Cotswold Classic July newsletter – Edition 2
Good morning all, I hope everyone’s well ?
We’re under a month to race day on August 5th, so as promised in my previous mail, here’s edition 2 of 4 of the July Cotswold Classic newsletter.
I appreciate you all get bored of going through my rather long mails, so this is a way of drip feeding it out to you in more manageable chunks and not putting anyone to sleep at their desks on a Monday morning.
I’ll try to keep this one pretty brief, and cover the following :
Competitor info pack
Marshal request
Finalised start list
Water Temperature
Competitor info pack
Please can you all take a few minutes to read through the competitor info pack at the following link :
This contains everything you need to know about the race weekend, and much more.
I know I go on about this in my emails, but you’d be surprised how many email questions I’ve had in the last week alone on things that are in the pack in the first couple of pages.
Each race, we get someone that turns up on late on race morning and didn’t realise they had to register the day before and thought the race started at 9am, or we get numerous people that turn up each registration day and didn’t realise they needed photo ID.
In a later edition of the July newsletter, I’ll run through the bullet points for registration and race day, but please take a couple of minutes to print off the info pack and digest it.
Marshal request
We’re very proud that we have built a great reputation for having some of the best marshals in the sport, and I’m always looking for more. We have around 180 paid marshal positions on race day, and I still need to fill around 15 more of these.
If you have someone coming along with you that fancies being involved, then please get in touch at graeme@113events.com
They don’t need any experience at all, and all we ask is that they’re over 16 and know their left from their right and are enthusiastic (or can at least pretend to be enthusiastic for a few hours).
We’ll partner them up, take them through a full briefing and provide them with everything they need for the day as well as cover their drinks, burgers and ice creams for the shift.
The two shifts are;
Bike 05:45-11:45ish
Run 08:00-14:45ish
Both shifts start at the lake with a marshal team briefing at the above listed start time
We pay all our marshals too, and they can choose from either £20 cash or a £40 113 Events voucher to use with us on a future race (or you can use it if they’re not a triathlete) and all marshals get a technical fabric Red Team shirt to keep.
Please get in touch at graeme@113events.com
Finalised start list
The window for requesting numbers and waves has now closed, and we’ve had an unprecedented amount of requests from you all – Something like 930 of you have requested either a specific wave or race number by email – it’s been a busy week for me
I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to accommodate at least 99.99% of the requests, and you can find the final published start list here ; https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/cotswold-classic-start-list/
Please note that now the race is fixed and frozen, we can no longer change waves and race numbers, and all names against each entry can also no longer be changed.
Water Temperature
Before anyone starts panicking, I’m fully expecting the race to be ‘Wetsuit Optional’, and in 17 races we’ve now run at that lake over the last 8 summers, we’ve never had to ban wetsuits yet.
However, I’m conscious that this summer has perhaps been exceptional so far, and that many large UK races are touch and go whether Wetsuits are going to be allowed or not. Therefore, in the interest of transparency, I just wanted to let you all know how the rules work, and how we apply them for our races whilst keeping in line with the BTF regulations.
The regulations basically say that above a water temperature of 24deg results in a ban of wetsuits (Between 16-24 they’re optional – Although nearly everybody wears one generally)
The lake was measured by the shore yesterday at 25.1deg, which is exceedingly high for that lake, and is a result of the last 4 weeks of sunshine and near 30deg temperatures.
We have a couple of work arounds for this, which are that we can always find a slightly cooler spot in the lake to ‘officially’ measure on race weekend, and that we also get allowed a certain amount of compensation for morning Air temperatures.
With this in mind, and the fact that this is England, by August it could well be back down to 12deg and rain or snowing, I’m fully expecting the race to be ‘Wetsuit Optional’
However, if for some reason, the water temperature continues to climb, it’s in the interest of safety for you all not to wear wetsuits as you’ll simply cook yourselves and set yourselves up for a rather unpleasant day.
If, in the unlikely circumstances, that we do have to make it a non wetsuit swim, I want to let you all know how it’ll work.
Firstly, for those of you that are worried about completing the distance without a Wetsuit, there’s a few things to consider:
1) There’s spots on the swim course where you can stand up and take a break
2) If you need a break away from those spots, we arrange with the water safety crew (70ish canoeists) that you can signal to them that you need a break and they’ll paddle over for you to hold their canoe for a couple of minutes and have a breather – This will obviously be whilst they’re not moving as you can’t hitch a lift for the rest of the swim, and please grab the canoe at either the front or rear tips, as if you grab the side, the canoeist will be swimming next to you and probably not overly happy.
3) We have no Swim cut off, and you’ll be allowed as long as you like as long as you’re occasionally making reasonable progress and the water safety crew don’t feel you’re a danger to yourself or anyone around you. – We often have people swim the whole 1.9km doing breastroke with their head out the water having a good chat with a canoeist
The banning of wetsuits means you need to swim in either a one of two piece tri suit or swimming shorts/trunks for the boys or a costume/two piece for the ladies (although in the interest of gender fairness, men can also swim in a bikini if they so choose!).
Tri suits cannot extend past your elbows or knees, and any neoprene (ie swim buoyancy shorts or sleeveless and short leg wetsuits) are not allowed.
You would not be allowed to wear calf guards during the swim if it’s a non wetsuit swim as these are seen as Hydrodynamic aid in the eyes of the rules, and you’re not allowed tow floats of anything else that could be deemed as a floatation device.
In saying all this, I’m very confident we won’t have to ban wetsuits, but I just wanted to keep transparency in the process so that no-one feels unsure about what’s happening.
I’ll update on water temperature in our next few pre-race newsletters and also on our facebook page.
I swam a lap of the lake with and without a wetsuit last week, and whilst it was a little toasty in my wetsuit, it was bearable, and it was a really nice temperature to swim without one too.
Right, that’s it from me for this week
My next email will come out early next week, which will include some info and stats on the race, and also some info on how you can book your bike in for a pre-race tuneup and how to book into the pre-race massage we’ll have by registration on the Saturday.
In the meantime, we’re here to help, so if anyone gets any questions, please just call or email me, it’s what I’m here for !
Thanks and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612