# Coach's Diary: A New & Brilliant Triathlon Race Format! | Ep 563

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 5 Nov 2025, 21 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/110695056/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-10-4%2Fc9f1a9b1-b615-66d8-6a43-939bd1e93021.m4a

A bit of a different episode this week. Coach Rob shares a behind-the-scenes look at Team OxygenAddict’s recent trip to Portugal for the Triton Race Series (https://tritonworldseries.com/https://tritonworldseries.com/). The Triton format is something new and exciting: swim on Friday, bike on Saturday, run on Sunday, turning a triathlon into a full weekend festival of endurance sport. In this episode, Rob talks through how the event format works, what made it such a great experience for the team, what it was like getting back on a start line himself after a few years away from racing and his thoughts on why events like Triton could be the future for age-group triathlon weekends. * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. We’ve just reopened for new athletes with only a handful of slots available. Book an application call today to find out if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply click this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello, and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:10] and hydration.com. You can get 15% off your first
[0:13] order with the code Oxygen Fuel 25.
[0:16] Welcome to the show everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Willby
[0:19] from Team Oxygen Addict Triathlon Coaching and every
[0:21] week we'll bring you an episode of this podcast to help educate,
[0:24] motivate and inspire you. Today's episode is going to be a
[0:29] little bit different. I'm going to do a brief coaches
[0:32] diary episode. I was talking with some athletes
[0:35] of the day and they were saying, obviously the podcast has
[0:38] changed over recent years and the advent of doing YouTube has
[0:42] meant things has changed. So I used to do a bit of an
[0:45] update about what was going on in in my life and talk about
[0:49] things that were happening with the team and athletes I'm
[0:51] training with and racing. And things haven't been doing an
[0:54] awful lot of racing and training, if if very much at all
[0:57] over the last couple of years. And that's changed recently.
[1:00] So today I'm going to just do a little episode and catch up on
[1:05] our recent team trip out to Portugal.
[1:08] And before I get into that though, there's a couple of
[1:10] things you can do to help us. If you like and enjoy this
[1:13] episode, please consider subscribing on Spotify or
[1:16] clicking like and subscribe on YouTube.
[1:18] And if you're looking for help with your triathlon coaching,
[1:21] then there's a link in the show. Notes are in the description,
[1:23] just click that. You can schedule a membership
[1:25] call. I think we've got a really great
[1:27] solution for coaching for age group triathletes aiming for
[1:30] 70.3 and nine months. If you're interested in finding
[1:32] out more, click the link. Let's have a chat and let's see
[1:35] where we go. So Portugal then?
[1:38] So I'm going to go back a couple of years.
[1:41] We're out in a training camp in Majorca talking with our good
[1:44] friend Jane Hansen and she was telling us she's got a really
[1:48] good friend called Paolo Liette. He for many years for for over
[1:53] 20 years in fact was the race director of what was a 70.3 in
[2:00] Lisbon. It became Challenge Lisbon or
[2:02] Challenge Liz Boa and he set up a new race series called the
[2:07] Triton Race Series and she said she'd meet this guy.
[2:09] He's awesome. He's a really good guy.
[2:11] He's trying to put this new race series together that's trying to
[2:14] do something a little bit different and it it took us a
[2:18] couple of years to manage to get together and have any kind of
[2:21] call with him. We ended up having a video call.
[2:23] Love the guy, super enthusiastic.
[2:26] He's got a massive history in triathlon and Long story short,
[2:30] what he's trying to do with the Triton Race is have a
[2:35] traditional race series, but also have a race series where
[2:40] you have the races over the weekend.
[2:41] So swim on the Friday, bike on the Saturday, run on the Sunday.
[2:47] So he's got two or three events having run this year and last
[2:51] year in mainly Portugal and in Brazil.
[2:54] And it's a mix of the traditional triathlon format
[2:57] where it all happens in one day and then some events.
