The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold 113 2023 Competitors today
Cotswold 113 – 4th June 2023
Good morning all, I hope everyone’s well and ready for next Sunday’s Cotswold 113 ?
We’re 1 week away from the race now, so I wanted to get the latest instalment of the newsletters out to you with some final info to get you totally ready to turn up next weekend :
I appreciate a tapering triathlete has a lot of time on their hands, so I’ll cram a fair amount of info on the race into this email to take your mind off all those kit options you’re probably stressing over right now
This newsletter will be a long one, so I’d strongly suggest a coffee and a comfy seat for this one
In this email, I’ll cover the following :
Race info pack link
Start list, waves/numbers & Live Tracker / Results
Parking and competitor / spectator access on race weekend
Things you might have not considered, but are worth knowing
Registration and briefing info
Marshalling on the day
Race info pack link
I can see from the download numbers, that a good chunk of you have now downloaded the race info pack from our previous emails and hopefully had a good read through it. For those of you that haven’t read it yet, you can download it HERE
This contains everything you need to know about the race next weekend, and it’s really important that you please take a few mins to read through it as we’ve seen an increasing number of people over the last few year’s that have either turned up at the wrong time (also the wrong day more than once) or not had the right stuff with them, and this makes for a stressful day for both us and them.
Start list, waves/numbers & Live Tracker / Results
We have 812 people/teams signed up to this year’s race, and I had requests from 640 of you for specific waves and numbers. I’m confident that we managed to cater for about 99.99% of them with the waves and/or number requests this year, and you can find your allocated wave and number on the published start list* HERE
*This version was published 18th May, so if you’re a late entry or have made other arrangements with me since, this won’t reflect that, but don’t worry, our master list and timing list is up to date.
If you have changed clubs since entering or forgot to list your club on your online entry form, go and see the timing guys at registration next Saturday and they can update the results to show any changes.
Our timing partner has now put up the link to what will be the live results and tracker on the day so your loved ones, freinds and fan club members can keep an eye on you during the race. It shows live updates for the point you enter the water, the time you finish the swim, bike laps and run laps as well as transition times and then eventually a finish time.
You can find that link HERE
Parking and competitor / spectator access on race weekend
Our carpark is about a 5 min walk to where Transition will be on Sunday, and Sign on and briefings on Saturday.
The guys at the Beach and Country park have been kind enough to allow all our competitors and their entourages to walk through their facility both days once you’ve collected a wristband from us at the car park (if you’re getting dropped off, cycling over or walking over, you won’t need to go through the B&CP, so won’t need a wrist band to get into Lake 32)
However, and it’s an important point, being a water sports and beach facility, they’re strictly limited on the numbers of people they can have on site at any time. Subsequently, although you can all walk through and use their shop/cafe en route, it’s extremely important that you’re not tempted to go and use their beach or playpark facilities as you can put them over their allowed max numbers and they run a high risk of penalty as a result of this – Plus, we have a really good relationship with them, and want to keep it that way as without them, we don’t have a race.
The below map shows the walk through path to use please
They open at 10am both days, so if you have family etc that are coming along later to spectate, and want to use their facility, they can book in advance online at https://www.cotswoldcountryparkandbeach.com/
It’s a really cool place if you have family coming along, and it also means they can park literally up against our transition / finish area so won’t have far to walk anywhere, as well as being able to use their beach, toddler beach, pedalo’s etc whilst you’re racing.
You will 100% need to book in advance though as with the good weather forecast for this week, coupled with it being school holidays, next weekend will be fully booked very soon.
Our run course goes through there right next to the beach too, and you can walk in and out of the finish line area from there.
Our 113 car park is £5 cash each day please, and to speed up Sunday’s parking process, you can buy Sunday’s ticket on Saturday afternoon.
Things you might have not considered, but are worth knowing
We’re not hugely dissimilar to many other triathlons, but there are little things we do that are worth knowing right from when you arrive through to when you finish that can make a big difference to your day when racing with us.
I’ll cover a few of the main ones as follows :
– The carpark is a single gate in, so there can be a short delay in the morning to get parked up, especially in the busier time of around 05:30-06:00. Therefor, it’s worth planning a little bit of extra time in the morning to allow for getting into parking.
You can also buy Sunday’s parking ticket on Saturday, and this will save your few minutes Sunday.
– The BTF rules do not allow you to have a plastic or rigid box in transition. We leave all our kit with our bikes in the racking for the race. Transition is on grass, and this can get wet with either rain or dew overnight (or during the race) so we recommend you bring a large plastic bag (think bin bag or similar) to either leave your kit on, or place inside if it’s raining.
You can bring a soft bag into transition for your kit and to leave your belongings in during the race, but no suitcases or large plastic boxes please.
Transition is strictly for competitors only, so your stuff is pretty safe in there
– You will need to put the bike sticker that you collect in your registration pack on your bike before you can bring it to rack it Sunday morning. It doesn’t matter where on your bike it goes, and we only use it to ID your bike against your bib number when you come back after the race and collect your bike.
