Newsletter - March

Hi, welcome to our March newsletter!

We are very close to the triathlon season now, with the first London Series event - the Medway duathlon at Gravesend on the 12th April - get your entries in! Beyond that we have triathlons and aquathlons at Crystal Palace, Greenwich (our home event) and Thames Turbo, which require a predicted swim time on entry - fortunately the club held some swim time trial events in recent weeks to give you an idea what time your Junior is capable of - see below for results.

Also, we have our spring camp coming up in the Easter holidays, it is not too late to sign up - we already have over half of the club attending this in some capacity, so don’t let your Triton miss out :) !

Thank you to everyone for completing the survey. We are working our way through the valuable feedback that was received. We will provide an update in a future newsletter on the key themes and what actions we are hoping to take going forward.

Click here to subscribe

A message from the Head Coach

We are now moving into our race specific training block, where we change our venues, running in the Park, turbo will be a run/bike/run session in the Park and our swim sessions will be focussed on the upcoming race distances in the pool or in OW (open water) venues. HHV will have a focus on transition and race speeds.

Therefore it would be great to see all our juniors joining us on our weekly sessions!

Remember the main goal of our sessions is to make you a better triathlete who has fun and at the same time gets the training done to become a better version of yourself!

Bruno

Welcome to our new member this month

Isabella (T1)

Swimming Time Trial Results

Following two weeks of swimming time trials, here are your times:

TriStart - 50m

Isidora 01:17

TriStar 1 - 150m

Aleya

02:45

Ami

03:25

Evelyn

03:37

Gillian

03:20

Juliet

03:28

Lucia

03:19

Sidney

03:18

Thea

03:26

Yuri

03:11

Tristar 2 - 200 m

Cullen

03:26

Elliot

04:07

Florence B

03:37

Jacob

03:35

Johannes

03:38

Joshua

04:31

Louay

04:28

Max

02:36

Monty

04:13

Orla

03:52

Tristar 3 - 300m

Anastasia

04:41

Ben

04:40

Charlotte

03:38

Henry

04:57

Hugo

05:59

Ronan

05:03

Rory

05:26

Tom

06:52

Youth & Juniors - 400m

Emer

05:08

Gabia

06:38

Lilly

06:42

Tilly

06:58

Triton of the Month - February

Congratulations to Fletcher who deservedly won Triton of the Month for February. Behind the scenes Fletcher has been working hard on his swimming, especially at the lido during the cold winter months, achieved a PB at the 5k and overall has seen vast improvements across all disciplines. Well done Fletcher!

When did you join the Tritons?

I joined in 2020 when I was 7

What is your favourite discipline?

Swimming

What was your favourite race last season?

Obviously Ours, Greenwich Aquathlon.

Favourite training session?

Wednesday running in the summer at the park.

What do you like most about the tritons?

The friends that I have made.

If you could go to dinner with one famous sportsperson who would it be?

Alex Yee.

What is the best advice you have received?

To just try and be a little bit faster than you were last week. To just keep trying.

Blackheath Run

Our second handicap of 2026 was held on the 27th February. Thank you to Simon (for organising and bringing hot chocolate), Louise (for dashing home for cups) and the parent marshals who made the event possible.

The next handicap will be on the 27th March!

2.5K

10:29: Matthew

11:00: Johannes

11:21: Elliot

11:35: Anastasia

11:56: Ami

12:21: Florence

12:22: Aleya

14:37: Lucia

14:52: Jacob

15:18: Juliet

5K

20:34: Harvey

20:45: Edward

24:17: Ben

24:20: Fletcher

29:40: Lily

29:40: Gabia

Lewisham

Mini-marathon trial race

A number of tritons raced in the Lewisham trials for the London mini-marathon next month. Jennifer and Evelyn finished 1st and 2nd in the U12’s trial race to secure their places, while Huw finished 5th in the boys race making him first reserve for the team. Special mention to Johannes who was in a scoring position and running strongly, but was pushed over and picked up arm and knee injuries and was subsequently unable to finish :(.

Inter Counties Cross Country Championships

Three Tritons represented Kent at the Inter Counties XC event in Nottingham last weekend. Max finished 49th in the U13 race, Charlotte was 15th in the U15 race and Emer 29th in the U20s. Well done all!

English Schools Cross Country Championships

Charlotte represented London at the English Schools XC championships, the pinnacle of the season for junior cross country runners last weekend. She battled brilliantly to finish 5th and gain selection for her first international in Wales next weekend. Well done to Charlotte for a fabulous run and good luck representing England!

Many triathlons and aquathlons, including some of the London Junior series, involve open water swimming either in a lake, river or the sea. Open water swimming is a different kettle of fish to pool swimming and it is worth being aware of and prepared for some of the differences ahead of the forthcoming season.

