The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold Classic competitors today
Cotswold Classic 2016 – Post race mail
Hi All, I hope this email finds you all well with your feet firmly up and relaxing now after today’s race ?
Now our last finisher is well and truly in, and the race is now over for another year, I wanted to drop you all a quick email firstly to say a massive thank you for choosing to race with us, but also to get out some info on the race.
I’ll try not waffle on too much as I know you’ll be shattered from today, so in this mail I’ll cover the following
Race results and photo’s from today
Race Directors comments
Accident on the course update
Feedback request
Next year’s races
Race results and photo’s from today
Firstly. and most importantly for many of you Im sure is how fast you went and how you looked whilst doing it
The race results in full can be found here
Charleswhitton Photography and his guys were on the courses and finish line today taking pics. They’ll take a couple of days to sort through them and catalogue them, but when they’re done you can find them here http://www.charleswhittonphotography.com/group24472.html
We’ve prepaid the initial downloads for you, and he’ll then have more photo’s available for purchase if you wanted a whole set.
Race Directors Comments
I wanted to thank everyone that’s chosen to race with us. The competitors today were some of the best to date, and despite the tough conditions, the amount of drafting on the course and intentional littering was very low, so thank you all very much for that, it’s hugely appreciated by myself and the team.
As I’ll cover in the next section, we had a serious accident on the course with a competitor today, and the courtesy extended by the riders that were on the course when asked to dismount and walk past rather than riding was exceptional. I appreciate it’s a big ask to slow down for a bit when you’re racing and the clock is ticking, but I saw no-one complaining that they had to walk for 50meters, and everyone just seemed very concerned over the wellbeing of the injured competitor rather than stressed about losing a few minutes to their own time
The weather was looking to be challenging today, but we were lucky to avoid most of the rain and the condition of the course was not as bad as it could’ve been given the forecast.
I saw a lot of big smiles across the line today, and i hope that everyone achieved what they had hoped for.
Personally, I’m a bit sad that the season for 113 Events has come to an end now. We’ve had good and bad in terms of weather this year, but we seem to be more comfortable setting up races in the wet, and it’s certainly what we’ve become used to. It’s been a fun year and we’ve met some great people in the competitor and marshal group as well as some somewhat crazy and unique characters. It’s always a sad time when the season is done and our third event is complete, but we’re looking forward to another fun year in 2017 with more of the same and similar. For me, I’m working full time on the events for another 10 days, and then it’s back to my day job from Sept 1st 🙁
Accident on the course update
As many of you would’ve seen, and as I mention above, we had a very serious accident on the course today where a competitor needed to be taken to hospital following a crash. I wouldn’t normally put this into the post race mail, but I’ve been inundated with emails this afternoon asking if he was ok and we appreciate peoples concern over a fellow racer.
Obviously, I can’t go into details, but I have spoken with both the hospital and the competitors partner, and I wanted to let everyone know that although he’s suffered a serious head injury and a badly broken shoulder, I understand that’s he’s ok in hospital and is being kept in for a couple of days for checks and testing.
The Police and marshals we had on the course including the motorcycle police officer handled the situation very well, and an ambulance was called straight away. We managed the situation, and along with the Police on the scene, made the decision to not close that section of road, but to make competitors dismount and walk past. The last thing we wanted was a cyclist to wobble and to make the situation worse by creating a bigger accident that we already had, so creating a dismount/walk/remount was the best solution for all, and again as said above, thank you very much to all of you for being so courteous and not just trying to ride through to save 30 seconds own your time.
Two competitors with medical training, who I’ll mail separately. both sacrificed their races to help out a fellow competitor and stay at the scene to make sure he was ok until the police and ambulance arrived, and it’s this spirit of competitors that is so great in our sport, so thanks very much to these guys.
Feedback request
We’re absolutely committed to making our races the very best they can be, and we can’t do that without you guys and girls that have experienced them from the other side of the tape, letting us know what you liked and things that you think we can improve on.
Please, if you have a few minutes either today or whenever you can, take the time to let us know what worked and anything you think didn’t
Were the aid station stocked with the things you like, did the course provide enough flat to go fast without being boring, do you like our style of communication etc etc, the list goes on and on.
We’re meeting as a team later this week for a debrief as we always do, so any feedback you can give us will go into the discussion pot of what we can keep or change for next year’s races.
We’re as critical of our own performance as anyone, and we’ve already identified a fair few things we can do better, but please let us know your thoughts both good and bad
We value this feedback more than anything as without you guys telling us about your own personal experiences or that of your supporters, we don’t know what to keep and what to change
Next year’s races
I still remember then the year’s races didn’t open until April, and some of the bigger IM races opened January the 1st. However, it seems to have become the norm now for races to be open nearly a year in advance, and the demand for people to get next year’s races in their diaries and the training planned is getting earlier and earlier. Our dates for 2017 aren’t ‘officially fixed’ as yet, but we’re working on the first weekend in June, first weekend in July and 1st weekend in August for 2017’s Cotswold113, Cotswold226/226Wknd and Cotswold Classic
Entries for the Middle distance races (Cotswold113 and Cotswold Classic) will open online on Sept 1st, and the Cotswold226 and 226Wknd events will open on Oct 1st
We’ll have the dates fixed and finalised in the next 10 days before they open, and we’ll email out to all our subscribers and previous competitors beforehand when they are.
I hope to see lots of you back racing with us again
That’s it for me for today. Like many of you guys, I’ve been surviving on <2hrs sleep a night for a few days, and myself and the rest of the team are shattered. I’ll be at the lake Monday and Wednesday clearing everything away into storage for next year, so if anyone’s left anything down there and needs it sending out or wants to come and collect, just give me a call or drop me an email
We also have a massive pile of slippers, trainers and flip flops that were left by the swim start. These are there to collect until later in the week, and assuming they don’t either walk off themselves or get eaten by the rats, are there to collect
Thanks again for choosing to race with us, and also for being the best bunch of competitors to date
Please let us have your feedback too, as it’s hugely important to us
Cheers and happy rest and recovery
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
07595 591612
graeme@113events.com
facebook.com/113events
@113events