Who’s ready for 2023 ?

The 2022 Triathlon season is barely in full swing now, but we’re already getting next year ready and we’ve made some changes to the July Classic to keep things fresh..

2023 Dates

Historically, the 113 and Classic have been identical other than Name and Date. However, in order to differentiate the two races, we have a brand new bike course for the Classic V2.0 from 2023 onwards, as well as some tweaks to the Swim and Run courses.
The Classic V2.0 bike course is still very fast, but is now more ‘Gently Rolling’ than the 113’s Pancake flat course, and heads out West rather than East, to take in some new sights that the Cotswolds are most famous for.
Both races are going through a bit of modernisation for 2023 too, with a posh new Finish Gantry, and some nice new updates to various other bits of the race.
Entry for both races open August 1st at 00:01and there’s a combo entry where you can save £40 by entering both June and July races together.

Gender Balance

Although it’s something we didn’t actively set out to achieve, a really nice side effect of our course, race atmosphere and team is that over the last few year’s, the Female/Male ratio at our races has been getting closer and closer to 50/50, and was 40/60 at this summer’s July Cotswold Classic. While most other medium to large UK middle distance races are more like 15/85 or less, can we get the 113 and Classic to 50/50 ?

Club Entries
Got a club or a group of mates where you can get 10 or more entries together for either race ?
We offer discounts for group entries, will ensure you’re in sequential numbers to be racked together, and can put you all in the same wave so you start together. We can even produce separate results so you can compare your times if you wanted to have our races as your club championship
Bring a club gazebo and set it up near the finish for a focal point, or bring a team of helpers and have an aid station named after your group. The best presented and most vocal club/group Aid station can win a couple of free entries to a future race too, so get out your fancy dress, start up your stereo and cheer on our competitors whilst promoting your club.
For more info email graeme@113events.com

Mass or rolling starts, why choose ?
I’m conscious that although rolling starts are the most popular now days, there’s still a minority that like the buzz of a Mass Start or just like to know that the person they’re racing* against isn’t 10 or 20 seconds ahead or behind them on the clock.
For this reason, we have both at our races, and you can choose to either line up in the Mass start and have a single start time with all the others in that format, or have a more relaxed rolling start where we set competitors off at 3-4 second intervals and your race time starts at the point you cross the start mat into the Water.
*You don’t need to be in the mass start for the race to be competitively timed in your age category, and the results aren’t effected by your start wave choice.

Entries for next year’s races open at 00:01 on 1st August through www.113events.com

We hope you all have a great remainder of 2022, and we’ll look forward to seeing many of you on our start lines next Summer

Cheers

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold Classic Post race newsletter

Firstly, and most importantly, thank you all from all of us at 113 for choosing to race with us this year. It was great to have you all along, and we truly hope that you all thoroughly enjoyed today despite it being a little bit on the warm side.
Today was a proper scorcher, so I’d like to think you all have your feet up right now after such a tough day, especially if you’re all as toasted as we were ?
It’s a tough time in the Triathlon industry this year, and there’s way more races around than there are competitors, so we truly appreciate that you entrusted us with your Middle Distance racing in 2022.

We’ve just been for our post race beer, and I’m pretty much ready for bed now 1 beer in, so I won’t make this a long email, and I’m sure you’re all bored to death of reading my ramblings anyway.
In this email I’ll cover the following :

Race results and pics
Shirt swaps and lost property
End of the Cotswold Classic as you know it / 2023 races
Feedback request

Race results and pics
I get that most of you only care about one thing, and that’s how fast you went and how you looked doing it
With that in mind, you can find the results from today on the following link :
RESULTS HERE
Today, although very hot, also made for some very fast racing for those of you that were quick enough to be finished before the sun really heated up, and both Lee Williams and Laura Grey broke our existing male and female course records respectively, so really well done to them, and to everyone else that either smashed a PB or completely their first triathlon at this distance.

The race photo’s will be up on Charles Whitton’s website in a couple of days when he’s had a chance to sort through what will be 20k or so pics.
How it works, is we pay for your first download, which is in a resolution suitable for Facebook, Instagram etc, but if you want more pics and super high resolution pics that you can print onto something like the tea cup or the side of a bus, he has all those available to purchase too
His website is as follows
RACE PICS
We’d also love to see any other of your pics from the day too, so please either tag 113Events on Socials or use the #113events hashtag.

Shirt swaps and lost property 
It’s become pretty regular that people ordered shirts some time ago, and they’ve since changed size or just want an extra one to have at home. We still have loads of shirts left over, and will be at the lake all day tomorrow clearing everything away and getting it all back into storage for next season. If you’re still in the area and want to come and grab anything, please just head back down the lake and come and say hi
We also have a small amount of lost property, loads of left over gels and food from run aid station 2, so if you want to grab some gels, packets of Jamaican ginger cake or chocolate cookies, we have shed loads.
We’ll be down there from around 9am until around 2-3pm, and the kettle will be on

End of the Cotswold Classic as you know it / 2023 races
As many of you know, the Cotswold Classic has always been what is basically a copy/paste repeat of the June Cotswold 113.
However, we’ve decided that we need to try and get some clear differentiation between the two races, so the Cotswold Classic as you know it finished today, and from 2023 onwards, we will have the Cotswold Classic V2.0. – It will eventually get a completely new name, but all the suggestions we’ve made as a team have been a bit crap, so we’re not fixed on one just yet and that bit is still very much work in progress.
It’s not a radical change, but from now on will have a completely different bike course and will head West from the lake rather than East. It will still be pretty fast, but is a lot more “rolling’ than our current course, and although has a greater elevation to what we use currently, we feel will be equally as fast as the new course flows a lot better with no stop start type turns or out and back loops with roundabouts or islands. It’ll still be two laps, and will still come back past the lake each lap, but I think is a bit more scenic (for those of you that previously raced our Cotswold226 back before it finished, will know the course we used for that, and it’s a mini version of that loop)
It’s possible that we will change the run course up too, but that won’t be a radical change as we’re kinda confined by land boundaries and available decent paths and roads.
Both our races for 2023 will go through a bit of modernisation too, and along with a brand new posh finish Gantry as ours is nearly 9 years old now and quite dated compared to other races, there’ll be a few more bits behind the scenes which will change as well as trying to make the whole competitor/spectator experience more enjoyable.
Our 2023 race dates are now fixed as follows, and race entries open online through www.113events.com at 00:01 on August 1st.
Cotswold 113 – June 5th 2023
Cotswold Classic V2.0 – July 9th 2023

