The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold 113 2023 competitors tonight
Only 4 more sleeps….
Good evening all
We’re only a few days away from this year’s Cotswold113 on Sunday, so in this last instalment of the newsletter, I wanted to get some final info out to you all in readiness for Sunday
If you missed our last newsletter a week or so ago, with all the info on the race, you can find it here : www.113events.com/news
I’ll keep this brief, and In this newsletter, I’ll cover the following
Race Video briefing link
What to remember on the weekend highlights
Final Conditions and Weather
Rule and regulations
Relay team instructions
Race Video briefing link
Today, down at the lake, myself and Dave put our faces for radio in front of a camera to record the safety briefing for the race. Please take 10mins to watch it below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1dObOZ3HV8
This is the compulsory safety briefing for all competitors, and we’ll hold a couple of non compulsory, but quite useful, full briefings at the lake at the Swim exit on Saturday at 13:00 and 16:00 where we’ll go through everything in detail.
What to remember on the weekend highlights
We always get a fair few people that don’t come prepared, so I wanted to quickly go over the highlights as a reminder of the main bits.
1) When you come to register on Saturday afternoon between 12:00 and 17:00, you will 100% need either a 2023 BTF Photo License, or another form of Photo ID and £5 cash for a BTF day license to cover you on Sunday. This is a BTF rule, and our BTF ref likes to watch registration very carefully to ensure we follow the rules.
Phone signal at the lake is patchy, which is why we have to insist on cash as the remote card machine can take ages, if it works at all, so we can’t use it I’m afraid
I did a whole section on registration requirements in the last newsletter HERE
2) The transition area is a carpark on Saturday for the Beach and Country park customers, and we build it overnight on Sat evening. This means that we do all our racking on Sunday AM, so no need to bring your bike on Saturday unless you want to spin your legs out around bits of the course – It’ll be largely marked out by Saturday mid afternoon, but I wouldn’t recommend a full lap to anyone the day before racing
3) Please affix the bike sticker that you collect in your registration pack on Saturday onto your bike before you arrive on Sunday for Transition check in – It doesn’t matter where on your bike you put it, as we only use it to check your bike against your bib number when you come to collect your bike after you’ve finished the race so that everyone takes home their own bikes, and not someone else’s super posh TT machine by accident.
4) The car park on Sunday AM is a single gate into a field, so please, if you can, buy your Sunday parking pass on Saturday as it’ll save time Sunday morning. Also, please allow a short period of time to queue to park, as although the parking is only a 5min walk to transition check in, it can take a while to get several hundred cars through a single gate and into the parking area. Also, the car park is a field, and although it’s pretty flat and the grass cut back, it is still a field incase you were planning on coming along in your Lamborghini
We use the same carpark on Saturday, but the flow in tends to be over 4-5 hours, so is not so time critical.
Car Parking is £5 cash each day please. We get stung quite a few thousand pound by a local farmer to use this field (it’s a sore point with us) so this helps cover this cost, and he does also donate a good chunk of the field rent to local charities from time to time
5) Not that it makes a huge difference to you all, but we’ve decided to give out goody bags and shirts at registration now on Saturday rather than at the finish line, but medals will, of course, be given out at the finish line when you complete the race.
If you’ve ordered, for example, a large shirt, but have lost a load of weight training for the race and now need a medium. Bring back your large to us after the race and we can exchange it
6) Don’t forget to enjoy yourself. You do this for Fun, right, so remember to smile and enjoy the day
Final Conditions and Weather
I, Like I’m sure many of you, become obsessed with Weather forecasts in the run up to the race.
Typically, they’re pretty inaccurate, but all forecasts this week seem to agree that we’re going to get some ok weather this weekend (fingers crossed)
What I will say, is that having been down the lake all week, although the Sun has been warm, the wind from the North has been very cold. With this in mind, I would suggest that you start off the bike course with clothing on that will keep you reasonably warm. We often get lulled into a false sense of temperature when we’ve got warm in our wetsuits and we see the Sun shining, and our team really don’t want to be picking people up that have just got too cold on the first few miles of the bike course where, at 7:45 in the morning as you’re peddling along, it’s still actually a lot colder than it looks and initially feels when you get out the water.
