The following email went out to all Cotswold113 2019 Competitors today:
Cotswold113 June 9th 2019
Good morning all, I hope this email finds you all well and taking in that little hint of spring we had last week with some training ?
We’re about 3 months out from this year’s race, so I wanted to bring you all up to speed on what’s been happening, what’s coming up and to get some info out to you all
I’ll try not to waffle on too much as I appreciate it’s Wednesday and you’re all probably in that midweek slump, so I’ll try and keep this one fairly brief.
In this email I’ll cover the following :
1) Familiarisation day
2) Marshal Request
3) Transfers to August
4) What else to expect and when
Familiarisation day – June 2nd
On Sunday June 2nd, we’ll be holding our free of charge course familiarisation day for the 113.
These days are a great chance to come down to the lake, and to see the Swim, Bike and run courses.
The bike and run are completely free, but if you wanted to swim, the guys that run the lake will want a £5 guest membership fee from you on the gate.
How it works is that we’ll run a guided lap of each of the courses, and the emphasis is very much on seeing the course in a leisurely fashion, so the pace will be very low, so if you were thinking of using this day as a speedwork training session, then I’d suggest you plan that in for another day.
The swim will start with toes in the water for 08:00, and the lap will be lead by our resident Swim Coach, Jason Tait of South West Swim (http://southwestswim.co.uk).
It’s a single lap on race day, so the guided lap will be 1,900m. However, you can dip out at any point, or just get in the water and swim the lakes own marked out 400/750/1500 meter courses if you want to just get a taster of the lake (not literally, hopefully).
If you want to do the guided lap, we’ll have regular stops along the way for everyone to regroup, and we’ll have a kayaker or two to point everyone in the right direction as our course won’t be marked out on this day. At around the halfway mark, the course comes back to within 100m of the start area, so you have a good chance to drop out or just do half if you so choose.
Once we’ve finished the Swim, myself and Jason will be on hand to answer any questions you might have before we head out on the bike. There’s changing rooms and showers at the lake too.
The bike will head out at around 10am, and we’ll meet by the cafe at the lake (it’s a small complex, so it’s easy enough to spot)
The bike course is 2 laps on race day, so on the familiarisation day, you’ll be covering 1 lap of 28miles.
Like the swim, the emphasis is on leisurely, so we’ll aim to average 14-15mph, and we’ll have various stops to show where the aid stations are etc and to regroup.
The bike typically takes about 2.5 hours, so once we’re all back in from the bike, we’ll have a 20ish minute break to get changed and put our bikes away, before heading out on the run
The run course is 3 laps on race day, so we’ll cover one lap of 4.33 miles on the Fam day.
Again, we’ll have loads of regrouping stops to point out how it will all work on race day, and we’ll average something like 10minute miles.
Parking is free on the day, and the car park is around 200m from the lake, so it’s easy enough to get back to your car and put your kit away between sessions. It’s pretty safe down at the lake, but if you’re not planning on having a car or van to put your bike in, I’d suggest you bring a lock and there’s some fencing you can lock it against whilst you’re out Swimming or running just in case.
The familiarisation days are a great chance for people to come and see the course and meet the team in a nice, relaxed environment, and the team and I will be on hand during the day to answer any questions you might have. It’s also a nice chance for us to meet you all away from race weekend too, so as a team, we look forward to these days as we barely get a grunt out of you all on race weekend as you all have your game faces on.
I apologise that it’s a week before race day this year, but given the hectic diaries of the lake, and my team, it wasn’t possible to find a date in the typical 3-5week out range that we aim for.
If you can’t make the June 2nd date, there’s still other chances to see the course. I live local to the lake, and generally work from home on my day job over the summer season a couple of days a week, and I love the chance to skive away from my laptop for a few hours for a bit of cycling and running. I can’t do weekends, as they’re normally tied up with other stuff, but I can sometimes get out for a few hours on a weekday morning from about the beginning on May onwards when my day job winds down a bit for the Triathlon season, so just drop me a line and I’ll try and sort a date nearer the time.
To book onto the June 2nd day, please head to www.entrycentral.com/113events and book the 113 Fam day.
It all sounds very formal having to book on, but in reality, we use this as a way of gauging numbers and to give us a method of communicating with you all directly in the days before the day. This is not just limited to competitors only, and you might have friends and family that want to come along too, and see the courses you’ll be racing on the weekend after.