Feedback request
We’ve run this Middle distance race 23 times now, and every year we try and tweak little bits here and there to make sure it’s the very best it possibly can be. Without you guys giving us feedback on what you liked or what you feel can be improved, we’ve got no way of knowing all the little details you guys touch and feel in the run up to the race and on race day itself, as our team really only see snippets of the day from your side.
I’d really appreciate if you can take 5 mins to email me some feedback on what you felt about this race please, and anything we can either do more of or less of to make your enjoyment of the day and all the communications pre race better please.
One of the points I’m particularly interested in [but certainly not limited to] is how, for this race, we moved back to giving an early registration window on the Saturday, as this was way more popular than we could’ve expected with nearly 80% of competitors coming along to register on the Saturday. If this is something we’ll stick with from now on, what else would you like to see on the Saturday that could make it more worthwhile coming along the day before or any other feedback from those that did come on Saturday ?

Right, that really is it from me. Thanks again for choosing to race with us, and especially thanks for being such a great bunch of competitors. It’s been our pleasure to have you all on our start line and meeting many of you at our familiarisation days, and I’ve seen some truly inspirational achievements today.
We hope to see many of you back racing, or even marshalling, with us again in 2023

Cheers

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold Classic – July 10th 2022

Good evening all
Just a few sleeps to go and we can welcome you to our race weekend.
This will likely be the last you’ll hear from me before the race weekend, so this might be a reasonably long one.

In this email I’ll cover the following :

Registration requirements
Video Briefing
Bike course etiquette
Weather update and preparation
Race morning prep
Parking for competitors and spectators

Registration requirements
There’s often some confusion about what’s needed by you all for registration, so I’ll try and cover the main points as follows
You can register with us either on Saturday afternoon between 2 and 4 by the swim start at our early registration window that we’re trying out for the first time this weekend, or Sunday morning by transition on arrival.
In order to register, you will need either a 2022 BTF Photo card ID, or another form of Photo ID and £5 cash for a BTF day license. If you don’t want to bring the actual ID with you, a photo on your phone or a photocopy is totally fine too.
Our BTF referee is very strict on us checking ID or BTF cards, so please accept that if you cannot provide either a valid 2022 BTF photo card (with a picture on it) or another form of photo ID and £5 cash for a BTF day license, you will not be able to race.
For both Saturday’s early registration window, and Sunday morning’s normal registration, you will need to have your race bib (race number) with you too.
Registration on Sunday morning will end at 06:00 prompt, so you will need to register before that point if you want to race.
When you arrive at transition Sunday morning to register, you will need to show your race bib and be wearing your helmet on your head and fastened so that we can make a quick visual check that it actually fits (you’d be surprised how many people turn up with helmets that either don’t fit on their heads, or the chin strap is loose down by their chest)
You will then be given a wristband to show that you’ve registered, and can then head into transition where you will get issued your swim cap and your timing chip and strap will be at your spot in the racking.

Video Briefing
Please find the link to your video briefing as follows :

Dave is actually really Noisy, as you’ll see on Sunday. However, the poor guy gets really camera shy so literally sits there and says nothing (much to the delight of my ears)

We will have a non compulsory newbies briefing on Saturday afternoon at the lake at around 16:00.
Although it’s called a Newbies briefing, it’s not just for newbies and it’ll cover everything about our race, takes about and hour and is useful for anyone that’s either pretty new to triathlon, or even those that haven’t raced with us before
We’ll try and make it fairly light hearted and try not to bore you all to death with an hour of constant talking.
You can ask any questions you might have too, and it’ll be very informal
This will be by the Swim exit about 100m from the race start/finish.

Bike course etiquette 
I’m going to go into a bit of a rant now, so please accept my apologies in advance as it’s not my preferred style, as I hope you’ve all seen.
Over the last few year’s, I’ve seen some truly shocking behaviour on bike courses at triathlons all around the UK and into Europe (this includes our races too, so I’m not pointing any fingers at other organisers)
Seemingly really nice guys (I’m being gender specific here, as we very rarely get any issues with female competitors) can for some reason, turn into really badly behaved cyclists as soon as they get a race number on and the red mist descends.
This is something we simply cannot tolerate at our races as how other competitors are treated by each other, and how the local area perceive our race is super important to me.
I’ll give you a couple of examples that I’ve seen at our races in the last couple of years :
1) A competitor cuts a right hand corner into the path of an oncoming car. The car jams it’s brakes on, and the cyclists calls the driver a F’ing C*** even though the cyclist was on the wrong side of the road and totally in the wrong.
2) A nervously driven car is on the spine road waiting behind a cyclist to overtake. Another cyclist decides they’d rather undertake the waiting car driven by a nervous 80year old, and then shouts obscenities at the driver when they panic and put the brakes on.

In both these incidences, I got dragged in front of local parish councils for a bollocking, which was not much fun.
We have a really good relationship with the local residents to our two races, and I’m very keen to maintain this please which is why we are being so strict on this.

If.. our team, moto refs, moto support guys or any local residents report any discourteous behaviour out on our bike or run courses, that competitor will be instantly DQ’d, will not get to complete the race and will be banned from 113 Events races for life.
If.. anyone is caught intentionally littering, this will also be an instant DQ as this is a big issue in the area.

I appreciate it’s less than 0.1% of competitors that end up riding or behaving like this, but it spoils it for everyone and seriously jeopardises the future of our races in the area..

I gave a very similar warning to our competitors before the June Cotswold 113 this year, and the standard or riding and behaviour was exemplary so you guys have a high bar to match please

Right, rant over

Weather update and preparation 

The forecast for this weekend is looking to be a scorcher.
With this in mind, please can I remind you all the bike course aid station is not until around 24miles into each lap, so if you are planning on using the bike course Aid station, please remember to have enough drink and gels on your bike to get yourself started. You will see the bike course aid station on the way out on the other side of the road, but you must not cross the road to get to it, and is only available for the return leg of the loop please.