[2:59] It's this new Triton format where you have the events split
[3:04] over a weekend, very similar to the long course weekend idea.
[3:08] And he said, look, why don't you, why don't you guys come out
[3:11] to the event in Portugal at the end of the season?
[3:14] We're going to be doing the the Triton 3 version, which is
[3:17] across the weekend. Come out, bring some of your
[3:20] athletes, see if you like it. And he very kindly gave us some
[3:24] free and heavily discounted event entries to take some of
[3:28] the team members out there. And we just thought why not?
[3:31] He seems like a great guy. Let's go out and and have a
[3:34] crack at this almost as a as an end of season party was how we
[3:39] were viewing it. We're going to have a long
[3:40] weekend from Thursday through to Monday.
[3:43] Take the bikes, the running shoes, the swimming kit and and
[3:47] go and do some swim, bike, run, have some fun in the sun
[3:50] essentially. So, so that's what we did.
[3:52] We went out there and the way the Triton events are set out is
[3:56] I think it's really clever and it's definitely unique.
[3:58] There's three different distances happening across the
[4:01] weekend. So in the swim, you could either
[4:04] swim 1-2 or three laps of a kilometre, SO12 or 3K.
[4:09] The bike event it was 3 laps of just under 40K, so you'd end up
[4:13] doing 4080 or 1:20. And then on the run it was 3
[4:18] laps of about 7 K, so 714 or 21. So you ended up with kind of
[4:24] somewhere between the half iron and the iron distance at the
[4:28] longest distance. And then at the Sprint distance
[4:31] you end up with a kind of 1K40K7K kind of distance.
[4:36] So it sounded really fun. I was in no kind of shape going
[4:39] into this. A lot of the athletes we took
[4:41] with us were in fantastic shape. Some of the people were in the
[4:44] middle of the end of season break and they were saying like,
[4:46] I'm not coming to race this. I'm just coming out to have some
[4:49] fun and and enjoy a few days in the sunshine.
[4:52] So we really didn't know what to expect when we got there.
[4:55] But this event in in Porto, Mayo in Portugal was the culmination
[5:00] of this year's Triton Series events.
[5:03] So the other events that happened this year already in
[5:06] Brazil and Portugal, people were awarded points for how high they
[5:10] finished up in the various events and they were then
[5:12] invited to come out to the championship final and race for
[5:16] the the Grand Championship overall winner badge
[5:20] effectively. And I've got really big respect
[5:23] for Power for this because it's really hard to start a new
[5:28] series. It's really hard to push against
[5:31] what's going on already. It's obviously really hard to
[5:33] compete against. You think some of the big brands
[5:36] have backed by, you know, almost a billion dollars of private
[5:40] equity to set something up, to go essentially head to head with
[5:44] these big organisations. I think he's really, really
[5:46] brave. But Paulo's got this vision to
[5:49] build something that's a little bit different.
[5:53] And, and I think it worked and the most part it really worked.
[5:56] It was a really fun weekend away.
[5:58] I think the, the Triton three format where you've got the, the
[6:02] events across the weekend, it worked really well.
[6:05] It worked both as a weekend away training, which is how we'd
[6:10] approached it, but it also worked as races.
[6:13] It worked much better as races than I thought it was going to.
[6:17] The individual races, obviously people were getting different
[6:21] amounts of points. Essentially if you finished
[6:23] first in your event, you got one point, second you got 2 and you
[6:27] would then compete with the other athletes against the swim,
[6:29] the bike in the run, and the person with the lowest aggregate
[6:32] number of points across the weekend would be the winner of
[6:34] that event. So there's that element of
[6:38] competition introduced into it. But the reason it worked really
[6:41] well is there were lots of people there who weren't racing
[6:45] for the win. They were there to to some of
[6:48] them just to have a good time. There were some there who were
[6:50] really there to push themselves to the very limit.