– The walk from transition to the pre race toilets and the race start is very short, but is over gravel. If you have sensitive feet that don’t like walking on gravel without footwear, please feel free to wear some old trainers, slippers, flip flops etc and leave them by the swim start along the shore before you get into the water. It’s right by the race finish, so you can grab them after the race, or if they’re ones you don’t want back, we’ll chuck them in the skip on Sunday evening.
We will also have a small gazebo set up near the swim start so if you have an old coat or something you want to wear over your wetsuit whilst you’re waiting to get started to keep you warm, you can chuck that in there and grab it after the race also
Please note that neither the shoe area or the jumper drop tent are particularly secure and are in a spectator area, so anything you leave, you do so at your own risk. We’ve never had any old shoes or jumpers go missing yet, but you never know.
– We don’t have changing tents in the transition area, and anyone that wants to get fully changed between swim / bike and bike / run can do that in transition either under a towel or one of these swim robes that seem to be very popular these days. The BTF have a no nakedness rule for transition, so we ask that you try and be discreet as we do have lots of families watching their loved ones in transition.
We’re pretty relaxed with it, and I do appreciate that slips happen. However, we will draw the line at either naked lunges next to your bike, or full naked ‘see saw’ towel drying motion of your undercarriage (both of which I have genuinely seen in the past at our races, and am still trying to delete from my memory)
– If you want to take outside aid from friends and spectators in the form of drinks or food, you can do this in the vicinity of the aid station to stay within the rules. We’re pretty relaxed with many of the rules if you’re just there to complete the distance. However, if you’re trying to compete for an age group qualification time etc, we will be strict on these things.
– The bike Aid station is about 23 miles into each lap. Therefore, it’s worth having enough drink and nutrition on your bike when you start to get you to this point
– You’re absolutely more than welcome to bring your family or loved ones down the finish chute with you at the end of the race, and all we ask is that you’re mindful of other people finishing around you that might have a late sprint to beat their mate or a specific time.
– There’s a couple of spots on our swim course that you can just about stand up in, and you’re more than welcome to use them to take a short break and recompose yourself. You’re also welcome to signal to one of our canoeists if you need to hold onto their canoe and take a short break too. I would suggest that if you do the latter, please either grab the front or rear tips of the canoe, as if you grab the side, they’ll soon be in the water with you and not best pleased
I’ll cover more of these points in our Saturday briefings, which I’ll cover in the next section
Registration and Briefing info
Registration is on Saturday the 3rd of June at the lake.
For registration, you will need the following please :
For BTF Members – A Valid 2023 BTF Photocard ID – Or the phone version, but you must bring another form of photoID to we can cross check the name against the ID
For non BTF members – Photo ID (driving license, passport etc) a photo of it on your phone is fine, and £5 cash for a BTF day membership that we can sell you at Registration
You can get someone else to register for you, but they will need :
A printed version of your 2023 BTF photo ID with a note on it to say it’s fine for someone to register for them, or a printed version of your photo ID with the same note as above, and £5 csh for a BTF day license.
We have to keep hold of the printed version of the Photo ID or BTF card as these must be given to the BTF reference in line with the rules, and he will check ID against faces at transition check in Sunday AM.
He will then give us back all the printed ID’s and we will destroy them through a shredder securely in the days after the race.
If you are a relay team, and want just one person to come and register for the whole team that’s totally fine too, but the same rules above apply for each person that isn’t there, and you need a BTF license or buy a day license for each person please.
Briefings You will receive a link to a 5-10min compulsory briefing video this coming week. However, we will hold two non compulsory 45ish min briefings at the lake if you wish to attend either of them. We’ll use those briefings to talk through the race in its entirety as well as going through a load of what to do and what not to do type examples.
They’re really relaxed, and we’ll try and make them interesting (we’ll try for funny, but can’t promise that bit) and we’ll answer as many questions as you can throw at us. These will be at 13:00 and 16:00 and we’ll do these by the swim exit next to transition. It’s outdoors, so if it looks like it’s going to be wet, bring a brolly or a coat
Marshalling on the day
We could still do with a few more marshals on the day as we have around 140 paid positions, and have had a couple of drop outs this week. If you’ve got anyone coming along that fancies seeing the race from the fun side, we’d love them on our team.
We also have had a couple of the finish massage team drop out, so if you know any masseurs that fancy working on the finish line, we need two more for the day please. Our masseurs get paid £80 cash for 4-5 hours work from 10:30, and all we ask is that they bring their own massage oils and couch please
Right, that’s it from me for today. Hopefully you’re all still awake as that was a marathon of a newsletter
The next you’ll hear from me is in the middle of next week with a link to the Video Briefing as well as any updates to the conditions, water temperature (currently 19deg) or anything else important before next weekend
Hope you all have a great taper week and manage not to bite anyone’s heads off (as I always did during taper week), and remember that you now can’t add strength or fitness before next week, but you can very easily overdo it and it come into the race with unnecessary muscle fatigue
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions at all or there’s anything we can help with, please just ask
See you all in just under a week’s time
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612