In the interest of getting people around safely, we have no issue that if you put a jersey over your tri suit, and want to drop it with a marshal if you get too warm, we’ll turn a blind eye to the ‘finish with what you start wearing rule’ so that no one gets too cold, and the marshals will bring anything back to the HQ tent after the bike course has finished
The lake is now a nice 19.3deg today, and this will likely increase a degree or two before Sunday if the forecast for the next few days is correct. This will put us firmly in the ‘Wetsuit Optional’ range of temperatures – Which ultimately means you’ll all wear wetsuits anyway
I’ve spent the last 3 days out cutting back the somewhat overgrown run course, and the conditions under foot are very dry and hard, so it will be a road shoe course all day long unless we suddenly get hit by a super storm.
As a final note on kit, it’s always worth bringing more options to transition than you might need as it’s better to have and not need an item of clothing than not have it and suddenly wish you had. There’s plenty of space in everyone’s transition spot and it takes no space at all to bring a jersey or a set of arm warmers that you might then decide you don’t need.
Rule and regulations
We run our race under British Triathlon rules and it is a strictly non Drafting race
You can find the full set of rules and regulations HERE
I’m also going to have a quick mini rant and reminder, so please bear with me
I go and watch and help at a lot of Triathlons in the UK and sometimes around Europe. Over the last few years, and other organisers of middle distance races will, I’m sure, agree, the standard of riding behaviour in our sport has deteriorated pretty badly. Seeming really calm and reasonable people seem to have a little switch that changes once they get a race number on are against a clock and the red mist can descend.
We, luckily, get very little of this at our races, but it does creep in from a minority from time to time. How riders treat other road users and how riders treat other competitors must be with respect, and an understanding that not everyone is there for you to save 1-2 seconds on every turn by undertaking other bikes cutting corners, drafting or just general bad behaviour out on the course. We will simply not tolerate any bad riding, abuse of other road users or general bad behaviour, and if any of our team see any of this, we will simply DQ that offending rider or runner, they’ll be pulled from the course and will not be able to continue.
The roads around our course are typically very quiet and you’ll likely encounter very few other road users, but, and it’s an important BUT, they have as much right to use that road as you do.
Local resident relationships are super important to me and the future of our races, and it’s me that gets dragged up in front of Parish Councils to explain why cars have been undertaken by angry cyclists or people have hopped onto paths with people walking as they want to cut a corner.
This type of behaviour may be tolerated at other races, but it definitely won’t be at any 113 Event, and we’ll be keeping a very sharp eye on everyone for this reason
Littering is also a big problem in the area, and as we attract a significant amount of cyclist to the region over the summer, the spotlight tends to get shone on them quite often. All of our marshals have a bin bag, and there’s bins around the courses and at the aid stations. Like bad behaviour, we won’t tolerate any form of intentional littering out on the courses, and this will also result in an instant DQ. Please keep your gel or bar wrapper in your pocket or tucked up your shorts leg and drop with a marshal or in/near a bin. The bike aid station has a bottle drop area just before, and a bin after it, so throw away your used bottles there before grabbing a new one, or keep until you see a bin
Sorry, rant over
Relay team instructions
Relay teams are issued with 3 race bibs at registration. The swimmer does not need to wear their bib in the Swim, and we only issue them with a bib so that they can come and go from transition as they need.
Lots of relays swap members about between elements of the race, so please can I ask that all bike and run members write their name and any relevant medical info on the reverse of the bib with a marker pen.
Relay teams have a separate area in transition and are in race numbers 800+
The timing chip is the Batten for the relay change over, and this needs to be swapped over between the swim and the bike and the bike and the run at the spot for them in transition.
All three (or two) members of the relay team do not need to be there for the Swim start, but the team’s bike must be racked before transition closes at around 06:30 (ie, the runner can rock up later if they fancy a lie in, but will need their bib to get into transition)
Each person competing each element must do the full distance of that element (ie the cyclist needs to do the complete bike distance, and cannot, for example, swap for the second lap)
Right, that’s it from me for the run up to the race emails
I’ll be down the lake all day now up to race day, so although I can pick up my emails on my phone, there might be a delay in me getting back to you
Please feel free to call me instead on 07595 591612 if you get any questions or there’s anything we can help with
See you all at the weekend, and enjoy your last few days of your taper before the action happens
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612