[6:52] There were some there who were going to have a race with the
[6:54] people who were around them, but they weren't necessarily trying
[6:57] to win the overall championship. And so the mix of that worked
[7:01] really well. So me and, and several other of
[7:04] our athletes, we've just gone for kind of a weekend away.
[7:07] But lining up on the start line of a, of a swim race with the
[7:10] wet suit on the goggles, the hat, you're on the beach, you're
[7:13] under the archway, the time is ready to go, the music's
[7:16] playing. You very definitely get yourself
[7:18] in the mindset of racing again very quickly.
[7:21] And, and so it played out. I'd intended to go out and have
[7:26] a very gentle, relaxed swim. I was just doing the Sprint
[7:28] distance and for me swimming a kilometre continuously was more
[7:32] than I'd done in a good few years.
[7:35] But I had the wet suit on with various splits in the wet suit
[7:38] that I found. So it's time for a new wet suit.
[7:42] And as soon as the gun went, we're all into the water and and
[7:46] you very quickly settle into the rhythm.
[7:48] Even if you mean to be swimming in a relaxed way, you end up
[7:51] swimming a bit harder and a bit faster than you mean to because
[7:54] of the people around you and because of the racing
[7:56] environment. It was fantastic.
[7:57] It was really good fun as you'd imagine not having really
[8:02] swimmed much over the last few years, certainly not in a
[8:04] training environment. I've done some swimming in the
[8:06] sea for fun in the summer when I've been on surfing trips.
[8:09] I got to 4 or 500 metres. My arms had just detonated and I
[8:14] could tell I was I was swimming backwards and I wasn't sighting
[8:17] well and all the stuff that you lose if you're not in regular
[8:19] training had gone. It was, it was years gone.
[8:22] But I got myself to the shore in a kilometre shade over 20
[8:26] minutes. The swim itself was in, it's
[8:31] very cleverly within the harbour walls at Porte Mayo, so the
[8:35] harbour stretches out five or 600 metres, the walls on both
[8:39] sides, because there's quite a bit of surf there.
[8:41] There were surfers riding big waves on the beach and the swim
[8:44] was inside the harbour walls. So he went all the way out to
[8:47] the lighthouse, about 405 hundred metres out and then 500
[8:52] metres back in along the harbour wall.
[8:53] You were really protected from the swell of the sea.
[8:56] There was some chop from the various boats and things that
[8:58] were on the other side of the channel, but it was a pretty
[9:02] calm ocean swim environment to be in, which was really good
[9:05] fun. So to get in around 20 ish
[9:09] minutes, I was happy with that. The swim times weren't
[9:12] particularly quick on the day, so I'm going to claim the swim
[9:14] was long, but it was really, really good fun and all the
[9:19] distances go off together. So the Sprint people went off
[9:23] with the middle distance, with the long distance and then we
[9:26] came up Australian exit. We went under the finished
[9:28] banner and finished the middle distances carried on for one
[9:31] more lap. The long distances carried on
[9:33] for two more laps and this one was, you know, this one was over
[9:37] for most people in an hour and 10 an hour and 20.
[9:40] All the fields was back on the shore.
[9:42] They had a really great area afterwards with with drinks and
[9:45] snacks and everyone was hanging out.
[9:46] It's a really cool chilled atmosphere.
[9:50] The next day we went to do the bike event.
[9:53] The bike event started early. We were up before it was light.
[9:55] It was 7:00-ish in the morning and and the sun hadn't risen yet
[10:00] and there was a neutralised start.
[10:02] This is what made the event interesting.
[10:04] It was 10 kilometres through the city to get to the bike circuit
[10:08] and we had a police escort, but it was like being in the Tour de
[10:11] France. We got driven out through the
[10:13] city with with the race cars at the front with police motorcycle
[10:17] outriders and we got escorted all the way through.
[10:20] They were stopping the traffic on the sides and we we rolled
[10:24] out through the 10K not quite as leisurely as I was expecting.
