113 Events Ltd

Triathlons based in the Cotswolds

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2020 races are now go….

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The following email went out to all our newsletter subscribers tonight

2020 races are now go….

Good evening all
Firstly, thanks for either racing or marshalling with us in the past, or subscribing to our newsletters
Although it seems like the summer of 2019 is still in full swing, I wanted to drop you all a quick email to let you know we’ve now fixed the dates for the 2020 races and when entries will open for them both :

Cotswold 113 Middle Distance Triathlon – Sunday June 7th 2020
Cotswold Classic Middle Distance Triathlon – Sunday August 2nd 2020

Online entry will open for both races online at 00:01 on Saturday August the 24th at www.113events.com and both races have early bird discounts for the first 150 sign ups.

To give you all a heads up on how quickly they fill, the 2019 June 113 was full by early October 18, and the August Classic was full by early Spring this year, and both races are filling quicker every year. Please book early to avoid disappointment, as once they’re full, they’re full

We hope to see many of you racing with us again next year

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

Cotswold Classic 19 – Post race email

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The following post race mail went out to all Cotswold Classic 2019 Competitors this morning:

Cotswold Classic Post race email

Good morning all, I hope everyone’s on the road to recovery from yesterday’s racing, and got a decent nights sleep last night ?
Firstly, and most importantly, I just wanted to say thanks for everyone that came racing with us yesterday. The race is only as good as the competitors that line up, and you were all an awesome bunch, so thank you.
In this email, I’ll cover the following :

How fast you went and how you looked doing it
Feedback request
Fancy racing with us again this year
Next year’s races

How fast you went and how you looked doing it
I get this is probably the only bit you’re interested in, so I’ll do this bit first
You can find yesterday’s results at :

Results


We had Charles Whitton Photography there yesterday, and in a couple of days when he’s sorted through all the pics, you will be able to find them at :
https://www.charleswhittonphotography.com/cotswold-classic-tri-4819
We have prepaid a couple of pics for each of you, which will show under the free downloads section, and he’ll them have plenty more you can choose from

Feedback request
Later this week, we’ll have a team debrief on the weekend, and pick through every single element in some detail to see what worked and what didn’t. However, from our side, we only see one angle of the race, so we rely on you all, as the people that experience the day from the competitor side, to feedback to us what you think worked well and you liked, or what you think can be improved on. With that in mind, I would love some feedback from you all please, as it’s making these changes and tweaks every year that helps us keep moving in an upwards path in trying to provide a great Middle Distance race for you all.
Don’t worry about hurting our feelings, we want you to nit pick and let us know anything you think we weren’t great at so we’ll see what we can change, and at the same time, let us know what you enjoyed or liked about the day, and we’ll see what we can do more of ?
You feedback is really important to us, and very much appreciated

Fancy racing with us again this year
Did you know the 113 team also organise the Nationwide Building Society Swindon Half Marathon, which is on Sept 22nd this year and this is going to be its last year ?.
It has all the touches of our Triathlons, but without getting wet or needing a bike, and on a flat and fast course with 100% closed roads.
Entries are still open at www.newswindonhalf.co.uk

2020 Triathlon Dates
We are provisionally working on June 7th and August 2nd for our Cotswold113 and Cotswold Classic Triathlons next year.
These dates will be fixed in the next couple of weeks, and entries will open at www.113events.com on Sept 1st

Right, that’s it from me for newsletters
We’ll be back down the lake today to get the clear up and storage of everything underway, so if you’re still in the area and have anything you’ve left behind, today’s the best day to do it.
I’m back to my day job for a couple of days this week after that, although I’m still here to help if there’s anything you need from us
Thanks again for choosing to race with us this year, and thanks for all being one of the best groups of competitors we’ve had at a race so far (And bringing us good racing weather too)

Cheers and happy recovery

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

Obligatory post race team beer pic from last night :

Cotswold classic 2019 – pre race mail Vol3

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The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold Classic 2019 competitors tonight :

59hours to go….

