March is here and wow it’s still cold!! Atleast it’s sunny at the moment. Lots to include in this newsletter, so let’s crack on.
Club Series 2025.
Get ready to kickstart your triathlon season with the Oxford Tri Club Championship Series—a thrilling journey of speed, endurance, and friendly competition!
This exciting series includes four (potentially 5 watch this space) epic races: the Banbury Tri, The Oxfordshire Tri Series in June and August, and the Reading Tri. Each race you compete in earns you points based on your finishing time and position, with bonus points up for grabs to give you that extra edge. Plus, we’ve got exclusive discount codes for these races, available on our website! What’s more, we’re opening the points system to anyone who races this year, so no matter the distance, you can join in and rack up bonus points. Your top 3 results from the season will count toward your total, and with age group brackets and point criteria available on our site, there’s a spot for every athlete. So, whether you’re new to triathlon or a seasoned competitor, get ready to swim, bike, and run your way to glory! Will you have what it takes to claim the title of Club Champ at the end-of-season awards? Let the race begin18th of May – at the Banbury Triathlon.
Please log on to the website for Discount codes – Partners & Discounts – scroll down to Club Series Races 2025.
Scoring system for Club Series
Categories for Awards: Male and Female: Senior, Vet 40+ and Super Vet 50+
Any event you participate in, you get the following results based on AG results:
Points as follows:
- 1st = 12 points
- 2nd = 11 points
- 3rd = 10 points
- 4th = 9 points
- 5th = 8 points
- 6th = 7 points
- 7th = 6 points
- 8th = 5 points
- 9th = 4 points
- 10th -19th = 3 points
- 20th -50th = 2 points
- Participation = 1 point
Bonus points:
- 1 point = wearing club kit
- 3 points = for racing within the club champs designated races
Results from your best 3 races count (across any distance, super sprint, sprint, olympic, middle, long and any discipline i.e. aquathlon, tri, aquabike, duathlon), the only limitation is we can only give points based on the published results from the race organiser. If they publish results with 5 year age groups – great! If they use different categories we can only use what they publish to calculate the standings, hope that makes sense!!!
Kit update.
The first orders to Apex are in and we cannot wait for delivery to try out our new kit! The next window opening for APEX will be when there is enough interest from members. Please check sizing guides and information on production on our APEX Site.
We are pleased to now be able to share details of even more shiny kit, in the form of Canterbury tracksuits, hoodies and Zoodies.
Please see guidance on sizing and we have checked – 31 inside leg really is 31 inside leg – If unsure, checkCanterbury.com
for size guiding but what we checked was correct and not for New Zealand giants.
The Shop window is now open until the 19th March and delivery will be 5/6 weeks after.
https://bluebloodonline.co.uk/oxford-tri
Please contact Lee Merrett if you want to purchase any existing kit or have any other questions kit@oxfordtri.co.uk .
Zone3 partnership
We are pleased to announce that we now have a partnership with Zone3. This gives members 20% off full priced items, and the club will get a 10% return on every purchase made.
Please see discount code under partnerships and benefits on the website.
Cancelling sessions
We’re getting quite a regular stream of cancelled swim slots, specifically in the hours close to the planned session start.
Inevitably this means we end up with sessions that are not full because other members can’t rearrange diaries at short notice.
We know you WANT to be at the session, we know you don’t WANT sessions to have spaces. The best way you can help, yourself and other members, is by turning up or cancelling as early as possible.
Of course if your car won’t start or a train is cancelled or you’re suddenly really unwell, we understand, these things happen.
The general request is to be realistic about your health, your workload, your energy levels, or any other possible reason to stop you attending, and try to communicate as early as possible if you can’t make it.
We do appreciate it when people post on Facebook, it’s a great way to alert fellow members of a space or the coach, that you won’t be able to make it. 
Specifically for illness a good rule of thumb is, If you’re not well enough 24hours before a session, please consider cancelling, recovery is better for your overall fitness and help keep your club mates healthy to.
Thanks!!
PS- I know a waiting list sign up would help a bit here, it’s not viable for our website in the next two months I’m afraid.
Meeting Minutes – MARCH 2025.
Please see the website for the March Committee meeting minutes – these are draft minutes until approved at our next meeting. Please log on to the club website, find committee and then minutes.
May Open Water Familiarisation.
These sessions are now open for sign up and are a great opportunity for adults (over 18) of all abilities to learn and brush up on the skills needed for Open Water Swimming. Please see the website for more details and to sign up: https://www.oxfordtri.uk/open-water-familiarisation-sessions/
The Ox Aquathlon – volunteers needed 27th April
We’ve currently got 67 people signed up for the Aquathlon at Leys Leisure centre on 27th April, and would like you to help us to run it smoothly – If you are available to help out for a few hours on that Sunday morning we’d be super grateful, Please indicate via the following sign-up form – https://forms.gle/UGwgeXsQCcjJVqG1A
Blenheim Palace Triathlon -volunteering but with racing opportunities 7th/8th June
As mentioned previously we would like to support the Blenheim Palace Triathlon on the 7/8th of June with volunteers. We do this for 3 reasons:
The Triathlon organisers advertise our open water familiarisation sessions, these are incredibly important to the clubs finances and without the support of the triathlon organisers we are unlikely to fill as many spaces as we did last year.
Secondly its our best local opportunity to give back to the sport, we mostly all enjoy racing but races only exist with the help of volunteers however in this case there is payment in lieu available….
Thirdly those who volunteer get the opportunity for a 2026 discounted entry (1/2 day volunteers) or free place if you volunteer for the full day. There’s also the opportunity to volunteer on the Saturday and race for FREE on the Sunday this year!!
There will also be an OxfordTri specific wave happening on the Sunday Afternoon.
The only downside is if you want to race in the British champs race you wouldn’t be able to go in this wave as the champs is draft legal and later waves aren’t.
If you don’t want to race this year you can still volunteer for a day on Saturday or Sunday this year and earn a credit for a free entry next year.
We’d love to see as many people there as we can.
Our volunteer sign up is now live using the following link – https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSd5UZX6IpU…/viewform…
Member Achievements.
I’d just like to congratulate Nick Chatrath for completing the British Triathlon Swim Bike Run Leader award, we look forward to seeing Nick lead some sessions for us in the future, thanks for doing this Nick it’s a huge opportunity for us to expand our club session offering if we have leaders to help deliver safe enjoyable sessions.
Come to sessions and socials – meet fellow members, check the calendar for venues, timings and sign-ups.
Become a coach or leader – speak to Sean Nicolle if you are interested leadcoach@oxfordtri.co.uk
Share planned runs/cycles on Facebook if you are happy for others to join you – https://www.facebook.com/groups/oxfordtri