[10:27] This can't be said. It was pretty hard work going up
[10:30] some of the hills to stay with the gang, but as we approached
[10:33] the start of the circuit, the race organiser popped out the
[10:37] sunroof of the car just like in the Tour de France, waved the
[10:40] starters flag and it was on like people, the guys were trying to
[10:45] win. It was full on 1200 Watt Sprint
[10:48] off the line to get away and to get into groups and it was just
[10:52] you know we went really, really hard for the first few minutes
[10:56] before everybody settled down a bit.
[10:59] I I didn't make the first pack. I made a really big effort to
[11:02] get in with the first pack and it was obvious immediately there
[11:05] were a different standard of athlete to the level of fitness
[11:08] I'm at. So I sat up and let that group
[11:09] go and I settled in with the second pack, My pal Andy, he
[11:14] bridged up and got to the first pack.
[11:15] There were a couple of others in the first pack from our gang and
[11:18] I was riding along with a group of about, I'd say 15 or so in
[11:22] the second pack, very rolling. And so every time the roads went
[11:27] uphill somebody attacked. It was like being in a bike
[11:30] race. It was really good fun.
[11:31] The roads were closed on our side of the road.
[11:33] It was really well managed so we could, we could properly race
[11:37] and every time the road went uphill somebody had a dig.
[11:39] Every time we went over the top somebody closed the gap down.
[11:42] So we had a really good hard ride out.
[11:45] My gang finished at the end of the first lap and then we we sat
[11:49] around and we waited for the the guys to come around and finish
[11:52] the second lap who were doing the middle distance.
[11:54] And the plan was we were going to we were then going to ride
[11:57] back to the hotel and the people who were doing the long
[11:59] distance, but we're going to meet us back there.
[12:03] Unfortunately, having had a beautiful hot, dry, sunny summer
[12:08] at the end of lap one, it started to lightly drizzle and
[12:12] then it started to rain. And as anyone knows who's ridden
[12:15] on, you know, European roads and the first rain of the season,
[12:19] the roads became treacherous and like, and it was really slippery
[12:23] and slidy. The guys who were still racing,
[12:27] almost everybody came down. Packs were coming down on the
[12:29] corners. And like we said, it was, it was
[12:32] uphill, downhill, sharp turns at the bottom.
[12:34] So it was a good bike racing circuit, but with, with no grip
[12:38] people were, you know, I think over a dozen people came down.
[12:43] We'd, we'd gone back to the hotel at this point and I got a
[12:46] phone call from Paolo and, and my friend Andy was there on the
[12:50] video call. Obviously he'd come off badly
[12:54] and there was skin missing off his arm and hands.
[12:56] And he was, he was pretty beaten up and he said he was OK and he
[12:59] was going to ride back to the hotel.
[13:00] And when he got back to the hotel, it was obvious that, you
[13:05] know, it had been total carnage on lap 2:00 and 3:00 because of
[13:08] the rain. People had come down, people
[13:10] were in ambulances, someone they thought had broken a wrist.
[13:13] And so we were just grateful that those of us in the Sprint
[13:16] event, we were grateful we'd got back.
[13:17] And we'd missed that. So we were, we were hanging out
[13:21] and checking in on Andy and checking in on another one of
[13:23] our athletes who'd come back and crashed and was finding it hard
[13:26] to get off her bike. And she said she thought she'd
[13:29] pulled her, pulled a groyne maybe.
[13:33] It became obvious that Andy was in more pain than we thought it
[13:36] was. And then he, it turns out we
[13:38] took a trip to hospital with him and our other athlete and Andy
[13:42] had broken his collarbone. The other athlete had fractured
[13:45] the pelvis. The guy who thought he'd broken
[13:48] his wrist luckily hadn't broken his wrist.
[13:50] But we spent the rest of the day sort of looking after these guys
[13:52] and getting them around and trying to get them to and from
[13:55] hospital and get them pain relief and all that stuff.
