The following email went out to all 113 Cotswold Classic 2017 competitors tonight:
113 Cotswold Classic – 13th August 2017
Good evening all, I hope you’re all well and out training hard ready for next month’s race ?
We’re just under 5 weeks out from this year’s 113 Cotswold Classic Tri, so I wanted to get you all out a quick email with some info on the race.
I say quick email, but thinking about what I need to cover, this might be a long one, so hold tight and get yourself comfortable with a strong coffee as there’s some important info on the race in my waffle below 🙂
In this email, I’ll cover the following:
Race Info Pack
Lake Temperature
Registration requirements
Marshals
Car parking update
Live tracker and results
Entry FreezeRace
Numbers and Waves
Race Info Pack
Hopefully, by now you’ve all had a good read through the race info pack – If not, then you can find it here : https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/CC2017–Race-Information-Sheet.pdf
Lake Temperature
most of you will be glad to hear that after the unbelievably hot weather we had towards the end of last month, that the lake temperature has now dropped to a more normal 19-20deg.
Towards the end of June, the heatwave we had in the Cotswolds took the lake temperature up to over 27deg, which according to the guys that own the lake, is the warmest it’s ever been in 20years of them owning it.
The BTF ‘Wetsuit Optional’ range is 13-24, and I fully expect it to remain within that range between now and race day as it does most summers. I will, of course, update you all if anything changes, but please plan for a Wetsuit Optional day, which I know will make 98% of you very happy indeed
Registration requirements
Just to remind you all, that when you come to register on Saturday afternoon on the 12th between 12:00 & 17:00, you will need your valid 2017 BTF photo card ID, or if you’re not a BTF member or do not have your card with you, you’ll need another form of photo ID (passport or driving license are perfect) and £5 cash for a BTF day membership. We cannot accept the old £5 notes as these ceased to be legal tender on 5th May, and if we send these off the BTF, they’ll reject them back to us and we’ll have to foot the bill
If you’re getting someone to register for you on Saturday, which is perfectly fine, they’ll need a photocopy of your photo ID (must be a photocopy or a printed copy, not the actual form of ID as we have to hang onto it) with a note on it from you saying it’s ok for them to sign on your behalf and your signature. If your photo ID is not a 2017 BTF photo card, then they’ll also need £5 cash for a day license.
It needs to be a photocopy or print of the photo ID, as we have to give these to the BTF ref on the day with the race number written on it so he can make spot checks during the race that the person registered is the person racing.
Marshals
We can always use more marshals on our team for the race.
If you have anyone coming along with you that fancies being part of the team for the day, we’d love to have them onboard
Our marshals get paid too, and it’s either £20 cash or a £40 113 Events Voucher to use with us next year.
All marshals get an event team shirt and we’ll keep them in hot food, drinks and ice creams during the day.
Anyone that’s marshalled with us before will know that we really look after them during the day, and our races are made by the marshals and their enthusiasm.
You don’t need any experience at all, and we’ll provide them with everything they need and take them through a full briefing with our course managers.
The only thing we ask is that they’re over 16, they know their left from their right, and are enthusiastic.
We have a million jobs ranging from Water Exit pullers, through the bike and run courses, right through to finish line helpers.
We’d love to hear from them, so please ask them to get in touch at graeme@113events.com
Car parking update.
Anyone that is local to the area will know just how busy the Ashton Keynes beach and country park has been this year with it’s new owners and their pretty cool inflatable total wipeout style course (not in the lake we race in as a mid race obstacle, unfortunately).
However, what this means is that they now have limited car parking for us as for the race, and their general car parking is now set at £12 a car and they get chocka with paying customers.
We need to preserve our relationship with them as we run through their land on the run course, and they’re a good bunch too.
To avoid clogging up their spaces and to save you all a few quid,
we have arranged with a local friendly farmer (literally 300m from where we have transition/race start) to be able to use his field for car parking all over race weekend for both competitors and lots of spectators (his field, when prepared in the next couple of weeks, will take around 2,500-3,000 cars)
I will send out a revised parking map to that which you’ll see in the race info pack in the next couple of weeks that will show where you need to park on both Saturday and Sunday of race weekend
As you’ll be largely in and out in a few hours on the Saturday, they will charge you £2/car on the Saturday, and then it’ll be £5 all day per car on the Sunday for both early morning competitors and later arriving spectators. These are both payable in cash on the gate at arrival.
Sorry this isn’t exactly as we’ve done in the past, but we think this is the best solution to A) save you all a few quid, B) keep relationships good with local land owners, and C) ensure there’s loads of parking available for spectators
Live tracker and results
Over race weekend, we will have a live tracker and live results up on our website provided by the guys at DBMax timing.
We’ll put the link up over race weekend, and you’ll be able to find it here: https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/results/
Entry freeze
As of the end of last week, we have had to freeze the names and details against this race, and I’m afraid this now cannot be changed. I always get literally 50 or 60 emails in the run up to each race with requests to change names to a mate who now wants to race, or to defer to another race.
I’m sorry to be strict on this, as we generally try and be flexible as possible on these things, but Im afraid we now can’t offer any name changes or deferrals against this race, and any slot that now gets withdrawn, doesn’t get backfilled and goes vacant
It’s important for us to have names and details fixed early with insurers, medical providers and insurers etc and I’m afraid we now can’t change these.
