The “Beeracudas” Family Tri Team

Dale & Cheryl will once again lead the “Beeracudas” in the long-standing tradition of taking part in events together as a family, this time there will be 8 (yes you read that right) of them all out there together. This time they are taking on Race 1 of the Barfoot & Thompson Peoples Tri!  Have a read of what inspired them to start this awesome family tradition.

Dale Burtenshaw

In the very crazy world we live in and the age of electronics I strive to get all those around me to have fun, engage in some physical exercise and sport, have a wee challenge to go for, be healthy, look better after our well-being and most importantly to engage with our family and develop our relationship as we all grow older.

I loved sports as a much younger person surfing, soccer, basketball well almost anything that I could be involved with. Then you grow up get into work marry,have kids, and all those things we all go through. For me or perhaps the older generation, I worked all the time and missed a lot of our kids growing up. We are all our own people, but my sons didn’t quite like sport as much as I did perhaps so now that once all the chicks have sprung the nest we have some time to get to do stuff we love.

As many of you well know Cheryl and I love all the same sports & health and well-being stuff including a few merry rounds of cocktails to keep the balance. So nearly a decade ago for Sean’s 18th birthday, I promised him to do a sprint tri together. I’d never really run, or biked but had swum before. So Dec 2012 we did our first tri together which has taken 8 years to be beaten time-wise! and from there it all starts with us trying to encourage our family, friends, and colleagues to do something to enhance our lives.

Since our first tri, we have done duathlons, swimathlons, 10k runs, half marathons, a full marathon for me, a sort of a half iron man, ocean swims etc etc etc – we have all clocked up a few 000ks over the years & traveled to some great places (like Fiji) and had lots of fun and exercise.

The reason for the upcoming tri is the time after COVID to bring the “Beeracudas” back together and have some more family fun exercise. So this time we have Cheryl and myself & my 3 boys- Sean, Alexander & Anthony, Cheryl’s son Brad and his girlfriend Brooke and another of my crazy nephews, Orion who wants to have a go, a number of the team have not done this before so why not!. Triathlon is so much fun, getting out there doing something new, high-five-ing as we all go round and round. The reason for the day and date is the morning after this tri I head into the hospital for a full knee replacement and as such the gathering of family around to do this with the ol “Proff” !!!

The “Beeracudas’ are growing and welcome Brooke and Orion in the team, sadly Ange is in London so will miss it, this time but hope to have her back soon!