[13:57] So we had the full experiences. As anyone knows, it's been
[14:01] abroad to training camps. When it rains like this, you've
[14:03] got to be super, super lucky to stay upright when it rains like
[14:07] that. And unfortunately these guys
[14:09] weren't. So they were, they were out of
[14:12] Commission, but they were in good spirits, which was, which
[14:14] was good to see them. We got them some pain relief and
[14:16] they were OK. And then the next day we had the
[14:19] run. We, we had a sort of 9:00 start
[14:21] with the run 3 laps of the circuit.
[14:25] It was either 714 or 21 K got pretty warm.
[14:30] It was really humid. I was glad I was only doing one
[14:33] lap and because it did get really toasty.
[14:37] But again, there was, there's a couple of album backs.
[14:39] We ran around the harbour around Porto Mayo, which is beautiful.
[14:42] Then we ran along the boardwalk and back.
[14:44] It's a really great location and obviously there were some people
[14:47] who were neck and neck racing for the win and racing for
[14:50] podium positions. There were some people who were
[14:53] like me who were just running to get round and, and enjoying it
[14:56] and high fiving people. But the atmosphere was
[14:58] fantastic. So really great.
[15:02] It was a really great event. And you know, I'm a, I'm a big
[15:06] fan of saying like, if you, if you meet good people, if you
[15:09] like good people are trying to do good things, help people out.
[15:12] And, and I'd encourage you all to go and look at the Triton
[15:15] Race series. As I said, there's been two or
[15:17] three events this year in Portugal and Brazil.
[15:20] They're expanding this year globally.
[15:22] So there's going to be, I think there's three or four more
[15:25] events coming online this year. And then Paulo's plan is to have
[15:27] three more events each year until he builds up to the point
[15:31] he's got 30 events. So there's events coming online
[15:34] for next year in, in China, in Greece, in Egypt, I think is
[15:41] another one all over the shop in America.
[15:43] Even so it looks like this this is going to be a race series
[15:47] that you see around and, and I'd encourage you to go and look at
[15:49] it. And even if you, you don't want
[15:51] to do one of their all in one day, traditional triathlons,
[15:55] consider going out and you'll get a really good workout across
[15:58] the weekend and swim, bike, run entering an event, being around
[16:02] other people. We met tonnes of great people
[16:05] from around the world who were really, really good fun and
[16:08] really nice and it was a great atmosphere.
[16:09] So I think it'd be well worth you going and looking into next
[16:12] year. And so you can just Google
[16:14] Triton Triathlon and and you'll see the details about that.
[16:18] But yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to Jane for hooking us
[16:22] up with Paolo. Thank you to Paolo for having us
[16:25] over. We did a little coaching seminar
[16:26] that the day before the 1st event to help people with like
[16:30] pacing and planning of how they're going to pace and
[16:33] approach the event across the way, which seems to be pretty
[16:37] well received. And I'm hopeful that we might be
[16:40] able to do some stuff with the brand in the future.
[16:42] Who knows where these things are going to lead, but I was really
[16:45] impressed and I think if we could go out and be part of this
[16:48] and take some of the team oxygenetics out to one of these
[16:51] events every year. I think the long weekend Triton
[16:53] three format is great as a kind of almost like as an organised
[16:58] training camp where everyone has done all the thinking for you.
[17:01] You know, the swim thing is set up there.
[17:04] Anyone who's done training camps knows the challenge is always
[17:07] finding a way to make open water swimming safe in a venue that
[17:11] you don't own and manage. Trying to find circuits to ride
[17:15] when you're in a foreign country, if you don't know that,
[17:17] if you don't know the place you're going to can be a
[17:19] challenge. So having all this thinking done
[17:22] for you by a race event planner, I think it's potentially really
[17:25] valuable. So yeah, so check that out.
[17:28] And I'd also like to wish Andy and Jenny all the best
[17:31] recovering from their recovering from their various fractures and
[17:36] injuries. And it will be a a longer Rd
[17:39] back than I think either of them would ideally like, But fingers
[17:42] crossed it's going to be it's going to be a smooth one.