Good evening all
This is the last instalment of our pre race emails, so we hope you’re all feeling good and ready for racing on Sunday
In this final mail, I’m going to cover the following :

Forecast, course condition and preparation
Water Temperature
Race weekend Supplies and Support
Fitting your timing chip
Results and tracker

Forecast, course condition and preparation
If you’re anything like me, you’ll be checking 5 different weather apps, and only believing the best one.
The BBC are showing that we’re going to have a largely dry day with little wind:

However, it does look like we’re likely to get some rain on Saturday evening.
With this in mind, it’s worth reminding you all that the transition area is on grass, and not only is it likely to be wet with overnight dew, but there’s a chance that i could be wet with rain.
The BTF rules, and our rules, don’t allow plastic boxes in transition, so what I would recommend to you all is that you bring a large plastic bag (Bin bag, large shopping bag etc) to lay your stuff on top of, or if it looks like it might rain, keep your stuff in so it keeps dry. Having raced on a wet day myself and not used this system, I can tell you from quite bitter experience, that coming in from the bike and having to pour the water out your run shoes before taking on a half marathon is really not a massive amount of fun.
I went out yesterday and marked all the potholes we could find on the bike course with Neon Pink Paint as below, from which you will note the reason I organise events and not anything that involves Art 🙂

The bike course, on the whole, is in quite decent condition compared to most of the UK roads, but there are a couple of spots of note where you really need to keep your eyes open. They are in Kempsford at around mile 12 and about half a mile later at mile 12.5. Both sections are literally only 20-30 foot long, but are littered with small potholes or imperfections (and a lot of pink paint now), so please just slow down for those short sections and navigate your way through. I appreciate we all ride on British roads, so are well used to poor roads and potholes, but I just wanted to make everyone aware of these sections so it doesn’t ruin anyones day. Like you would on any UK ride, just keep your eyes pealed incase I’ve missed any.
Ultimately, you, as competitors, are responsible for fixing your own mechanical issues on course, but in the case of an emergency, we will have 3 motorcycle support riders, who will have some spare tubes and basic kit with them. Please don’t rely on them though, as they could be some time to get to you if they’re helping out somewhere else on the course.
We have a Bike Mechanic on site Saturday to do some last minute check overs too, which I’ll cover later in this email

Water Temperature
Although the forecast for this week has been for cloud and rain, it’s actually been pretty hot down the lake all week (as the colour of my forehead will prove), so the water temperature is starting to creep up again – Tonight, it was 22.8deg.
We’re not out the woods yet when it comes to wetsuits or not, so please ensure you bring kit for both options with you
Although we have to make the ‘official call’ at 5am Sunday morning, We will have a very good idea of how it’s looking when I measure it 5am on Saturday morning, and we will show that in registration, and I’m still pretty confident that we’ll be in the ‘Wetsuit optional’ range, but just in case bring your alternative options for swimming without.
If you’re unsure of the rules and regulations around a non wetsuit swim, please see my email last week with info :
https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic-2019-pre-race-email/
You’ll have to excuse the fact fact that my spellcheck changed ‘Buoyancy shorts’ to ‘Bouncy shorts’, but I actually prefer the latter.
Also, if it is a non wetsuit swim (I still don’t think it will be), for clarification, I have spoken with the BTF to confirm the rule this week, and you are not allowed to wear a swim skin, or anything on your legs below the knees or on your arms below the elbows, and anything that contains neoprene (ie ‘Bouncy’ shorts) are also banned, sorry

Raceweek Supplies and Support
We will have Joe from Veloworks with us all weekend, who is a super good bike mechanic, and is offering a pre race check over or any repairs you might need doing before the race – He’s also at the bike course Aid station during the race incase you have a problem too big for the moto support guys
You can book slots with Joe on Saturday for any of his bike services through service@veloworks.co.uk or check his website on the below image:

We will also have Tim and his team from Speedhub Triathlon shop, who will have all the last minute stuff you need, and some really cool stuff that you probably don’t need, but almost certainly want.
If you want to preorder any stuff before the weekend, drop him a mail at speedhubuk@icloud.com
Or visit his site on the below image

Fitting your timing chip
There has become a recent trend that we’ve seen of people that are not fitting their timing chips to the chip strap properly, which can result in a lost chip and a whole load of hassle for our timing guys to go back through hours of camera footage to make sure you that all get the right times.
With that in mind, our timing Supplier DBMAX have provided us with a nice video on how to do it properly :
https://youtu.be/zdlquSMoxwc
When you fit your timing chip strap to your left ankle, you must wear either below or under your wetsuit, and please be careful not to pull it off in transition when you pull your wetsuit down from your legs.

