Good Evening Oxford Tri Family
I hope that this finds you well and that you are all getting geared up to watch the finally of Eurovision this weekend. Very Exciting!!!. What’s also exciting and happening at the weekend is our open water swims at Queenford Lake, the choice to wear Eurovision themed attire is entirely up to you (SIGN UP HERE). I have to admit that it was a real highlight for me seeing everyone there with many new and old faces taking on what was apparently pleasantly warm swimming conditions. I’m not sure this was a universal consensus…
Secondly, apologies for the short cancellation of the session at the lake on Wednesday the 8pm-9pm slot was what was given to us and we had hoped that we could make it work this week. After a couple of members raised concerns regarding the light we reconsidered running the session as a committee and came to the conclusion that it was best to postpone it this week for your safety.
I would like to take this moment just to highlight that all those who serve on the committee do so in a voluntary role and in the few months I’ve been Chair they have always considered extensively any decisions we have had to make, with the members coming first.
Anyway, I hope you all have a great week and do check out the notices below with regards to an exciting update on Wednesday night swims over the summer.
God Bless
Craig
Apologies for this last minute addition. Last night when I was traveling back from London. A friend from Glasgow Triathlon Club reached out to me to inform me that one of the guys who I used to do a lot of training and coaching with had suddenly passed away at the weekend. I visited the club Facebook group where there was an out pouring of comments, this was the one that really got me.
“I’m so so devastated to hear this and I’m sending all my love to the people that were close to him. Alastair had only recently come into my life, we only met a few weeks ago at the Maryhill swimming pool. He’s the only stranger that’s ever started a conversation with me in the lanes and since then I’d like to think we became good friends. He even gave me a morning hug when we met in the que before our last session together. He was such a lovely guy and was always around for a post swim shower catch up where we’d talk about our training and our jobs in the film industry. I was inspired by his stories and his speed in the pool (in my head when we were swimming I would call him the torpedo so when he was catching up to me, which happened multiple times a session, I’d be like “oh torpedo inbound” and take a breather for a few secs as he passed by me. He was the person that got me to join this group and was the only person I knew in this group but I always looked forward to seeing him at our swim sessions and I’m so sad that we never got ride our bikes together. He made the idea of doing an Iron Man possible, thank you.”
I hope that you would all agree that as much as we love the sport it’s the people we do it with who often make the biggest impact on our lives. Can I encourage you to to consider messaging one or two people who are part of the club whom you are thankful for this week.
R.I.P Alastair
Wednesday Night Queensford Lake OWS
Works cannot describe how thankful I am for Grace who is part of our committee. Not only is she an all-round sporting legend but as soon as we recognised the issue with Wednesday nights at Queenford Lake she was straight on the case.
I am delighted to share that temporarily for the next couple of weeks we have managed to secure the 7-8pm slot on the Wednesday evening at the lake. We are very hopeful that we will be able to secure this permanently.
A reminder that to make any of our lake sessions happen we need a minimum of one person to help with safety cover. I realise that this might seem daunting, and I would encourage you to speak to any of the safety team over these first couple of weeks to find out more about what is involved if everyone who swam volunteered once we’d be covered no problems at all.
Summer Sessions
With sessions at Queenford Lake starting up on Wednesday nights as a committee we recognised that maintaining the current level of pool sessions available was unsustainable financially. As a result in this the number of lanes available has been reduced in both Abingdon and Thame and we will continue to monitor the attendence over the coming months. After careful consideration we have also decided that Radley session on a Wednesday night will be taking a break for the summer as of the end of this month. One of the core reasons behind this is Radley is the only pool venue that we use where we need to hire the whole pool. This costs hundreds of pounds per session in comparison to the other venues where we can hire per lane. As much as we would love to run as many sessions as possible, we also need to ensure that we are leading Oxford Tri in a financially responsible way. We will obviously review this regularly.
Members Open Water Familiarisation and Drills
To kick off our open water swim season we are going to be running a three week familiarisation and drills sessions which will be open to non-members along with current members (our regular open water swims will remain during these dates). This will take place on the 13th, 20thand 27th of May. To make this happen we will need a number of people to volunteer to help as safety covers for the lake and then also a few to be part of the coached group as to assist coaches who will be delivering the sessions.
The sessions will focus on the following aspects:
- Acclimatisation
- Sighting and Navigation
- Swimming in a group
- Deep water starts
- Buoy Turns
- Mass Starts
- And much more
The sign up is now open for Oxford Tri Members and you can sign up using the links below.
13th of May: https://www.oxfordtri.uk/…/open-water-familiarisation…/
20th of May: https://www.oxfordtri.uk/…/open-water-familiarisation…/
27th of May: https://www.oxfordtri.uk/…/open-water-familiarisation…/
Training Calendar
See the official calendar for full info and sign up links.
Saturday 13th May: Social OWS – Queensford Lake @ 08:00
Monday 15th May: Coached Swim – Abingdon Pool @ 20:30
Tuesday 16th May: Member Lead Social Run – Headington Hill @ 19:00
Tuesday 16th May: Coached Swim – Thame Pool @ 20:00
Wednesday 17th May: Social OWS – Queensford Lake @ 19:00
Wednesday 17th May: Coached Swim – Radley Pool @ 19:30
Thursday 18th May: Coached Run Session – Horspath Athletic Track @ 19:00
Friday 19th May: Strength and Conditioning Online @ 07:15
Friday 19th May: Coached Swim – Kidlington Pool @ 19:00