[17:46] All right, so a bit of a different episode.
[17:48] I think listens to the podcast will have will have heard
[17:50] similar sort of episodes before viewers on YouTube.
[17:53] Well done. If you've stuck this out and go
[17:55] all the way through to the end of a YouTube video with me, just
[17:57] face the camera ring. The reason that the video in
[18:00] particular is rough and ready this week.
[18:02] Obviously Andy is my editor and he's the usually the one who
[18:05] takes the rough cut of what I do in edits, sit down and makes it
[18:08] a bit more palatable. But I wanted to get something
[18:10] out this week because obviously we had didn't put anything out
[18:13] last week because Andy was too busy trying to find pain relief.
[18:16] So hopefully a little bit bit easier to manage and all being
[18:20] well, if things work out with Andy's recovery, we should be
[18:23] back on track with the weekly YouTube videos as well going
[18:26] forwards. And just to wrap this up, I want
[18:28] to give a shout out to our friends and our sponsors of
[18:31] Precision Fuel and Hydration. If you are out at the World 70.3
[18:35] Championships in Marbella this weekend, Precision Fuel and
[18:39] Hydration are the title sponsor. It is the Precision Fuel and
[18:42] Hydration World 70.3 Championship.
[18:44] So go over to the booth, say hello, tell them that you listen
[18:47] to the podcast or tell them that you watch YouTube and you've
[18:50] heard about them on there. They love meeting athletes who
[18:54] listen to the show. They love our team oxygenetics
[18:57] athletes, but they love meeting people and being told I heard
[19:00] about you on the Oxygen Addict podcast or on YouTube.
[19:03] It really helps them see that they're, you know, if they've
[19:06] been a long term supporter of our podcast and YouTube, it
[19:10] makes a big difference if someone says I've seen and heard
[19:13] about you on here and they know that they're getting a kind of
[19:15] return on their investment if you like, but also they're
[19:18] awesome people. They've got fantastic products
[19:20] and they'll help you out in planning what you need to do for
[19:23] your 70.3 Championships race, so you can go over to their website
[19:27] as well. You can use the free fuel and
[19:28] hydration planning tool and it'll give you a personalised
[19:31] strategy for your next race if you haven't got one already.
[19:33] And it'll also help you plan out what you need to be taking for
[19:36] winter training when you're indoors on the treadmill or
[19:39] you're indoors on the bike trainer for the upcoming winter
[19:43] winter training plan. Now, just to wrap this up, if
[19:46] you're thinking about your triathlon plans for next year,
[19:50] if you're thinking that you want to make the next season a really
[19:52] good one and really push yourself onto new levels in your
[19:55] 70.3 and Iron Man performance and you're considering coaching.
[19:59] If you've liked what you've heard on our podcast or YouTube,
[20:01] please feel free to get in touch.
[20:02] There's a link in the show notes.
[20:04] So in the description down here, you can book a membership, call
[20:06] with me and we'll have a chat and find out about you.
[20:09] If you're a good fit for joining the team and we think we'll work
[20:11] well together, we'll see if you've got places available, it
[20:14] is the ideal time to get involved and get into structured
[20:18] training right now going into the winter.
[20:21] The 16 weeks of winter is the time you can make a massive
[20:24] difference to your bike and overall aerobic fitness.
[20:27] So when you get to the springtime, you're jumping off
[20:30] already riding two or three kilometres an hour faster
[20:33] outdoors compared to your friends who haven't done
[20:36] structured training through the winter.
[20:38] So give us a call and let's have a chat.
[20:40] And remember over at Precision Fuel and hydration.com, we can
[20:43] use the code Oxygen Fuel 25 for 15% of your first order.
[20:48] All right guys, so until next week, have a great safe training
[20:51] and racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[20:53] been listening to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon Podcast.

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