Evening All – well just like that summer has gone and already feeling like a distant memory!! Although that said for those of us who turned up at Reading Triathlon festival yesterday, the weather literally couldn’t have been better, more on this to come!!
XC Season is nearly upon us!!
We are fast approaching the Cross Country season and the Club will again be competing in the Oxfordshire Cross Country League. As in previous seasons the League holds races on the first Sunday of every month from November to March. Cross Country is a great opportunity to meet club members and race as competitively as you want to during the winter months.
The Cross Country League organisers encourage all clubs to car share to the race venues as much as possible so don’t worry if you don’t have transport as lifts should be available to the race venues. Races for men and women are between 7km and 8km and the conditions can be dry, wet, muddy, cold or mild! Afterwards there is the possibility of homemade cakes, or sometimes a pub lunch. The first race of the year is on Sunday 2nd November at the Cornbury Estate in Charlbury.
In order to join in with the muddy fun you have to sign up for an England Athletics Membership for 2025/26 (if you don’t currently have one) and pay the Cross Country League entry fee.
England Athletics membership for 2025/26 is £20 and details of how to pay and the benefits of membership will be coming soon.
The Cross Country League entry fee is £20 for all five races which is fantastic value for money. Details of how to pay the Cross Country entry fee will be posted on the Club website soon.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Clive or Stuart, our Cross Country Coordinators, by sending an email to ea@oxfordtri.co.uk
AUTUMN SESSIONS
As promised we have a new swim session starting on Wednesday at Leys pool from 9 till 10 and we’re back at Kidlington on Friday for the restart of our sessions there, both sessions will be available to sign up imminently on the website, apologies they are not there yet. If you can’t make it this week we’ll be back on track for next week.
Note THERE IS NOT A SWIM AT THE LAKE ON WEDNESDAY, my apologies this is an error in the website and will be taken down imminently.
SPOND WILL GO LIVE MONDAY 29th SEPTEMBER
You will recall from previous newsletters that we are transitioning from our regular website sign up for sessions to using an app called Spond, this will make all our lives easier, I believe!!
It will specifically allow us to have waiting lists for sessions and should consolidate all our club comms into one place, stopping the issues we’ve had previously with members not on Facebook, not getting emailed newsletters AND not on the WhatsApp group, plus it should help elevate issues like above with sessions not being available to sign up.
Yes it’s going to mean change for us all, and clearly that won’t all be plain sailing as we get used to how it works and find the perfect ways to make it work best for us, so please be patient with us while this change happens, we’ll mail all members with exactly how to get into the club Spond app and give you a made simple guide for use in a separate communication.
END OF SEASON DINNER – Friday 14th November
I can’t believe it’s that time again, please save the date, we’ll be in touch separately with the sign up for our end of season dinner.
Award nominations will be sought and if you have a trophy from last year can you please get it back to a committee member asap.
AGM – Zoom October 7th @ 7pm.
Looking forward to seeing you all and if you can give some time to the club supporting a role on the committee of coaching for 2026 please give me a shout at Chair@oxfordtri.co.uk
Reading Race report
Just a quick report as a few Oxfordtriers took on the Reading triathlon festival gestural in Various formats!!
I think we had three members doing a triathlon but another 4 doing Aquathlon or Aquabike options which were all available for this lovely local event. With the weather holding fair, the lake was absolutely sublime to swim in, cool and clear, the odd bit of weed but a thoroughly pleasant swim!! The rolling bike course for those that did it was fast and surprisingly technical, with foot down junctions, windy narrow roads and luckily low wind, which made if fun and FAST!! The run was being bugged up as a tricky one if the weather turned but luckily only a little rain in the last 24hrs and a dry morning meant it wasn’t too bad!
Anyway – we had quite a lot of success. Jane Bell was the overall winner of the Aquathlon, Sonya Godley won her Age group, Duncan Crawford won his Age Group in the sprint distance tri and yours truly and Doug Young book ended the Aquabike podium, few photos below!!
Good luck to anyone else racing this year, do go onto Facebook to read other reviews e.g. from Weymouth (Alice Harper, worth reading after they cancelled the swim, and congratulations by the way 👏).