The water temperature today was a little over 20deg, so given how warm it’s going to be for the next few days, I’d expect it to be 21-22 on race day. This is the warmer end of the Wetsuit optional range, and I know that us triathletes love a wetsuit even when the water is perfect for not wearing one, so please be mindful that you’re likely to come out the water really quite warm and will want to drink as soon as you get on the bike.

For the run, we will endeavour to have a hose pipe to spray people down as you come through the lake complex, and often the families in the residential area of Somerford Keynes on the run course will do the same.
Because of some strange insurance / liability rules, we can’t supply sun cream for you, but there are plenty of the team in transition that can help you if you need to apply your own.
The run course is about 30-40% in the shade under trees too, so that should help you keep cool.
This is British weather forecasting though, so it could be 35deg or snowing come Sunday.

Race Morning prep
When you leave transition in the morning, you will need to walk over to the pre race toilets by the swim exit and on to the swim start area (about 100m max total). Although the pre race toilets are on grass, the swim start area is on a stone path.
It’s perfectly ok for most feet barefooted, but if you want to preserve those tootsies for the swim, you’re welcome to bring an old set of slippers (hotel ones are mint for this), sliders, flip flops or trainers etc and leave them by the waters edge as you head off in your wave. The swim start is right by the finish line, so you can grab them after the race, or if you want to just leave them there, we’ll collect them up after the race and put them in the skip for you.
Also, some people like to keep warm before the race whilst they’re waiting to get started, and you’re welcome to put any jumpers, coats etc in the pop up gazebo by the start line and collect after the race. It’s in the finish area, so is competitors only, but you’d obviously leave anything there at your own risk.
Transition area is competitors only, and is reasonably secure, so most people just leave there stuff in their bags with their bikes.
As a side note to this, although it looks like it’s going to be dry, the grass that transition is on can get overnight dew, so it’s worth having a large plastic bag to lay your stuff on top of (or in if it looks like it might rain) in your spot in transition. Bin bags, Ikea bags etc are the most popular. In line with BTF rules, you cannot have a plastic box in transition since about 2017, so anything you want to keep by your bike will need to be in a soft bag please.

Parking for competitors and spectators Sat/Sunday

For those of you coming along on Saturday, only the main Competitor car park will be open from 13:00-18:00.
Saturday parking is £2 cash please, and you can also buy Sunday’s £5 car parking ticket on Saturday to save yourself some time Sunday morning. Car parking tickets are only valid for the Main competitor car park.
When you park in the competitor carpark on Saturday, you will get a green wristband which will allow you to walk into the gate of the beach and country park without being charged walk in rate by those guys. You can walk through the Beach and Country park towards transition area and the start/finish which is where we’ll hold the early registration and briefing outlined above
On Sunday, the main competitor carpark will be open from 04:00 until 06:00 and has enough space to house all competitors and handful of spectators. Car parking for Sunday is £5 cash on arrival, so please have the right note or change if possible as scrabbling for change at 4am is not much fun for anyone. The phone signal at the lake is patchy at best so we cannot take card, only cash please
At the south of the above diagram, you will see the competitor overflow and spectator parking which will also be open from 4am until early afternoon, and is also £5cash payable to the guys that own it on the gate. I’m afraid you cannot buy the tickets for there on Saturday as it’s run independently to our car parking, which is rented to us (for an extortionate fee) by a local farmer for the weekend.
Both carparks are fields, so although perfectly fine for 99% of cars, you might struggle if you have the nice option of turning up in your Lamborghini sports car.
The spectator carpark is right on the bike and run courses, and is just a 3 min walk to the finish line area.
With the weather looking so good this weekend, it’s worth getting your fan club to come earlier rather than later if they’re not planning on being there for the start as it’s possible that the waterpark will get exceptionally busy later in the morning, and the spectator carpark will start to fill up with people that are just looking for a day at the lake rather than just people coming along for the race.

Right, that’s it for my waffle today, and the next time you’ll hear from me is in person over the weekend
Myself, and the 113 team are very much looking forward to welcoming you all along this weekend, but please just get in touch if there’s anything we can help with.
I’m at the lake building etc pretty much solidly between now and Sunday, so you’re better off giving me a call rather than trying to email – 07595 591612

Happy tapering everyone and see you in just 3 sleeps

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold Classic July 10th 2022

Good evening all, I hope everyone’s feeling nice and ready for racing next weekend ?
Race weekend is only 7 days away, so hopefully you’ve all taken the time to read through the race info pack :
https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CC2022-–-Race-Information-Sheet.pdf
If you’ve missed any of our previous newsletters, you can find all of those at www.113events.com/news

In this 2nd instalment of the pre race emails, I’ll cover the following :

Race Weekend Planning / Swimming
Race bibs and bike stickers
Live results
Food and drink on site
Weather and prep

Race Weekend Planning
I know that now we’re a week out from the race, you’ll now be starting to plan your weekend properly, so I wanted to get out some info on what’s on and when.
If you’re either local or down for the weekend, on Saturday, there’ll be a few non compulsory things going on:

You will be able to have a swim* in the lake on their marked 400/750/1500m courses (the 1500m course is basically our course with a small dog leg section we use to make up the distance)
You have to book this directly with the lake guys, which you can do at https://www.lake32.co.uk/product/payg-swimming/
*Please be mindful that the lake owners have a rule where you can only swim (outside of race days) with a Towfloat, so you’ll either need your own or to rent one from them – You won’t need this on race day

We will have a window where you can register early to save you having to do it Sunday morning. This will be by the finish line area, and will be from 14:00 – 16:00

Finally, we will have a briefing on the Saturday at 16:00 next to the Swim exit. This isn’t compulsory, and your compulsory briefing will come out via a youtube link in the next few days in the pre race newsletter #3
I want to call this a newbies briefing, but it’s not just for newbies, it’s for everyone that maybe hasn’t raced with us before, or is new to middle distance triathlon. It’ll take about 45mins to an hour and we’ll go through all the various bits of the race in detail and answer any questions you might have along the way. It’ll be really informal, and we’ll try and make it at least semi entertaining so you’re not all falling asleep. Myself and Dave will host it and the aim is to just go through all the little bits of the race and the where’s and when’s of what to do (or not to do) on race day to make sure you get the most out of your experience

The Main Competitor carpark (Upper one on the pic below) will be open from 13:00 – 18:00 on Saturday the 9th and costs £2 to park on the Saturday, and £5 to park on the Sunday. On the Saturday, you can also buy Sunday’s parking ticket to save yourself a few minutes early Sunday morning too.