Results and tracker
DBmax will also be providing all our timing for the weekend, and have a live update system for our results
It’s not a tracker as such, in that you can’t see exact location, but it does update ‘live’ within seconds of the time you get out the water, go into transition, leave transition, complete bike lap 1 etc etc, so will give your spectators/fan club/cheering squad a good idea of when to expect you and where.
You can find it on our results page at https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/results/

Right, that’s it from me now and this is the last email you’ll get from me before the weekend (Unless I’ve forgotten something?), so we look forward to seeing you all in registration on Saturday afternoon, and hope you’re not getting too stressed about getting kit ready for Sunday

I’ll be picking my emails up tomorrow night as I’ll be at the lake all day, so if you need anything from me or there’s anything I can help with, please just call me – It’s what I’m here for

Lastly, and probably most importantly, you’re all racing to have fun, so don’t forget that part as enjoying it is the most important part of the day, and exactly what myself and my team are here to help you achieve.

Cheers

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

Cotswold Classic 2019 – Pre race mail Vol2

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The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold Classic 2019 Competitors tonight:

Race week…..

Evening all, I hope everyone’s well and getting ready for this Sunday’s race ?
In this instalment* of the pre race info mails, I’ll cover the following :

Water temperature
Planning your weekend
General Rules and regulations
Our rules and regulations

*You can find all previous instalments of competitor newsletters at www.113events.com/news

Water Temperature
I’ll get this up first, as I’m well aware that this is all most of you care about 🙂
I was at the lake this morning, and the water temperature was 21.2deg, which is comfortably inside the ‘Wetsuit Optional’ range for racing. The forecast for this week is not anything like last week, so I’m not expecting it to go up towards the ‘No Wetsuit’ range by Sunday. We will, of course, have to make a final call on this on Sunday morning, but I’m very confident that if you want to wear your wetsuit, you can do so.

Planning your weekend
Firstly, and most importantly, Parking
We use a field from a local farmer for Parking on both Saturday and Sunday, which is about 400m from the race Registration and Sunday’s start line

There is a charge for the Car parking, which is £2 Saturday and £5 Sunday payable in cash only.
On Saturday, please can you buy Sunday’s ticket as it’ll save a lot of time on Sunday morning if everyone has already payed and displays their ticket on the dash. You can buy Sunday’s ticket either when you park on Saturday, or from the registration tent.
When you arrive Sunday morning, please allow yourself plenty of extra time to get parked (realistically, a good 20mins or so plus to get through the gate) as being a field, it has one entrance in, and it takes some time to get 800 cars all through and parked up.
When you do park in the field, please park snuggly up to the car next to you as we’ll very quickly run out of parking spaces if people start parking at 45deg angles or 6 foot away from the car next to you
The car park will take all competitors and a number of spectators, but only if you all park sensibly.
The parking fee goes to a local farmer, who does, in fairness to him, donate a chunk of it to a local charity (last year was Wilts Air Ambulance)

On Saturday afternoon, registration is between 12:00 and 17:00, and we will run a couple of briefings at 13:30 and 16:00
These are not compulsory, but are good to attend as we’ll talk through the race in every detail and answer any questions you might have. We’ll try and make it entertaining, as I’m conscious I’m pretty boring when I talk, and the team always give me grief for this. It takes about 45mins, and will be by the swim exit about 50m away from the registration tent.
If it’s raining on Saturday, which I hope it won’t be, bring a rain coat as the briefing is outside.