Water temperature:

The temperature in an indoor pool water is regularly monitored and it does not matter what time, day or season it is, the conditions are generally the same. Of course, this is not the case when it comes to open water and you can encounter lots of different weather conditions, waves, currents, and varying temperatures!

Vision and navigation

Your vision tends to remain the same when in an indoor pool environment and you can use markers on the bottom and side of the pool as a guide because the water is clear. In open water swimming however, the water is likely to be less clear and you may also have the sun in your eyes. As well as not having the markers you do in a swimming pool, in an open water swim you won’t necessarily be required to swim in a straight line either and will need to navigate around buoys. The ability to ‘sight’ whilst swimming is therefore important. This means raising your head slightly to see where you are heading; and having a ‘marker’ in the distance is a good way to navigate. For a more detailed advice on sighting Swim England offer some tips here. As well as the risk of swimming off course, it can also be more difficult to judge how far you have left to swim and therefore pace your effort.

Breathing

You may need to breathe more often in open water swimming as the water can be choppier.

Other competitors

In an open water swim, you will most likely be setting off and swimming at the same time as the other competitors - not only will the pace surge and change, but you will need to be prepared for drafting and having others draft off you, as well as there being more splashing and choppier water and the occasional unintentional kick from other swimmers!

So how do I prepare/prepare my junior triton for open water swimming?

To begin with you need to make sure you have the right equipment. This is a good quality wetsuit which fits well and which doesn’t restrict your breathing or arm movement. Our coaches and more experienced tritons can help with recommendations if you are struggling and we often hand down second hand wetsuits.

Secondly, it is really important to prepare both physically and mentally for an open water swim. Every week, we have a session in an outdoor pool (Charlton Lido), which feels closer to open-water swimming than an indoor pool. The lido is a 50m pool so you can get use to covering more distance with less turning and the wider lanes allow us to practice swimming in close proximity to other swimmers and practice mass triathlon starts!

It also provides an opportunity to practice putting on and taking off wetsuits, which can add considerable time to your transition if you haven’t perfected it come race day!

In addition, over the summer months, we offer weekly open water swimming sessions at Victoria Docks for our tritons and we’ll be sending round information on these sessions over the coming weeks.

Charlton Lido sessions are on Tuesdays at 5pm for TS/T1/T2 and 5.45pm for T3+. Give it a Tri!

Upcoming Races

List of Races for the triathlon calendar

Bromley XC Schools

21/03/2026

Crystal Palace

Blackheath Handicap

27/03/2026

Norman Park

Medway Duathlon

12/04/2026

London Mini-Marathon

25/04/2026

Crystal Palace Tri (Pool)

10/05/2026

Greenwich Tritons Aquathlon (Pool)

31/05/2026

Thames Turbo Aquathon (Pool)

13/06/2026

The Bridge Aquathlon (Open Water) - T2 IRC qualifier

27/06/2026

Chelmsford Triathlon (Open Water) - T3 IRC qualifier

05/07/2026

Eton Dorney Family Triathlon (Open Water)

19/07/2026

The Bridge Triathlon (Open Water)

02/08/2026

Don’t forget for those of you wanting to test your fitness, there are weekly 5km parkruns on Saturdays and 2km junior parkruns on Sundays.

Eltham juniors Hilly Fields juniors Lesnes Abbey Woods juniors Forster Memorial Park juniors Peckham Rye juniors Beckenham Place juniors Burgess juniors Hoblingwell juniors

Our normal training sessions continue, please see WhatsApp group for the weekly schedule.

We are moving to Greenwich Park starting on 01.04.26 for both Running and Turbo only.

Each week, we offer 3 swim sessions, 2 cycling sessions, and 1 running session. We also run one off training camps, monthly runs, group rides and other training opportunities.

Every Tuesday

TS/T1/T2 > 17:00-17:45

TS3> 17:45-19:00

Every Wednesday

(from 01.04.26)

TS/T1/T2 > 17:00-18:00

TS3> 17:45-19:00

Every Thursday

(from 02.04.26)

TS/T1/T2 > 17:00-18:00

TS3> 17:45-19:00

Every Saturday

Greenwich Centre

All - 16:00-17:00

Every Sunday

Herne Hill Velodrone

All - 09:00-11:00

Every Sunday

All - 19:00-20:00

Click here to email us

The Tritons Junior Committee (Christian, Kat, Juan-Carlos, Lauren, Stephen)

You received this email because you subscribed to our list. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Ardmere Road, London, Greater London, SE136EL, United Kingdom

Powered by EmailOctopus