So just to summarise those Saturday times :
Main Competitor Car park open 13:00-18:00
Early registration window – 14:00-16:00
Saturday briefing 16:00-17:00ish

Please note that the southern Overflow car park will not be open on Saturday the 9th, only race day.

Race bibs and bike stickers
By now, 99% of you should have received your race bib and bike sticker in an envelope in the post.
If you were one of our late entries, or you have a foreign postal address, your race bibs and bike stickers will be available to collect on either the Saturday early registration Window, or Sunday morning registration by transition.
If your pack has not arrived by this Tuesday, please can you email to Mary@dbmax.co.uk and she will arrange for a replacement to be available to collect as above
Live results
Our timing partner for the event, DBMax, will have a live results page up and running during the race
This will show the moment at which you start, when you finish any of the Swim, bike or run segments of the race, as well as the point you cross various timing mats on the bike and run course as well as the finish
We’ll have a link up during race weekend that your friends and family can track you on here :
https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/results/

Food and drink on site
Lots of people having been asking what provisions we have for spectator (and competitor post race) food and drink on site. Around the start finish area, the lake guys have a nice little cafe that does a whole load of healthy (and unhealthy) burgers, jacket potatoes etc as well as some really nice homemade cakes and coffee’s. They will also have a BBQ going beside the cafe and there’s going to be a burger van too and a couple of smaller stalls. If you’re family/freinds are looking for something to do whilst you’re out on the bike course, the Beach and Country park, which houses our transition and you will walk through from the main car park to the start, has another nice Cafe and a pizza place which does stone cooked Pizzas to order and a few other bits and bobs. The run course goes right by their cafe/shop too as the Park contains about 40% of our run course.
They’ve also got a really cool ‘Total Wipeout’ type course in the water if your family wanted something else to do during the day – Info on the Beach and Country park – https://www.cotswoldcountryparkandbeach.com

Weather and prep
If you are to believe the accuracy of Weather forecasting, it looks like we’re going to have a bit of a mini heatwave over the coming week (looking out my office window at the rain right now makes that pretty hard to believe I might add)

The water temperature is around 20deg right now, so a good week fo sunshine would see this up around 22 on race morning. This is Wetsuit optional temperature, and I can’t see that changing by race day.
The lake is little shallow at the moment (short version of the long story is the 70 or so lakes in the Waterpark are mainly interlinked and fresh water fed, and a new quarry next door to a lake upstream from the one we race at, has a blockage currently, so lake 32 is currently a couple of feet shallower than normal). This is good news for the less confident swimmers amongst you as it’ll mean there’s more places you can stand up, although might mean a slight tweak to the course layout, which we’ll keep everyone posted on if required
It’s worth noting that the bike course aid station is around 23miles into the bike lap if you’re planning on using it, so if it’s very warm on race day, you’ll want to ensure you have enough water/gels on your bike at the start of the race to get you to that distance. You have two laps on the bike course, so two stops of aid available.
The run course has 3 aid stations per lap (each lap is 4.3miles) and full info on what’s at each station is in the race info pack.

Right, that’s it from me for tonight. The next you’ll hear from me is early to mid next week with a link to the race info pack as well as some reminders of what to bring on race weekend for registration etc

We’re here to help, so if you get any questions or there’s anything we can help with, please just ask

Cheers and happy tapering, and we’ll look forward to welcoming you all along to our race next weekend

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold Classic Middle Distance Tri – 10th July 22

Morning all. We’re just over 3 weeks out from the race now, so it’s now getting closer.
Hopefully by now, you’ve all read the last newsletter and digested the race information pack
If not, you can find that here : https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic-2022-pre-race-newsletter-1/

In this latest instalment of the pre race newsletters, I’ll cover the following:

Start List with waves and numbers
Getting your pack in the post
Course conditions, rules/regulations and kit advice
Marshal Request 

Start List with waves and numbers
Up until the selection window closed on Monday, I had around 700 requests for waves and numbers, and I think I’ve managed to get about 99.9% into their selected groups, waves and numbers
The start list with your waves and numbers is now fixed, and you can find it here :
https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/cotswold-classic-start-list/
I’m afraid that now this is finalised, we can’t change things around

Getting your pack in the post
The master list is now also with the printing and posting company, so packs will start to get posted out in about a week. In your pack will be your race bib (race number) and a bike sticker. The bike stickers have a habit of getting lodged in the bottom of the envelope, so please can you make sure you fish it out before throwing the envelope away.
They get posted out in batches, so don’t worry if your mates have theirs and yours hasn’t arrived yet as the arrival will be spread out over 10 or so days
They should all be with you by Wednesday of race week (Wednesday 6th July), but if they’re not, please email mary@dbamx.co.uk and she can arrange a replacement to be waiting for you race weekend.
If you have a non UK address, or you’ve arranged this with us already, your pack will be available to collect on race morning also.

Course conditions, rules/regulations and kit advice
You’re probably now all at the stage where you’re starting to consider your options of what to bring on race weekend, so I wanted to spend a short amount of time explaining the courses etc so aid those decisions.
Transition is on grass, so with that in mind, it’s worth having a large plastic bag to keep your stuff up off the grass as it’s possible it’ll either be wet with morning dew, or if we’re unlucky, raining.
The BTF rules don’t allow plastic boxes in transition, and it has to be a soft bag of some description (a large rucksack is fine). If you have a plastic box that you always bring your stuff into transition in, we can still find you somewhere in the corner where you can stash it, but you won’t be allowed to have it by your bike and kit in the racking area. I normally recommend that people bring something like a bin bag, sports direct/ikea bag to keep their stuff in as it’ll mean if it does rain, you have somewhere to keep your bike and run socks and shoes in whilst you’re racing as I know from poor experience that coming back into T2 and having to tip water out your running shoes and squelching for the first mile really does suck.
We get about 5% of our competitors that do a full change in T1 or T2, and that’s totally fine too. We don’t have changing tents as there simply isn’t space, so what most do is get changed under a towel or a swim robe. The BTF rules say that you’re not allowed to expose yourself or get naked in transition, and how we interpret that is that if you’re attempting to be discrete, that’s totally fine. If you’re doing naked lunges down the racking or a big front to back sawing motion with a towel, that’s really not (I’ve seen both at our races in the past)

The weather this week has been pretty scorching down at the lake as we enjoy this short heatwave, so the water temperature is now around 21deg, which puts us firmly within the Wetsuit optional range.
I appreciate us triathletes love a Wetsuit, so this will mean that you all pretty much wear one, so I just wanted to let you know that based on current temps, you can opt not to wear one if you don’t want to wear one.