On Sunday morning, as mentioned above, please leave yourself plenty of time to get parked (the carpark opens at 4am), and once you arrive at transition, you will need to be wearing your helmet (the BTF ref needs to check it actually fits you) and have your bike sticker on your bike. You’ll get the bike sticker in your pack, and it doesn’t matter where on your bike you put it as we only use it when it comes to the end of the day, and you come to pick your bike up, as we’ll check to make sure it matches your bib number – We don’t use helmet stickers or body marking of numbers.
There is a block of 30 pre race porta-loos around 150m walk from the start line. The walk to them is on a gravelly surface, so I’d suggest you bring some old trainers, flip flops, slippers etc to wear between transition to the toilet, and then toilet to the start line. You can then leave your footwear by the swim entrance, and collect them up after the race, or if you don’t want them back, we’ll skip them on Monday.
The reason we don’t have these toilets anywhere near the start line or transition, is the smell of these on a warm day is less than fresh, so we don’t want them anywhere near where people will congregate as the start area is also the red carpet for the race finish.
We will aim to have everyone out of transition for 06:00 when the first wave goes off in the water, so pease allow enough time to arrive, get parked and get set up and out of transition for 06:00 even if you’re in the last wave as we can’t have people racking their bikes whilst the race is going on. We have to be strict on this, so please don’t turn up at 06:15 and expect to be able to rack your bike, as you won’t be allowed in.
The racking ends are marked with the numbers and each position has a sticker with your name on it, so you should be able to find your spot easily enough, but just ask the transition team if you’re not sure.
We don’t run a rack per wave, as we like that we’re able to offer people to choose their own waves and numbers as they wish (as over 800 of you have for this race), but the downside of this is that transition is mixed up with people in all sorts of waves and numbers, so it definitely has to be clear well before the first swimmer comes in.
There’s a couple of porta-loo’s in transition, but these will be closed pre race and only open once the race starts for anyone that needs the loo in T1 or T2

General rules and regulations.
Our race is run in accordance with the British Triathlon regulations and is a non drafting race.
Please excuse me whilst I go into rant mode now, as I’m not normally like this, however :
I have become aware that our races seem to have a reputation within some clubs and circles that you can get away with drafting, and for 2019, this is something we’re absolutely going to stamp out.
We have 5 motorcycle draft busters on the course and a number of my team in various locations, and they will not be taking any prisoners. At our June race, we issued 54 drafting penalties, and DQ’d 8 people, and this year, the BTF are going to be making examples of people to try and rid our sport of this issue.
We don’t have Kona slots, or prize purses, and if you’re drafting, you are only cheating yourself, so why do it.
The BTF rules are available here : https://www.britishtriathlon.org/britain/documents/events/competition-rules/british-triathlon-competition-rules-2019.pdf and we will have a poster up in registration, so please do not say we didn’t warn you.
The Ref’s will, of course, apply a certain amount of common sense to how they issue these penalties and manage the rules, but if you are obviously trying to gain an advantage and cheat yourself or your mates into a fast bike split, you will be penalised or DQ’d, so please do it at someone else’s race, and not ours.
I know that 99.9% of you all are very fair racers, and like me, hate drafting, but there is a minority that are ruining our sport, and they will be made examples of on Sunday if they try and cheat.
Right, rant over, sorry

Our rules and regulations
These are actually fairly normal rules, but things we are strict on due to the nature of the area.
We’re extremely lucky to be able to race in such a beautiful part of the country, but as with all areas of this type, littering is a big issue (not just with triathletes and cyclists, but on the whole)
There are 80ish marshals on the bike course, and they all have bin bags. There are also bins at and after the aid stations.
You don’t need to stop and put your litter in the bins or in the marshals bin bags, but please at least drop it near it or them so we can collect it all up later. The local area council put high priority on littering, and like drafting, it’s a pet hate of mine. If anyone is seen intentionally littering, it’s an instant DQ without exception and your race number will be removed from you and it’ll be the end of your day. One reported case of littering at our event could see our permit to race in the area pulled for good, so we will be very strict on this as, like drafting, there’s no excuse for it.
The other rule we have that we are very strict on is one of courtesy. The bike course goes through a few local villages, and us lot as triathletes, tend to forget that 8am on a Sunday morning is not a normal time to be up, even though you would all have been up for several hours and it will probably feel more like lunch time to you. With that in mind, please keep the noise down as you go through residential areas on the bike, as cyclists do tend to not realise how loud they’re shouting to each other on the go, and not everyone wants to be up at silly o’clock. This also goes out to your spectators if you’re bringing along a fan clubs, and as much as we love groups of spectators with cow bells and noise, please ask them not to do it in a residential area.
You will see very few cars on the road on a Sunday morning, but if you do, please be courteous to them. Not every driver is confident to drive around bikes and occasionally get very nervous, so please don’t swamp cars or undertake them, or if someone reverses out their drive, please don’t be tempted to hurl abuse at them as they’ve cost you 2 seconds more on your bike split.
When you go through the village of Castle Eaton (about 17 miles into the lap), you will be making 3x 90deg sharp corners in a row. You will absolutely need to remain on the correct side of the road for these and we can not have people cutting corners or running wide into any oncoming traffic. The BTF rules say that you must ride on the correct side of the road and follow the highway code, and you will be DQ’d if you attempt to cut a corner. Also, please be realistic about your speed through these sharp corners as going in to a sharp left hander too fast and running wide onto the wrong side of the road on exit is also a DQ offence. Castle Eaton is an area where we really need to keep residential relationships up (as we do in all of the villages we pass), so please be courteous as you ride though there and keep your eyes and ears open. Before Castle Eaton, you will see two large 113 Red signs that say “Respect the area’ and we expect you to do just that, so please be on your best behaviour on the whole course, but especially through Castle Eaton.