This also means we won’t, unfortunately, be drawing on the waiting list further, so I’ll email those names on there and let them know.
I’m sorry to sound like I’m ranting, I just wanted to let you all know in case you were planning on emailing me to save disappointment.
Numbers and waves
As those of you that have raced with us before will know, we give you the chance from now to choose a specific race number or a group of sequential numbers so that you can be racked with your mates/club/competition in transition, and we also let you choose a specific wave to go off in.
You don’t have to choose a race number or wave, and you’ll be automatically allocated one if you don’t, but now’s your chance to ask if you do want both or either
There’s a few things to consider when choosing a wave, and it isn’t just as simple as going off in the first wave because your training this year is making you ready to take on Michael Phelps, or that you want to go in the last wave because you don’t want the faster guys to catch up from later waves in the water.
Our swim works in 8 waves going off at ten minute intervals starting from 06:30, and you can choose any wave you like
In order to make your decision of which wave could be best for you, let me give you a few examples or considerations:
1) You might be a slower athlete and want more time on the course with other people around you, so you’d want one of the earlier waves so you’re not the last person on the course running on your own. The official cut off is 7.5hrs from the start of the last wave, so this would give you more time to get towards that too, although were very flexible with our overall cut off.
2) You might swim 1,900m in 21mins and feel like there’s no way you want to be overtaking other waves, so you’d want to line up in the first wave.
3) You might desperately want to be home in time for Country file or your Nans roast dinner, so you might want an earlier wave, but don’t want to be with the really fast swimmers, so you’d want wave 2 or 3
The race has been won by someone starting in most of the waves now, and although the faster guys will get a clear lap of the swim and bike on lap one, going in the first wave means they start to get behind some of the later waves when they’re out on lap 2 of the bike and the later wave is on lap 1.
Other than a handful of faster guys/girls in wave 1 and a few of the more nervous swimmers in wave 8, all the waves are largely pretty equally paced in both swim and course time.
Of course you don’t have to choose a wave, and if you don’t, we simply filter and sort the remaining entries by age and put the youngest guys in the water first and the oldest last. The same with numbers, so if you don’t choose a specific number, you’ll just get allocated one at random so don’t feel that you have to choose one
In terms of numbers, then choosing individual numbers is based on first come first served by email only. We typically get around 8-900 requests for numbers/waves and some of them will come in within about 30 seconds on getting this email, so please let me have a 2nd and 3rd choice too if you want a number. The numbers that are typically very popular are 13, 69 (no idea why:)) and the things like 111,222 etc. Also, the years of birth tend to be popular too, so 66, 81 etc. These numbers get snapped up in minutes, so if you left it a couple of days, your chances of getting them are slim I’m afraid.
If you want a group of numbers so that your mates can go off together and be racked together in transition, these are a random block of numbers and there’s not a rush to get your request in on the first day of the window,
If you are asking for a block of numbers, please can I ask that you clear it with the other people in your request group first as we always get requests for a few names, only to find out that 2 of those people have already asked to be grouped with someone else. There’s not a massive rush to get grouping requests in on the first day of this window, so please take your time and get it right first time rather than too’ing and fro’ing back and forth with disgruntled people who don’t want to be grouped with you.
I will need not only the names, but also the dates of birth and registered emails of the people you’re asking to be grouped together with as you’d be surprised how many seemingly unique names have duplicates on our start list, not just your Anne Browns and John Smiths, and unsurprisingly, I have no idea who ‘Chalky’ is, or who your mate ‘Clubber’ is, so please use their correct names that they would’ve registered with. Finally, please check they have actually registered, as I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been scratching my head looking for an entry to a certain name only to find out they’re not racing and didn’t enter.
I like that we’re able to offer this service completely free of charge, but please make my life easy and get your request right first time rather than constantly back and forth with extra names or changing waves for your group once it’s already been allocated.
This is massively time consuming for me, and I literally block 4 full 10hr days out completely to deal with the 800+ requests we get, so please make sure everyone in your group is happy with your request before you make it, so there’s not lots of chopping and changing.
Also, when you send your requests, please don’t cc your entire group into the email, as invariably someone starts a conversation with the whole group by clicking reply to all, and as much as I enjoy hearing about how your conservatory extension is coming along, or whether your club should add another lane into it’s swim sets, it’s a distraction from organising the race, so I’d rather not be involved as much as I sometimes find it funny 🙂
The numbers that are available to choose from are 10-900 inc, and you can choose any of waves 1-8.
Relay teams can choose specific waves, but as they have an enclosure of their own within transition, I’m afraid they can’t choose specific numbers, sorry
The window to get these requests in is from now until End of play on Friday the 14th July. After that, we will have to send off start list info for printers etc, so can’t make any more changes I’m afraid.
I’m not going to get time to respond to every mail, so please be patient and await the start list which will be published on Monday the 17th
Requests need to be made by email to graeme@113events.com with Numbers/Waves as the title
Right, that’s it from me for now
I’ll keep you all updated by email on the race over the next few weeks, but if you need anything from us, please just ask.
Also, these emails are hopefully keeping you all updated, but if you think I’m sending you too much info or waffling on too much, please just tell me – Nicci calls me Boring all the time, so I won’t be offended, don’t worry 🙂
We’re here to help, so if there’s anything we can do to make the run up to the race easier for you, please just drop us a line
Cheers and Happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
07595 591612
graeme@113events.com