The run from transition to the mount line is about 60m and we’ll carpet it so that you can run either barefooted or in cycling shoes without the worry of mud/stones clogging up your cleats.

The bike course is two 28mile laps. The road surface is largely pretty decent, although being England there are a few potholes around the course, which you can quite easily navigate around as long as you keep your eyes open.
We had our Cotswold 113 race a couple of weeks ago, so we went out and marked them with Yellow Paint, and will do this again just before the July Classic race (a few examples as below)

If you’re considering tyre choice, I’ll give you my suggestion as an example as I live/ride in this area a lot mainly around our course: I weigh 80kg, and on my road bike, I run a 28mm tubeless tyre inflated around 70psi.
If you’re lucky enough to have both road and TT bike options, this is a TT bike course all day long. It’s relatively well sheltered from the wind so is perfectly suitable for a deep rim or disc rear if you have that option available to you (most don’t, but I appreciate that those that do want to know if it’s ok for the course style or not)
The bike Course aid station is about 24miles into the lap, so you’ll want to bring enough nutrition and drink to get yourself to this point if you’re planning on using the aid station on either or both laps.
The race is non drafting, and we’re going to be very hot on issuing penalties for this as I’ve read on a facebook group about a certain club planning on working together to get a fast time, so please bear this in mind and remember to follow the rules please.

The run course is three laps, and around 50% tarmac, 45% hard packed lake paths and 5% grass. It deals with rain really well as the lake path sections are under trees and very hard packed, so unless we get 2 weeks of rain running up the race, it’s a road shoe course rather than an off road shoe course. I’ll keep everyone posted on this nearer the time with condition updates in the following pre race newsletters

Marshal Request 
We can really do with a handful more paid marshals on the day please, so if you have anyone coming along with you that could get involved in the fun side of the race, we’d welcome them to the team.
Marshals can camp for free very close to the race start, we’ll keep them in free icecreams, hot food and hot drinks during the day, and they get paid too (£20 cash or a £40 113 Voucher)
If you have anyone coming along that could be part of our team, please just drop me an email at graeme@113events.com

Right, that’s it for me for this newsletter
We’re looking forward to welcoming you along to our start line in a few weeks, but please just get in touch if there’s anything we can help with in the run up to the race, it’s what we’re here for
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sending out a couple more pre race emails, which will include info on swimming on race weekend before the race day, non compulsory briefing and early registration window on Saturday the 9th, as well as a video link for the compulsory briefing.
If you didn’t read it from the last newsletter, please please please read the race info pack :
https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CC2022-–-Race-Information-Sheet.pdf

Cheers, and happy training

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold Classic – July 10th – Pre race newsletter #1

Good morning all, I hope everyone’s well and ready to come racing with us in just over 4 weeks.
Now the start list is fixed and we’re fully in the run up to race day, I’ll start to get the final bits of info out to you all over the next few weeks to ensure everyone’s up to speed and ready to race.
Although I’ll try and keep all the following newsletters fairly brief, this one’s gonna be a long one, so please grab a seat and a coffee and prepare yourself for a marathon

In this email, I’ll cover the following:

Race fixed and final info
Race information pack
Swim start format and info
Planning your race weekend
Marshal request
Familiarisation day

Race fixed and final info
The start list for the race is now fixed and submitted to insurers etc, so I can no longer offer name swaps and deferrals I’m afraid, sorry
However, as we’re posting out our registration packs, I wanted to use this as a reminder that if any of you have moved house since you entered the race, please can you send me your new address this week please and I’ll ensure your race pack goes to the correct address. You can see your registered address on your entry confirmation email, unless you’ve instructed a change since.
The race packs will start to get sent around 2 weeks out from the race, and will be on your doorstep sometime before Tuesday of race week. If your registered address is not a UK address, your pack will be waiting for you on race weekend with the registration guys.

Race information pack
You can find a link to the race information pack here :
https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CC2022-–-Race-Information-Sheet.pdf
This contains absolutely everything you need to know about the race, and it’s really important that you take the time to read it please. It’s your pack for your race, so if there’s anything else you think needs to be covered, please just ask and we’ll add it in.
I’m afraid you’re going to get bored of me sending you this as I’m going to add the link into all the pre race emails, but it’s amazing how many people don’t read it and end up either not knowing something important about the day, or turning up with the wrong stuff.

Swim start format and info 
The race will start on July 10th at 05:55 and starts will run until 07:00
During Covid times, we moved from a series of waved mass starts to a rolling start window where a competitor starts every 4-5 seconds. This was very popular with the vast majority of competitors, and something we’ll continue with
However, I’m also conscious that there’s still a minority that like a mass start so they can see who they’re racing against on the course and not just against the clock. For this reason, we’ll cater for both options, and start the race at 05:55 with a small mass start for those that want it (more info on this later in this email) followed by 6 x 10min windows for rolling start waves :
05:55 Mass Start (limited numbers)
06:00-06:10 Wave 1
06:10-06:20 Wave 2
06:20-06:30 Wave 3
06:30-06:40 Wave 4
06:40-06:50 Wave 5
06:50-07:00 Wave 6

You will now have a short window in which you can choose a specific wave and/or race number, but please can I ask that you carefully read the following advice and guidelines before getting your request in :

To front-load the information, all our waves have roughly the same average swim time, so it’s certainly not fastest guys off first, and slowest last.
For choosing a wave, I want to give you some examples of why you might want a specific wave
You might be the next Michael Phelps and want clear water ahead of you, so would want either the mass start or wave 1.
You might feel you’re the slower end of the field, and not want to be the last person out on the run course, so would want an earlier wave with 1 or 2
You might be a more nervous swimmer, and want to see a few waves go off before you start to settle your nerves so would want a middle wave
You might want an extra 45mins in bed, so would want a later wave
You might want to be home in time for Songs of Praise, so would want an early wave

You don’t need to choose a specific wave, and many don’t. How it will then work, is once all the requests are in, we’ll backfill the remainder of the places in each wave alphabetically.

