The following email went out to all 113 Cotswold Classic 2016 Competitors today;
If you didn’t get it for any reason, please get in touch as we may have your email down incorrectly
113 Cotswold Classic – July newsletter
Good afternoon all, I hope everyone’s been out training hard now the summer’s decided to finally arrive.
We’re just 4 weeks out from race weekend, so I wanted to drop you all out a quick email to bring you up to speed on a few race things, and the get some information out to you about race weekend
This is going to be a long one, so I’d get comfortable and grab a coffee if I were you 🙂
In this email, I’ll cover the following;
Marshal request
Sponsors and prize giving
Familiarisation day
Outline weekend schedule
Optional Saturday Briefing
Race info Pack
Race numbers and waves
Marshal Request
For those of you that have raced with us before will already know, we have some of the best and most numerous marshals for any middle or long distance event of our type. We are after more marshals for the August Classic to join our team, so please can I ask if you are bringing people down to the race with you, if you can ask tham if they’d like to be involved. Marshalling is fun with us, and we’ll take good care of them whilst you’re out racing.
They get paid too, and we’ll keep them in hot food and drink, or ice creams and cold drinks if it’s hot again like it was at the 226 last weekend (blimmin hot, in fact)
The Pay for marshals is;
£20 cash or a £40 113 Events voucher (that can be used my their nominee also)
An event team Technical tshirt
Free hot food, drink, ice creams
The best seat in the house to see the racing
We have two shifts that we need extra cover for ;
05:45-12:00ish – Bike Course
08:15-15:00ish – Run Course
They don’t need any experience at all, and our course managers will take them through a full briefing and provide them with everything they need, and arrange transport to and from their spots if required.
All we ask of them is that they’re enthusiastic, and preferably know their left from their right.
If marshals have kids with them, we can get the kids an event shirt too (these go down to an 8yr olds size) and position them on the run course so they’re no where near a road
Unfortunately, our insurance prevents us from paying under 16’s, but they can still have a fun day and take advantage of the free ice-cream.
If you have friends, club mates, family or even sworn enemies that you can press gang in, please just drop me a mail at graeme@113events.com
Sponsors and Prize Giving
This year we’re lucky to welcome on board Swimzi as a sponsor of the race http://www.swimzi.com
Swimzi have kindly donated some XK Dry robes to go to 1st place in each of our age groups in both male and female as well as to all members of the winning relay.
These are nice bits of kit and retail at around £100, so well worth pushing hard for.
Our age groups for prize giving are ;
1/2/3 Male 16-49
1/2/3 Female 16-49
1/2/3 Male 50+
1/2/3 Female 50+
1st Relay
Ages are on race day
We will publish the 5yr age categories as per the BTF regulations (age as of 31/12/16), but will only have trophies and prizes for the age groups listed above. The reason for this is that we would rather give fewer really nice hand made trophies that people will treasure rather than have to produce 36 less special trophies that generally get thrown away or left in the bottom of a draw.
Prize giving will take place at 14:30 on race day next to the finish line.
I’ll apologise in advance for having the prize giving so late as the fastest guys and girls in wave 1, will be finished by around 10:30, and it means hanging around
However, the reason we do the prize giving so late is that I don’t ever want the people who are coming in much later in the day to feel like the race has finished after prize giving and everyone’s packed up without them. Plus the last finishers will be coming in during the prize giving, and I want the biggest crowd near the finish line so they get the biggest cheers of the day, as I feel they deserve it more having been racing for longer.
As an incentive to get people to stick around for the prize giving and not to just pack away and go home. Anyone that wins a trophy and prize, and isn’t there to collect it, won’t get it, sorry
Also, and as a good reason for everyone else to stick around, we will do a random race number raffle that we’ll pick straight after the prize giving, where the competitor with the race number (don’t forget to bring it) that matches the number drawn will also get a Swimzi XK robe and free entry to the Cotswold 113 or Classic next year, so please hang onto your race numbers and stick around as the prize is worth well over £200
Familiarisation day
Our free of charge familiarisation day is taking place at the lake tomorrow (Sunday the 24th) from 10:00am. If you haven’t already booked in online already, don’t worry, you can still turn up.
This is a great chance to have a guided single lap of the bike and run courses, and to meet myself and the rest of the team to ask any questions you might have. Friends and family are, of course, welcome too
The emphasis on the day is leisurely paced, so think 15-16mph average on the bike and 9-10min miles on the run
Outline Weekend Schedule
We’ll produce the race pack and email a link to it out to you all in the next couple of weeks, but in advance, here’s an outline of the weekend schedule;
Saturday the 20th August
11;30 Car Park opens
12:00-17:00 Registration
14:30 Full info briefing* (optional)
Sunday 21st August
04:00 Car park opens
04:30 Transition opens
06:30 Transition closes
06:20/30/40/50/07:00/10/20 Compulsory Race Briefings for waves 1/2/3/4/5/6/7
06:30/40/50/07:00/10/20/30 Race starts for waves 1/2/3/4/5/6/7
If you’re not able to attend the registration on the Saturday, then it’s not the end of the world as you still have options;
1) You can get a friend to register for you
2) We’ll have the race packs ready at our house from around Thursday morning of race week, so if you or someone else is passing by Swindon on the M4, we live about 2 mins from Junction 16 and the kettle’s always on at mine and Nicci’s house (there might even be biscuits if the kids haven’t eaten them all)
Unfortunately, we can’t post packs as the magnets used by the mail services cause havoc with the timing chips.
*Optional Saturday briefing
I’m conscious that no one ever listens to the compulsory pre race briefing on the Sunday morning as you’ll all have your race faces on and just want to get into the water and start racing. This is why it’s purposely very short at around 2mins and just covers the absolute important basics.