We look forward to seeing many of you there
Be part of our team
As anyone that has every organised an event will know, getting marshals is one of the hardest bits of the process. We have around 200 paid positions on our race day, and although we typically get around 100 of these as repeaters, the remainder tend to come along as a friends, family and club mates of competitors, so we’d love to hear from you if you have anyone that you can bring along to our team and to help make the race by seeing it from the other side.
All our marshals get paid too, and they’ll get either £20 cash on the day or a £40 113 Events Voucher, and all marshals get an Events team shirt, a full briefing, and everything else they could possibly need. They also get kept in hot food, drink and ice creams.
Due to the insurances, we can’t pay or employ under 16’s, but if you have an under 16 with you as a marshal, we can get them an event shirt, and they can of course make use of the free ice creams and burgers. We have team shirts down to a toddler size, and if the marshals have kids with them, we will, of course, make sure they have a role away from a road or bikes.
The marshals don’t need any experience at all, and we’ll take them through a full team briefing with the course managers, and we’ll aim to pair them all up so they’re not just stuck on their own somewhere. All we ask is that they’re reasonably enthusiastic and they know their left from their right
The two main shifts are Bike and Run courses.
The race starts at 05:30 and will go off in 6 waves at 10 minute intervals
The bike course team have a briefing at 04:45 and will be finished around or before 11:30 depending on where on the course they are
The run course team have a briefing at 06:45 and will be finished around or before 14:00
We also have roles in Transition and swim exit, and these have fairly variable times
All marshals get free parking on the day, and if they wanted to camp over, we can find them a spot for a tent.
We’re very proud that our races have built up a great reputation for having some of the best marshals in the sport, and we know only too well that happy marshals are good marshals, so they’ll be really well looked after on the day, and we’ll make sure it’s fun for them and that they’ll have a few laughs along the way.
If you have someone that can help out, please get them to drop me an email at graeme@113events.com
Also, if you want to be involved in the team this year, but are racing in June already, we’d love you along on our team on August 4th to see the race from the other side. Or if you have someone that wants to race in August and help in June, we can hold them an August slot, and they can earn a £40 credit towards it on June 9th.
Transfers to August
As it stands currently, we still have slots left for our August race (quite normal this time of year as the August race always fill up much later than the June race)
The August 4th Cotswold Classic Middle Distance Tri is identical to the June 113 in every way other than date and name
Typically, I tend to get a load of requests from June 113 Competitors close to the June race wanting to move over, and at that point, it’s not always possible to move as either the August race is full, or we’ve committed too much to your name for June.
We’re also aware that the summer season can sneak up on you, and that the June 113 is also now just 3 months away and you might not perhaps be feeling quite ready for it, you might have picked up an injury, you might (like me) still be carb loading from Christmas, or you might have forgotten that June 9th is actually your wedding anniversary and breaking the news to your partner that you’ll be racing on that day could result in divorce.
With that in mind, if you feel there is a chance you might want to swap to the August race, please ask now as we can do it completely free, and the closer to the race we get, the harder or less likely it is possible to do. We don’t need to know why, so don’t feel embarrassed, but just drop me an email asking for the swap and we’ll sort it straight away
Details on the August race are available at www.113events.com
What to expect and when
Over the next three months, we’ll be sending you a few emails with info about the race and your race info pack. If you haven’t already seen it, our last competitor newsletter contained some info about race weekend and what’s going on when and where : https://www.113events.com/january-19-competitor-newsletter/ so take a few minutes to bring yourself up to speed on that
About 6 weeks out from the race when the start list is fixed and frozen, I’ll send you all an email from which you’ll get a chance to choose a specific wave and/or race number. In the interest of fairness to all these are on first come first served basis following the email at that point, so please don’t ask yet as we can’t allocate waves or numbers until that time.
The next email you’ll get from us will be in a couple of weeks with the link to the race information pack
We’re here to help though, so please just ask if there’s anything you need from us, or there’s anything we can help with or you’re struggling with to understand. Or you just want to chat Triathlon and you’re passing this way, our kettle’s always on
Right, that’s it from me for this week. I hope you’re all still awake 🙂
We are here to help you all, so please get in touch if there’s anything we can help with in the run up to the race or you have any questions at all
Thanks and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612
113events.com