You can also now choose a specific race number or ask for a random group of sequential numbers so that you and your friends are racked in transition next to each other.
Numbers get snapped up very quickly and I’ll get over 700 requests, so when requesting, please also ask for a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th choice if you have them for a specific number (numbers 69, 666 and things like 33, 111 etc, or years of birth are most popular).
The transition works sequentially, and as you always enter/exit at opposite ends, there’s no racing advantage to a low or high number. If asking for a random group of numbers to be racked with your club mates, please read the following request process:
I will need not just their names, but also their Dates of Birth and registered email addresses as we often get duplicates of seemingly unique names, not just John Smith’s and Ann Browns.
Please check with them first as very often we get requests for someone to be racked with their friends in [for example] wave 3, when some of those mates have already asked to be with some other clubs in wave 6.
Please get the request right first time and not try and add more people in later as I won’t be able to accommodate that (ie, I’ll allocated you numbers 456-462 for your group, so 463 won’t be available later to add someone else in, as I’ll have allocated 463-478 to the next group)

I really like that we can offer this as I feel that it’s valued, and I literally have to block out 30-40 hours staring at an excel document in order to do this, so please can I ask that you make my life easier and get it right first time, check your mates actually don’t want to be racked with other mates in an other wave, and that the people you’re asking to be racked with and go off in the same wave as, have actually entered the race as this happens an awful lot too, and I’m left scratching my head trying to find a Dave Jones, when he’s not actually entered the race in the first place.

You can choose any number from 10-700inc and any wave from the mass start to waves 1-6.
Relay teams can choose a wave, but not a number as they’re racked separately to the solo entries.
The window for choosing a Wave and/or a race number opens now, and will close on Monday night (June 13th)
You can make your request by emailing Graeme@113events.com using ‘Waves and Numbers’ as the email title
As I’ll get around 6-700 request, please accept that I can’t respond to each and every email, so you’ll need to await the start list being published end of next week

Planning your race weekend
I know we’re now approaching the time where you want to start finalising the planing of your weekend.
It’s important to note that if you only want to come along on Sunday, that’s totally fine as we do all our racking on Sunday morning, and although you will need to sign in Sunday morning, your registration pack will come out in the post beforehand.
However, we do have Saturday stuff on if you wanted to make a weekend of it:
On the Saturday, there will be an option to have a swim which I will send booking info out on around 2 weeks out from the race
We will also have a Saturday briefing which isn’t compulsory*, but is useful to attend if you’re new to Triathlon or you’ve not raced with us before. The Saturday briefing will be very informal, and we’ll take around 45mins to an hour to talk through the race bit by bit and myself and Dave will try and make it as entertaining as possible to give you some advice and examples on what to expect and how to race and we’ll answer any questions you might have.
Also, on the Saturday afternoon, we’ll have a time slot in which you can sign on/register early which will save you time on Sunday morning. At the same time, you can buy Sunday’s parking tickets too, which will also save you a load of time Sunday morning too, so if nothing else, turning up Saturday might get you 20mins longer in Bed Sunday.
We’ll get finalised times for Saturday’s stuff out in a couple of weeks, but realistically, it’s going to be something like Early registration window 2-3pm and briefing 3-4pm
* A compulsory race briefing will be sent out as a video link during the early part of race week

Marshal request 
As anyone that’s every organised races will know, getting marshals is one of the hardest bits of the race and the bit you get let down on the most, especially if the weather forecast isn’t looking favourable like last weekend’s race.
We have around 180-200 paid marshals and helpers on the day
We have a mega bunch of regular guys and girls that help out at our race each time, and we backfill the rest of the positions with friends, family etc of competitors. We still have around 20 places that need filling, so if you have anyone that is coming along with you and wants to see the race from the more fun side, we’d absolutely love them on the team and would welcome them in with open arms
All marshals get paid too, and they can choose from either £20 cash or a £40 113 Events Voucher, and we’ll get them a free team shirt and kitted up with everything they need as well as partnering them up if required and taken through a full briefing, and keep them in free hot food, drinks and ice creams all day.
There’s free camping on Site for marshals too, so if you’re planning on coming along in a camper, and can bring a marshal to stay with you, you can stay on site for free around 150m from the start area.
All we ask is that they’re over 16 and know their left from their right, and we’ll brief them up on everything they need to know, and if they’re less experienced, put them with someone who knows the drills.
The two shifts are
Bike Team – 05:15 briefing, finish around 11:30
Run Team – 07:15 briefing, finish around 14:30

Please email graeme@113events.com

Familiarisation day
For those of you that have entered the race in the last few weeks, you will have missed the newsletter on this Sunday’s free of charge familiarisation day, where we’ll take you for a leisurely paced lap of the Bike and run courses (bike is 2 laps on race day, so 28miles per lap, and run is 3 laps on race day, so 4.33miles per lap) so you can see where you’re racing on on the day.
It kicks off with a single bike lap around 9am, and the run lap around 11:30 and the emphasis is very much on leisurely paced, so no one should get dropped (Think circa 14-15mph on the bike, and 10-11min miles on the run)
If you’re interested in attending this Sunday, we have a handful of spots left, so please drop me an email

Right, that’s it from me for today. Sorry this has been a long one, and hope that you’re all still awake ?

We really are here to help and to make sure you all get the most from the race, so if there’s anything we can help with, anything you want advice on or you just want to talk about whether the Sub7/8 race last weekend is relevant or not to triathlon (this seems to be a hot topic right now) please just drop me an email or give me a call

Cheers and happy training

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold113 2022 – Post race email

Good evening all. I hope you’ve all dried out, warmed up and have your feet firmly up with a beer in your hand right now ?
Those were some truly tough conditions for racing, so well done to all of you that finished today.

Most importantly, thank you all very much for coming to race with us this year. It’s a tough time in the industry with more race places than competitors in British Middle distance races, so we’re truly appreciative that you’ve all chosen to come racing with 113 events this year, and we hope that we delivered to your expectations and more.

