O

FIRST – what do we offer?

• Winter running series – a great way to take part in lots of local run races and parkruns and be part of a triathlon and club community within the running world.
• Tuesday evening coached run is BACK! 6:30pm Prospect Park – £4 for an hour including warm up, drills/technique, main session, cool down and stretching out. Re-starting after summer break on Tuesday 17th October.
• Thursday run club is BACK! We’re delighted that Lee Hinton, run coach, Tri2O & Reading Roadrunner member, and all round supportive superhero, is taking on the Thursday run starting 19th October, 7pm, meeting by Costa Coffee in Caversham. This will be a free, uncoached, social run, easy paced and accessible for ALL members.
• There are potentially ad hoc extra blocks of coaching provided through the year – if members are interested in anything in particular then do get in touch and we’ll see what we can arrange.

Join a running club?

We are lucky to have a number of local running clubs offering a mix of social runs, track sessions and cross country competitions. Many of our members are already members of Reading Roadrunners, Reading Joggers, or clubs further afield, and the training opportunities they offer can complement swimming and cycling with a triathlon club. It’s also a way to meet people with similar interests, and to guarantee seeing even more familiar faces at local parkruns and races.

Why run with your triathlon club?

We know we can’t (nor do we want to) compete with these local clubs. They are great at what they do! We have strong friendly relationships with these clubs and enjoy that sense of community.

It’s worth thinking about some of the reasons to train with Tri2O as well. Here are a few things to think about:

• Runners are usually just running, and all of their intensity/load will be running …
• Therefore run club sessions may not take account of the fact that you have done a hard bike the day before, and would need to modify the session to account for fatigued legs and reduce risk of injury.
• Run clubs may also run longer and harder intervals with less recovery, because they have more recovery time in between sessions (not having to do a CSS test the next day for example!)
• This also means that if 1-2 of a runner’s sessions per week are with a club, it’s less important that those sessions are specific to them, as they have many other opportunities to get specific; for triathletes, if you running twice a week and one of those is a social run with a run club, you risk falling into the “neither easy enough nor hard enough” trap, where performance typically plateaus.
• Most triathletes don’t have the luxury of time to be able to run “Junk” miles alongside swimming and cycling.
• Our coached sessions have a strong technique focus, with drills and personal feedback, to help you develop an efficient and safe run.
• A triathlon coach understands that your running will almost always (in the race scenario) take place on tired legs; target pacing, perceived exertion, becoming all the more important. If you’re running half marathon pace intervals with your run club, that’s not the pace you’d practise running at for your middle distance triathlon, as overall you’re racing for a much longer period of time.
• The running racing season doesn’t align completely with the triathlon season, so you may not be doing the ideal training sessions for the triathlons you have planned (the principle of your sessions becoming more race-like as you approach racing).

And remember, even if you already have a training plan …

• It’s good fun to train with others
• It’s much “easier” to push yourself hard
• Having a set time, place and commitment every week makes it much easier to be consistent
• You may have a coach watching you and providing feedback and advice, depending on the session you attend
• You can almost always integrate your club runs into an existing training plan, just try to substitute it with the most similar session in your plan rather than skipping rest days or adding extra training.

Signing off as Race Director

by Pete Gough

When I started my Triathlon journey after an alcohol assisted bet with a friend back in 2009 to ‘do a triathlon’ I didn’t expect it to have quite such an impact on my life.

Not only has it led me to have completed some epic races and sporting challenges over the years, I’ve also made some great friends and it’s made me a stronger and better person both physically and mentally. One place though that I didn’t really expect it would take me would be to organise an annual Triathlon event.

Back in 2016 local events company My Sporting Times were running the Reading Triathlon, hot on the coattails of the 2012 Olympics, where Team GB dominated the sport and public interest was at an all time high. MST were keen to focus on other related business interests but for the Tri to keep going. With their close links to the club they approached us and somehow I was identified as someone who might be able (foolish enough to agree) to take the reins.

I spent that year meeting up with the guys from MST fairly regularly and shadowing them on race weekend to get a flavour of how everything worked then it was over to us!

I say us as, of course, it’s not just me.. I’ve been blessed to have had an awesome team around me over the past few years. Georgia & Jamie both stepped up and have both been stalwarts of our dedicated team.

Running the event for the club has three main aims:

• Allow our club to actively participate as part of the Triathlon community and put on a fun and inclusive event.
• Raise money to generate funds for the club, to enable people within the local area to train with and meet like minded people.
• Donate money to charities, that help support sporting participation

I’ve been hugely proud to have been able to play such an active role within the Reading Triathlon. We’ve continued to deliver and sustain what is quite rare within the multisport scene now, which is a club run event.

Over the years we’ve had some challenging times. A burst water main on the road to the lake the day before the event, the Covid years (which many event organisers haven’t recovered from), declining numbers in Triathlon and of course the European Hornets this year that decided to attack 50 competitors on the run section.

What I’ve always been so impressed with is when we’ve had these challenges, the experience and expertise that we have within the club from those supporting our event has been incredible. We’ve managed to outperform the events market in terms of participant numbers every year.

Over the past few years as a club we’ve managed to make a profit each year, the proceeds of which have been invested back in the club and also raise a significant amount of money for the Triathlon Trust charity, which has enabled children in the local area to get involved in Triathlon. This year we are supporting our new chosen charity Sport In Mind.

Our biggest asset for our event has always been and will continue to be all of you, our members. Every year, the loudest and clearest feedback that we get back is about our friendly and enthusiastic members, who make our event so unique.

After seven years I’m looking for some new adventures and challenges, I’m not sure where yet, but I’m so pleased to hand over to Jamie as the new race director and know that the race is in safe hands and will continue to be successful going forward.

So thank you to all of you for your support and encouragement on my incredible journey over the past few years. Please do continue to support the Reading Triathlon team going forward.

All the best,

Pete Gough

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Dates for your diary

• 30-Nov-2023 : Tri2O AGM.
• 10-Feb-2024 : Tri2O Annual Awards (TBC) 

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We would love to hear from you