The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold 113 and Cotswold Classic 2022 competitors today
2022 Cotswold 113 & Cotswold Classic Competitor newsletter
Good afternoon all
I hope everyone’s recovered from the Christmas break and are firmly into the new year’s training now
Firstly, thank you very much for entering one of the 113 Events 2022 Triathlons.
Race season is soon going to be upon us, so I wanted to get in touch with you all to bring you up to speed on what’s planned for this season’s races and get you all out some info so you can get your preparations underway
This newsletter is going out to all June 5th Cotswold 113 and July 10th Cotswold Classic competitors as the general info covers both races, but from now on, it’ll be specific 113 or Classic mails just for the guys and girls entered into either race.
You’re going to get bombarded with info from me over the next few months for each race, so I’ll try and keep this email relatively brief, but it’s still going to be a long one, so I’d suggest a comfy chair and a strong coffee as I have a habit of waffling on a bit.
In this email, I’ll cover the following:
1) What to expect on race weekend / race format
2) Covid and our races
3) Camping and accommodation
4) Familiarisation days
5) Checking your details
6) Swapping between races / deferring
7) Getting involved and being a marshal
1) What to expect on race weekend / race format
For those of you that haven’t raced with us before, we always do all our racking on the Sunday morning
Pre Covid, we used to hold registration on the Saturday afternoon, but Covid forced us to rethink that, and for the last two years, we’ve posted out race bibs and competitors have collected their chips and done a quick registration process on the way into transition on the Sunday morning. This has been pretty popular, as I’m conscious that not everyone wants to make a weekend of it, so we’ll have a similar format this year.
However, we will still have some stuff on during the day on Saturday, but this will be up to you if you wanted to attend or not.
Traditionally (pre Covid), we held general (Non compulsory) briefings on the Saturday but we will now do the formal briefing via youtube link. However, we will still have a couple of available briefing’s on the Saturday at the lake for anyone that wants to come along and hear it from us in person rather than watch mine and Dave’s faces for Radio blabber on in a video.
We get a lot of first timers to the distance or to triathlon generally at our races too, so we’ll aim the in person Briefings to be more towards that end of the field. They’ll be about an hour and a bit long each, and we’ll try and talk you through everything to do with the race and answer any questions you might have.
Also, on the Saturday, we’ll have our swim course marked out, so they’ll be a chance to book in with the lake and come and have a swim of the course beforehand, or even just a dip in the water for a shorter distance to get yourself ready and acclimatised for the Sunday morning start.
Both races will start at around 6am, and will go off in a series of waves.
For the last couple of year’s, we moved away from several mass starts for each eave to a rolling start format.
This was very popular with the majority, but there still was a minority that wanted to do a mass start so they could tell exactly who they were racing against, and not wonder if the person in front of them on the run course was actually 5 mins behind them etc.
In order to try and cater for both sides of the argument, what we’re going to trial in June is as follows :
Wave 1 – Mass start with limited numbers
Waves 2 Onwards will be rolling starts whereby you get a 10minute window in which you can start, and your start time will be at the point in which you cross the timing mat into the lake.
About 5-6 weeks out from each race, you will get a chance to choose a specific wave and/or a specific race number (or group of numbers so you can rack with your mates). Please don’t try and request these beforehand, as in the interest of fairness to everyone, waves and numbers will be first come/first served from the point of that email onwards.
Both races will start in 7-8 waves, and the waves will be 10mins apart.
The race format is as follows :
Swim – 1 Single lap of a 1,900m course
Bike – 2 Laps of a 28mile loop (Total 56miles)
Run – 3 laps of a 4.34 mile loop (Total 13.1miles)
The routes are 99.9% Fixed for this year, and you can find there here
Bike – https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/4257970519
Run – https://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/797773233
We don’t have specific Swim, Bike or Run Cutoffs, and although we’re forced to publish an ‘Official’ cut off of 7.5hours from the start of the last wave, in reality, we’re really relaxed with it. Our take is that if you’ve been soldiering on, and haven’t stopped for a 2 hour roast Sunday lunch in a pub out on the bike course, we’ll keep the finish open for as long as it takes within reason.
Aid stations and nutrition: I’m sure a lot of you will want to start training and practicing with what’s available on the course, so as a heads up, we buy High5 products
We have a single Aid station on the bike course lap (2 laps, so 2 aid opportunities)
This will have 750 Bike bottles of Water, 750ml bike bottles of High5, High5 ISO Gels and half cut bananas
The run course has 3 aid stations per lap (3 laps, so 9 aid opportunities)
2 have Cupped Water and High 5 ISO Gels
The 3rd has as follows :
Cupped Water
Cupped Flat Coke
Cupped High5
High5 ISO Gels
Half Cut Bananas
Jamaican Ginger Cake / Golden Syrup cake
Jelly Babies/Beans
Salted Peanuts (these are kept away from the other stuff for anyone with a peanut allergy)
Salty Crisps (The saltiest we can get in the cash and carry, so normally Pringles or Discos)
Chocolate chip Cookies
Fig Rolls
The three aid stations are pretty much equidistant around the run lap.
In a couple of months, we will send out a full competitor information pack by email, and this will have everything finalised in it, and all the maps for courses, parking, spectating etc.
2) Covid and our races
I’m afraid that no matter how many tea leaves I read and Crystal balls I rub, I can’t predict what’s going to be happening this summer in terms of Covid, but we do have plans in place for most eventualities.