I suspect you’re all very bored of my emails now, so I’ll keep this one pretty brief, and cover all the bits you’re interested in knowing and in this final 11322 email I’ll cover the following :

How fast you went
How you looked doing it
Fancy another go
See it from the other side
Tell us what you thought and win a free slot in 23
Next year’s races
Lost property 

How fast you went
This, I’m sure, is probably the only bit of this email you care about, so here’s a link to today’s results :
https://dbmaxresults.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=16421&RId=370
We have trophies for our age groups of 1st-3rd in M/F 18-49 and 1st-3rd M/F 50+ plus a Relay team winner
As we didn’t hold a prize giving today, we’ll get those posted out in a next couple of weeks, and well done to all of you that did so great in those categories

How you looked doing it
I’ll pre-warn you, from my years of racing experience, no one ever looks quite as serene or majestic in their pics as they might have imagined themselves, and blowing cheeks, gurning and running snot are pretty par for the course.
Anyway, we use Whitton Photo’s and he’ll have the pics up in a couple of days at :
https://www.charleswhittonphotography.com/cotswold-113-tri-5622
We pre pay for a download pic per competitor for you, and any others that you want to download, get printed on a mug etc, are available to buy through his site too

Fancy another go
Did you know that we effectively re-run this race in 5weeks on July 10th under the name Cotswold Classic Middle Distance Tri ? It’s identical to the June 113, but on our normal bike course (56m) as there’s no jubilee that weekend effecting road closures, and (touch wood) is likely to be far warmer than today.
We still have some spaces at that race, and online entries close at Midnight tomorrow night (Monday June 6th) through https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/ although we can still squeeze people in until the end of the week if you email me.
We run a combo entry discount at the start of the year where you can enter both races together for a £40 saving, so if any of you that had entered the 113 and now want to do the Classic too, can capitalise on that discount still if you drop me an email and I’ll send you back a discount code to cover that saving on a Classic Entry.

See it from the other side
If you don’t fancy racing again straight away, but are around on July 10th, we’d absolutely love you on our merry team of marshals for the day, and you can get paid for it too. As you’ve seen today, it’s fun being a marshal for the most part (even standing in the rain early morning), and we have a great bunch of guys on our team that really try and interact with the competitors and make the day both fun and safe for them. You also get an invite to our post race beer, where, if like today (from the top picture), we all sit like zombies and stare longingly into a pint of beer and crave our beds
If you’re interested, drop me an email at graeme@113events.com

Tell us what you thought and win a free slot in 23
We value your opinion on how you thought the race went today, as well as in the run up to today from the point you entered, so would really welcome your feedback and thoughts on the race experience as a whole.
So much so, that we’ll offer up a couple of free slots for the 2023 Cotswold113 to 2 random names selected from those of you that could please complete the following short survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Y6GKHKX
As a team, we see a fair amount of the race, but you guys that are out racing over the full day see so much more than we do, and how the race made you feel and what you liked/didn’t like is super important for us so that we can continually improve and make our races the very best they can be
Please don’t pull any punches on the feedback, and don’t feel like you might offend us with your responses. The only way we can really see what works and what doesn’t is by hearing from you all, so we’d really appreciate if you could please take 10mins to complete the survey about and let us know how you really think it all went.
For us as team 113, competitor experience is everything and as great as it is to see Smiling faces at the finish line, we strive to make that experience even better, and we can only do this by you passing on your thoughts and experience on the race as whole.

Next year’s races
Although the 2022 season is barely just beginning, we’re well into the planning stages for 2023.
Over the past 10 years, we pretty much just duplicated the June 113 with the July (previously August) Cotswold Classic Middle Distance. This has worked to an extent as the later date often suits some guys better. However, I think it’s important if we’re going to survive a slow period in the industry, that we change things around and try and make the two races a little different to each other with the Cotswold Classic V2
Don’t worry, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel with the Classic, but from 2023, we’re working on a completely new bike course, which is much more ‘Rolling’ in nature than the very flat Cotswold 113. The course we are planning heads West rather than east, and although will still be a very fast course, has a few rolling hills and will take in a very different end of the Cotswolds and different scenery. It’ll also do away with the out and back sections. I suspect the run course will still remain largely the same, but we’re working on a couple of options for that too, but will of course be very flat still as there’s not a hill for 6 or 7 miles of the lake anyway.
The dates for next year’s races are provisionally set as June 4th and July 9th, and entries to both races will open online through 113events.com on August 1st this year.

Lost property 
As with all our races, we get loads of stuff left behind that we’ve had handed in or picked up today.
Myelf, Dave and Kevin will be at the lake tomorrow from mid morning if you’re still in the area and want to pop in, and I’ll be down there again Wednesday too showing competitors around the 22 Classic route (I’m working away on my other ‘Job’ Tuesday – Just for a break if nothing else)
Also, we have a competitor who’s lost a wetsuit, so please can you take 5 mins just to check your kit bag as you may have picked up the wrong one at the end of the day by accident – We also have 3 Wetsuits that weren’t collected at the end of the day for those of you that are also missing one.

Right, that’s it from me. Like many of you, we’ve all been up since 2am, so my bed is calling
Thanks again for putting your trust in racing with us, and we truly appreciate you coming along to the 113 start line today and making today so much fun for the 113 Team.