For those of you that want to hear a full briefing, where we’ll literally go through the race bit by bit from very start to very finish and cover absolutely everything you could need, we will hold an optional full briefing on the Saturday afternoon at 14:30 by the Swim exit.
This is entirely optional, but it’s a good chance to hear everything you could possibly need to hear, and probably more.
It’ll be held with myself and Dave from the team, and it’s a good chance to ask any questions you might get on the day too
Race Info pack
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll have finalised the full race info pack and have it ready to publish here https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/downloads/
This will contain absolutely everything about the race from the where’s and when’s, spectator info, contact points and all the info on aid stations and courses
I’ll aim to have that uploaded by the 7th August, probably sooner
Please take the time to print it off when available and have a good read through it. Personally, I do my best reading on the toilet, but you will all have your own places and ways to digest info, but please do read it as it’ll contain important information about the race weekend
Race numbers and waves
Now the race is closed and the entry list is available to me, so we can now offer you the chance to choose your own race number and wave
You can choose from numbers 8-720 Inclusive and any wave from 1-7
You can also ask to have a group of sequential numbers so that you and your mates are racked together (our transition is numbered sequentially, and then if you request, we can put you all in the same wave too.
Please don’t just assume that as you’re all in the same club, you’ll be racked together, so make the request please as we might miss it otherwise and often people who are members of a club, haven’t listed it with their entry.
If you’re asking for a group of people, please check with them first as you’d be amazed how many people ask to have a group of, say 8, people together, and either one of them has been asked to be in some else’s group or has asked themself to be in a certain wave and with a certain number.
Also, we always get duplicates of seemingly unique names in the race, so please can I ask that you provide the registered email address of any people that you’d like to organise within your group so you don’t end up racked next to the wrong Quentin Zahara when you’ve assumed we’d only have 1 🙂
In terms of asking for waves, then I’d like to perhaps suggest a couple of considerations as to why you might want to choose one;
1) You’re the next Michael Phelps and you want clear water to swim in, so you might want wave 1
2) You’re not the next Michael Phelps, and you might not want to be caught by later waves in the water, so you might want wave 7, which is the last wave into the water for the 1 lap swim
3) You’re expecting to be pushing 7.5hrs racing or above, and you don’t want to be the last person on the run course, so you might want to ask for an earlier wave so that you can have 40-60mins head start on other people
4) You might have a heavy night planned the night before, so want a relative lie in and choose a later wave
5) You might have forgotten it’s your wedding anniversary, or need to be home to watch Songs of praise in the afternoon, so you might want an earlier wave so you can be home for Lunchtime
In reality, the waves tend to have a very even spread of swimmers in them, and it’s really only the very fast 10 or 15 people that will choose wave 1, and the rest will be similarly paced to the other waves and the average swim time in each wave is largely comparable. Our swim course is also nice and wide and a single lap, so the chance of having people swim over the top of you is not very high
We have 800 competitors on the day, so each of the 7 waves will be limited to 115 swimmers
Also, if you were thinking that going in wave 1 will give you a clear course, it will in the swim, but by the time you hit the second lap of the bike, you’ll be starting to catch the guys that are racing in wave 5,6 & 7 starting out on their first cycle lap. You will still, of course, get a clearer run course
There’s a million variables in it, so please choose as you see fit.
In terms of choosing specific race numbers, then it’s completely first come first served based on emailing me at graeme@113events.com
If all our previous races are anything to go by, I will get emails asking for numbers within about 2 mins of me pressing send, so please consider this when you select a specific number that it may already be gone, so list out an option 2, 3 and even 4
The first numbers to go are nearly always 13,66,666 and 69 – I’m not sure why;)
If you’re looking to group your club or mates, as I said before, please check with them all first and get an agreement before we start numbering people that don’t want to be numbered, or putting people in wave 4, when they want to be in wave 1 or 7
I will definitely need their emails too so that I can identify them
We get typically around 80% of the competitors ask for a specific wave or number, so with this race having 800 competitors, that’s around 640 requests I’ll have to go through to try and accommodate, and it’s massively time consuming for me (literally takes 4-5 days of 6-8hrs a day), so please make my life a bit easier and don’t keep changing your mind or asking me to number someone that doesn’t want to be numbered or has been numbered with another group in a different wave. Please take your time and get it right first time.
There’s no immediate rush if you’re just grouping a selection of people as I’ll find you a set of sequential numbers randomly within the pack so you’re together in transition and in the same wave, and only those looking for specific numbers need to turn it around quickly as they’re first come first served
If you don’t choose a specific number, you’ll be randomly allocated one of the remaining numbers, and if you don’t choose a specific wave, you’ll be allocated one the remaining waves too, by simply filtering the starters by age and starting to fill the youngest into the earlier waves through the oldest in the later waves. All waves are mixed male and female.
I’m afraid that relay teams cannot choose a specific race number as they have their own set of numbers and racking area, sorry
We’re very proud to be able to offer this number/wave choosing service for free, and we’ll keep it that way if you can try and make my job as simple as possible and not make me pull out what little hair I have left 🙂
I won’t be able to respond to all the emails, and will publish the start list with final waves and numbers on it in around 10days
Race number and wave requests need to be with me by end of play on Friday the 29th July please, as at that point we need to order race numbers and fix wave numbers, so will not be able to accommodate any changes after this point
Right, that’s it for my rambling for today, so I hope I haven’t put anyone to sleep.
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions, or need anything from us, please just ask
Cheers and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
07595 591612
Graeme@113events.com
www.113events.com
@cotswold113
facebook,com/113events