What I can say is that Triathlon’s quite unique in terms of how the DCMS (Gov Department of Culture, Media and Sport) look at it and permit it to run as an outdoor event. In the worst case scenario of 2020 Summer, we ran the first triathlon in the UK with government backing, as it’s sold to the government as competitors turning up and competing in a bubble of 1. We are always slightly over the top on measures like Gels and hygiene, but this is only a good thing and something we’ll continue with regardless.
In reality, if the summer of 2022 is anything like the summer of 21, we’ll run the races back as normal and with a full crowd of spectators. It may be that the government will ask everyone to have Lateral Flow test or Vaccine passports, but in whichever case, we’ll work on a seamless process that keeps you safe, but also ensure we can run a fun day.
We will follow the guidelines from the Government closely, and keep you all posted, but here’s hoping for a slightly more normal 2022 (Fingers crossed)
3) Camping and accommodation
One of the unfortunate casualties of Covid lockdown of 2020 was, I’m afraid, the campsite right next to the lake we race at 🙁
The Cotswold Waterpark area gets pretty busy in the summer, so it’s worth getting things booked up fairly quickly if you’re planning on staying down for the weekend, or making a longer break of it.
We are working on a local farmer to try and get some field space for camping next to the lake, but it’s not proving as easy as I’d hope. We’ll persevere, but with that in mind, I wanted to offer up some alternatives :
For campsites, there’s a couple within a 10 min drive of the start/finish that I know are well thought of by previous competitors :
Mayfield Camping – https://www.mayfieldpark.co.uk
The T Barn Camping – https://www.tbarn.co.uk
By far the closest and best Hotel is the Devere Cotswolds waterpark hotel. It’s about 3 miles from the race start/finish and is on the bike course. I know from previous years that they’ll put on an early breakfast on request from competitors, and have a safe room you can leave your bike (or you can sneak it up to your room if you’re quick:) )
https://www.devere.co.uk/cotswold-water-park-hotel/
If not, there’s lots of hotels, holiday home lettings, a Hoburne Holiday camp and lodges within a couple miles of the race site in the area.
The Postcode for the race site is GL76DF
4) Familiarisation days
About 3-6 weeks before each race, we will hold course familiarisation days where competitors can come down and see the swim, bike and run courses with guided laps from me and the team from 113.
The emphasis on these days is ‘Leisurely’ and they’ll suit all abilities. On the day, we cover a single swim lap (1.9km), a single bike lap (28 miles) and a single run lap (4.3miles) There’ll be several stops to show aid stations etc. and regroup and they’ll suit all abilities.
We have to fit these in around other events the lake guys book, but they’re typically a sunday 3-6 weeks out from the race, and we’ll get the dates fixed and published in the next month or so.
The Bike and run are totally free of charge, but you will need to pay the lake guys a day membership if you want to swim, and that’s normally about £7.
As soon as we can fix dates, I’ll get these published in the next competitor newsletter
We’ll also be working with our local friendly swim coach this year on some courses for open water swimmers of all levels, and he’ll be running some clinics on the familiarisation day too, and we’ll get those updated as soon as they’re fixed
Jason’s a good guy and has been involved in 113 for quite a few year’s now, so knows what it takes to swim at our races https://southwestswim.co.uk
5) Checking your details
Over the next few weeks, before we start to really fix things, please can I ask that you all take 2 mins to either check your confirmation email from when you entered or head to the online start lists to ensure your name is spelt correctly.
Cotswold 113 – Entrycentral.com/cotswold113
Cotswold Classic – Entrycentral.com/cotswoldclassic
We print your names on your bibs from the name on your entry, and we often get names spelt incorrectly, or surnames / Christian names the wrong way around etc.
I’ll give you one of my favourite examples, where a lady by the name of Virginia had her autocorrect change her name to a lady body part, and this was only later picked up by the printers when they went to provide her race bib. Subsequently, this was changed in a rush.
Anyway, we often get misspellings on entry forms, and they’re not easy to change once the bibs are printed, so can you take 2 mins just to check please
6) Swapping between races / deferring to 23
I’m very conscious that for many people race days sneak up on your and you might not perhaps be as far into your training as you like, or you’ve picked up an injury or forgotten it’s your wedding anniversary (this seems to happen a lot, mainly with men)
Anyway, if you wanted to defer to either 2023 or from the June to July race, this is much easier to do earlier rather than later, especially as there’s still some spaces in the July race I can move June competitors into
There’s no costs involved for this, and at this stage, it’s really easy for me to move you to a different race whilst there’s still spaces
We tend to get lots of requests in the weeks running up close to the races, and it’s not normally possible that close up as we have to commit to insurances, printers etc from a few weeks out, so this is just a heads up if it’s something that you might already be thinking about.
7) Getting involved and being a marshal
If you have anyone coming along with you that fancies being part of the 113 team on race day, we’re always after more marshals. We have around 200 paid positions on race weekend, and we’re very proud that our races have built up a great reputation for having some of the best marshals in the sport.
We’ll take them through a full briefing and partner them up with someone else so they’re not stuck on their own, and all we ask is that they’re enthusiastic, know their left from their right and are over 16.
We pay all our marshals too, and they can choose from either £20 cash or a £40 113 Events Voucher, and we’ll provide them with everything they need on the day, a team 113 Shirt and we’ll keep them in free burgers, coffee and ice creams all day.
If you have anyone that could be part of the team, please drop me an email at graeme@113events.com
Right, that’s it for todays rather lengthy email. Hopefully, you’re all still awake and I’ve not put you all to sleep
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions, there’s anything we can help with, or you just want to talk triathlons, please feel free to give me a call on 07595 591612 or drop me a mail at graeme@113events.com
The next email you’ll all be getting from me will be specific to your races rather than a general one, and we’re looking forward to welcoming you all along to our start lines this summer
Thanks and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612