Hope to see you all again soon

Cheers

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Pre race email #3

Hey all, I hope you’re all nice and ready for Sunday’s race ?
This will be the last you’re likely to hear from me before the weekend, so I wanted to get the last few bits of info from our drip feed out to you just so you can get the final few bits ready to go racing on Sunday.
In this email I’ll cover the following :

What to bring this weekend for just about everything
Live tracker and results link
Rain and morning prep
Queens Jubilee celebrations
Allergy Change

What to bring this weekend for just about everything
I appreciate there’s always a million things on your minds on race morning, and it’s very easy to forget things, so I wanted a get a quick reminder out of what to remember to bring and do on the morning in order that you’ll need them so, hopefully, no one forgets things (I won’t remind you to bring wetsuit, bike and running kit, as if you’re the type of person to forget to bring your bike, I’m not sure an email reminder is going to help you)
Firstly, when you arrive at the car park in the morning, please have cash (Sunday parking is £5) ready to pay as it’ll speed up the process of getting some 700 or so cars parked within a 90 min window through one gate into a field. There’ll be a queue for the carpark, so please also leave plenty of time too.
If you’re coming along on Saturday, you can buy your Sunday parking pass for the main car park then too, which will speed up the Sunday process even more.
Before you leave your car, please ensure you have your race bib to hand and your bike sticker positioned on your bike. When you get to transition, you will need to register. For this, you will need either your 2022 BTF membership card complete with a photo, or another form of official photo ID (Passport, driving license, NHS card etc) and £5 cash for  BTF Day license. Without either of these, you will not be allowed to race, and our BTF ref will be keeping a very strict eye on us for this, so we cannot make any exceptions at all. If you are in a relay team, one person can register for all members, but will need all of their BTF cards, or photo ID’s and £5 cash each.
If you don’t want to bring your passport etc with you, a photo on a phone is fine as is a printed off version of a photocopy. Once you have registered, you will be given a wrist band (or multiple wrist bands if you’ve registered for a relay) It’s also worth noting, that you will be checked into transition at this point, so must have your bike sticker on your bike, your race bib showing, and your helmet on your head and fastened. The latter is so that we can check that your helmet does actually fit your head (roughly by eye) and that your chin strap isn’t hanging down by your nipples and will actually keep your helmet on your head if you’re unlucky enough to have a spill) – Like the ID’s, this is a BTF rule and we get watched very carefully that we are checking this.
You will save yourself a lot of time to turn up to check in with your id etc, and your helmet already on your head please
Once you’re in transition, you will find your numbered spot in the racking, and at your spot will be your timing chip and swim hat.
The bike course aid station is at 25ish miles into the course, so have enough aid/drink to get yourself started to that distance. You don’t have to use the aid station if you don’t want, and many don’t, but please be ready for the first 25miles if you’re planning on using it.

The water temp today was a very nice 19deg, so we’re firmly within the wetsuit optional range and this won’t change much by Sunday, maybe 1deg either way at most.

Live tracker and results link
Our timing partners, DBmax have a link up and running for live timing and results
This shows within a couple of seconds when you have started the race, and have either finished a swim, bike or run section, or crossed any of the intermediate timing mats as well as the finish line, so can be used as a tracker too.
The link to this is at https://www.113events.com/cotswold-113/results/
We have two types of race categories, ours and the BTF’s 5yr age slots
We have Trophies and prizes for our age categories (M/F 18-49 & M/F 50+ and Relay) and these are posted out after the race. Historically, we used to hold a prize giving after the race, but I appreciate it’s not much fun for the very fastest guys and girls to have to hang around what might be 4-5 hours after they’ve finished, as I didn’t want to run the prize giving until after the last finisher was in (This was my own rule as I didn’t want people to still be out on the course and see prize giving happening, and feel in any way that the race was finished without that and no one cared about them still being out there)

Rain and Morning Prep
The various UK weather forecasts are now almost all agreeing that it looks like it’s going to rain on Sunday for at least a good chunk of the race, if not all of it. With that in mind, please can I remind you all that transition is on grass, so please bring a large plastic bag to keep all your stuff a) up off wet grass, and b) out of the rain.
Also, with transition shutting for 6am, and many of you not starting until the 06:50 wave, there’s going to be some standing around. If you have a coat with you that you want to wear pre race over your wetsuit, we will have a 3×3 gazebo near to the swim start where you can drop anything you want and collect after the race. it’s going to be unmanned during the day, so you leave anything in there at your own risk, but will be in the finishers area so will only be accessible by competitor.
For other stuff (Car keys etc), you can leave them, if you wish, in transition with your bike, which is far more secure as it’s competitors only and constantly manned.
Also, the walk from transition to the swim start/toilets is on grass and hard packed stone. You can walk on it bare footed, but if you have sensitive feet or just don’t like walking barefooted, please feel free to bring some old flip flops, trainers, hotel slippers etc, and leave them on the shore by the swim start. That’s only 5m from the overall finish line, so you can either grab them after the race, or if you don’t want them back, leave them there and we’ll dump them in the skip on Sunday night.
As I said in the previous email, rain on the bike course does have a habit of washing crap onto the roads, so the chances of getting a puncture are increased somewhat. Please have the necessary tube and kit to repair it yourself on the day, as although we’ll have motorbike support riders on the course as well as the BTF moto Ref’s, the support guys can take a fair while to get to you if they’re very busy, so please don’t just rely on them. There will also be a mechanic with basic tools at the bike course aid station.
Also as previous mentioned, it’s always worth having wet weather kit and not needing it, rather than needing it and not having it.
Pulling on dry socks after the bike to head off on the run is one of Triathlon life’s real pleasures too, so I’d always recommend to people to have some dry socks and run shoes in a bag with a small towel for the end of the bike segment.

Queens Jubilee celebrations 
Sunday is the queens Jubilee day, and although it’s caused us no end of headaches in getting this race sorted for the day, it’s also a pretty cool day to celebrate
We will have bunting all around the finish chute, and we even have a ‘Royal Red’ finish line carpet instead of our normal bright 113 Red carpet, so we’ll try and get in the Royal Spirit as much as we can. We will also have spot prizes for the most patriotic competitors and spectators, so don’t forget to try and wear some Red, White and Blue.

Allergy Change
It’s worth mentioning that we have a competitor (Actually 2) who have a very serious Peanut allergies, so we are now withdrawing the Salted Peanuts from the aid station as we just can’t gaurentee eliminating cross contamination for the other stuff on that run station (people tend to grab one thing and then grab something else too, often with then same hand). I’m currently double checking that Jamaican Ginger cake, Bananas, Chocolate chip cookies, Salt and Vinegar Discos, Jelly Babies and all the normal High5 drinks/gels and flat coke don’t have traces, but I’m pretty sure they don’t so we should be able to keep everything else other than the peanuts

Right, I’m pretty sure that’s the last time you’ll have to put up with emails now before race day, but please give me a call if you need anything from me between now and Sunday, and we’ll look forward to seeing many of your smiling faces at the Briefing on Saturday at 15:00 and the rest of you with your race faces at registration on Sunday morning

Cheers

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612