Good morning all, and happy new year
We’re well into 2024 now, so in this first instalment of the competitor newsletters, I wanted to bring you all up to speed on what’s to come over the next few months in the run up to your big day.
This first email is to both Cotswold 113 and Cotswold Classic competitors, but from the next email onwards, they’ll be specific to each race.
There’s a fair amount to cover in this email, and those that have raced with us before, know I can ramble on a bit, so please grab yourself a coffee and a comfy chair and I’ll try and keep it as brief as possible.
In this email, I’ll cover the following :
Getting your training underway
Checking details and swapping between races
Race weekend outline
Staying near the lake on race weekend
Still spaces in both races
Payment plan entries
Getting involved
What to expect over the next few months
Getting your training underway
We’re now at the that stage of the year where lots of you are starting to think about adding some structure to you training (even though it’s bloody freezing outside still).
I appreciate that everyone’s different, so we’ve asked Ollie, our local coach, to put together a free outline 16 week plan if anyone’s interesting in following it. Ollie knows our race well, and has competed with us several times, so understands what’s required well.
His info is on the plan, so if any of you get any questions, or need something a little bit more specific, drop him a line
You can find the plan HERE
Checking details and swapping between races
I’m quite conscious that about now, we start to get competitors that have perhaps entered the June race, and now suddenly realise it’s only a little over 5 months away, and fancy swapping to the July race. Or people that have entered the July race, and have suddenly remembered it’s their Wedding anniversary, kids birthday etc. Whilst we still have spaces in both races, if anyone wants to swap between them, it’s nice and easy for me to do now, but perhaps might be a little more difficult nearer the time.
Also, if you’ve entered as an Aquabike, and now fancy doing the run too, or vice versa, or fancy a relay entry instead, those are all easy changes this far out.
The official deadline for swapping between categories, ie Solo entry to Aquabike, is 8 weeks out
For swapping between races, it’s up to 8 weeks, or whenever the other race becomes full
Also, it’s worth now checking your entry confirmation email from Entrycentral.com to ensure all your info is correct too please.
We don’t post you anything out in the run up to the race, but just in case we have lost property or a prize, please check your address is correct
Your christian name will be on your race bib too, so please check that you’ve got that in there and spelt correctly*
*We had a lady by the name of Virginia race with us a few years back, and her Spellcheck changed her name to a well known lady part, but this was only picked up by the printer and corrected before she turned up on race weekend to find that written on her bib – Subsequently, I always send out a check reminder 🙂
Race weekend outline
Many of you will now want to start planning your weekends, so here’s a basic outline of the race weekends with us.
It’ll go something like this;
Saturday
12:00-17:00 – Registration*
10:00-17:00 – Option to Swim
13:00 / 16:00 – Briefings Sunday (Race day)
04:30 Transition opens (We do all our racking on the Sunday Morning)
06:25 Mass Start Wave**
06:30-07:30 Rolling start Waves**
* Don’t worry if you can’t make it on the Saturday, we can make arrangements for someone else to register on your behalf, or have it picked up earlier in the week – Get in touch nearer the time, and we can sort an option that works for you
** All Competitors will get a chance to choose which wave and/or type of wave they want about 6 weeks out from the race once the start list is fixed
Staying near the lake on race weekend
If you fancied staying down in the Cotswolds and making a weekend of it (a good chunk of you normally do), there’s a couple of decent options whether you like to camp, or prefer thew warmth of a hotel bed
The Cotswold Lake Brewery is only a few hundred meters from the lake, and they put on camping for competitors on race weekends. Their website is https://cotswoldlakescamping.com/
Alternatively, you might like a warm hotel, and by far the closest and best hotel is the Devere Cotswolds, which is about 3 miles from the start and actually on the June 113 Bike course. Their website is https://www.devere.co.uk/cotswold-water-park-hotel
If you’re looking for an AirBnB or similar, there’s lots of little towns and villages within a few miles, and the postcode for the race Start / Finish location is GL76DF – Our run course goes through Somerford Keynes, and it’s an easy walk to the race start from there.
Still spaces in both races
If you have any friends or club mates that are still considering racing, we still have slots left in both races and all categories, and neither are quite full yet
Entries are available at www.113events.com
Payment plan entries
If you’ve either entered through the normal 1 off payment route, or have completed your payment plan payments, you can ignore this next bit.
This is the first year we’ve tried a payment plan system, and as much as it’s been very popular, it’s also been a steep learning curve for us.
Firstly, apologies that it’s a little misleading and people assumed that it was a direct debit payment over 3 months, when it’s actually not
You need to head online and make the payments 2 and 3 manually. There’s a unique link to do that on either your original entry confirmation email, or on the subsequent reminder emails.
Don’t worry, we haven’t withdrawn anyone that missed payments yet, and this is just a reminder that a fair few of you still need to head online and make payments 2 and 3 please.
If you haven’t got your booking confirmation or reminder emails with the payment links on them, please just get in touch and I can regenerate them.
Getting involved
Our races have a great reputation for having some of the best marshals in the sport. We have around 200 Paid Marshal positions on race weekends, and typically, about 60-70% of these are regulars, and the others are friends and families of Competitors.
If you have friends and family, or club mates, or anyone else else you can rope into getting involved in the more fun side of the day, we’d absolutely welcome them to our team.
Everyone gets paid too, and whilst I appreciate it’s not mega bucks, all our marshals get paid either £20 cash, or a £50 113 Events Voucher.
We’ll give them a 113 events team shirt, they can camp and park for free very close to the start, and we’ll keep them in hot food, drinks and ice creams all day.
We take all the marshals through a full team briefing, kit them up with everything they’ll need, and all we ask is that they’re over 16, and know their left from their right.
It’s a fun day, and the shifts are pretty short too, so please get in touch at graeme@113events.com
Also, all marshals get an invite to the post race team beer at the pub too
What to expect over the next few months
Like I mentioned at the start of this email, your next emails will be event specific whereas this one is to everyone entered into either the Cotswold 113 and Cotswold Classic.
The next email you’ll be getting from me will be Mid March timing, when we have fixed up the dates for the Course Familiarisation days.
These are free of charge days, where you can come down to the lake, and we’ll take you all for a leisurely paced lap of the Bike and run courses (they’re 2 laps and 3 laps repectively on race day). The emphasis of these days is very much leisurely, so they’re suitable for all paces, and they’re a great chance to see the courses before race day to settle any nerves, meet the team as well as other competitors.
They tend to be around 6 weeks before each race, and the reason we don’t fix them until March-ish timing, as in order to keep them free of charge for you all, is we have to fit around any other bookings the guys at the lake may have.
As we get closer to the race, we’ll get out things like the race information pack, as well as emails covering everything else you’ll need to know prior to race day.
About 6 weeks out from the race, once the start list is fixed and frozen, you’ll get an email asking if you want to choose a specific bib number, or a group of bib numbers to be racked with your mates. You’ll also get a chance to choose a specific wave, and whether you want to start in the mass start, or go off in a rolling start wave – I can only process those requests once the race is fixed and I have the start list on a spreadsheet, so please await this email about 5-6weeks before the race.
Right, that’s it for my ramblings today. Hopefully you’re all still awake ?
We’re here to help, so if there’s any questions you might have, anything you need advice on, or you just want to talk triathlon, please give me a call any time, or drop me an email – it’s what I’m here for.
Hopefully, the spring weather isn’t too far away, and we can all get out on our bikes without coming home unable to feel our fingers and toes soon
Cheers and Happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612