Marc Laithwaite runs Tri Kidz, a charity that introduces triathlon to primary school children in the North West…
WHY I TRI
Tri Kidz was set up to deliver triathlon to primary schools for free. We get as many kids and schools involved as possible and have so far delivered to 50,000 children in the North West. We deliver five days a week to schools but because Tri Kidz has proved so popular, we can only deliver one session to each school every year.
We send through a presentation about triathlon which the teacher can show in assembly the week before to introduce swim, bike and run. Our most popular activity is the iron-distance challenge. We mimic the swim with resistance bands, the bikes are on turbos and they run around a short loop. Each year-group comes out for 45mins to complete 3mins of swimming, cycling and running with a 2min break between each. The school aim to complete the iron-distance by the end of the day.
We delivered Tri Kidz to a local school, where one of the girls had cerebral palsy and a ‘this won’t slow me down’ attitude. The head gave me a call the following day to say her mum had just contacted the school wanting to know where the nearest triathlon club was.
This year we want to deliver bigger events for the kids. If we run it on a weekend, we’re sending kids home with a flyer and hoping parents bring them. But if the schools buy into it and bring the kids on buses on a school day, we can reach 1,000 kids a day. Triathlon is not part of the national curriculum and to get it to the next level it needs to be.
Another challenge is that there aren’t enough junior triathlon clubs – and the ones we have are full. The volunteers do a fantastic job, but t