Another 113 Specific rule is for the bike course aid station, and the speed at which you can go through it to collect drinks.
At the bike station, we have 750ml bottles of Water/High 5 as well as Gels and half cut bananas. It is at around 23/51 miles into the course (bike course is two laps) and is on a slight downhill. You don’t need to slow down to walking pace, but please don’t try and go through there at 30mph and expect to be able to grab a bottle on the go as it’s not safe for either you or the Aid station team. Just before the Aid station is a bottle drop area, so you can chuck your old bottles and grab a new one.
As the Station is quite a long way into the course, I’d strongly suggest that you load your bike up with a bottle or two of your own before you head out on it. You can discard that bottle at the bottle drop just before the station, and we’ll gather them up into a large pile back at the finish of the race, and you can rummage through the wasps and sticky mess to retrieve it if you so wish.
Any bottles that are not collected later on race day get donated to a local charity that has links with Dyson, who put all the bottles through a large dishwasher and donate them to local kids clubs and teams, so please don’t worry that we’re creating a large plastic environmental waste footprint.

Right, that’s it from me for tonight. There will be one final email coming out to you towards the end of this week with course condition updates, links to results and trackers and then weather etc.
In the meantime, I’m here to help, so please get in touch if there’s anything I can help with this week. I’ll be at the lake all day for the remainder of the week, so only really pick my emails up in the evening. If you need anything more urgently than that, please just ring me on 07595 591612

We look forward to seeing you all this weekend, so have a great taper week and see you all Saturday for registration

Thanks

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

Cotswold Classic 2019 – Pre race email

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The following email went out to all competitors of the Cotswold Classic 2019 tonight:

About a week and a half to go…..

Good evening all
I hope this email finds everyone well ?
We’re fast approaching race day, so in the first of a series of pre race emails, I wanted to get some info out to everyone so you can be well and truly ready by next weekend for the race on August 4th.
I’ll try not to waffle on too much in this one as I’m conscious you’re all either cooking at home or at work in this recent burst of heat we’ve had.

In this email, I’ll cover the following :

Race info pack
Start list
Registration
Water temperature

Race info pack
I can still see that only around 75% of you have actually downloaded the race info pack now, so I’m assuming that around 280 of you are so confident that you know what you’re doing that you’re not going to bother to read it ?
If you are one of those uber confident people who think the instructions are for someone else, please can I urge you to take 5mins out your day to download and digest the race pack as it might throw up something you weren’t expecting
You can find the race info pack here ; https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CC2019-–-Race-Information-Sheet.docx

Start list
Following on from the 900 or so requests for Waves and Numbers that I received during the selection window, you can now find the final published start list here : https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/cotswold-classic-start-list/
I’m pretty sure we accommodated 99.9% of the requests, but this list is now final, the bibs are ordered with names on them and coloured hats for waves, so I’m afraid I can’t now make any changes, sorry

Registration 
We will hold our registration on Saturday the 3rd August at the lake between 12:00 and 17:00
I appreciate that not everyone can get there, so there’s still a couple of options :
1) You can get someone else to register for you (more details below)
2) We will aim to have the race packs ready at our house in Swindon by around Wednesday evening next week, and you’re welcome to come by and see Nicci and register here if you’re passing Swindon on the M4 – Number 1 applies to number two too, if you have someone else passing swindon that can register for you

When you register with us you will need some form of Photo ID, and if that ID isn’t a valid 2019 BTF license, you will need £5 cash to buy a BTF day license from us. If you are in a relay team, all members will need to either be BTF members with a Valid 2019 Photo License, or buy a BTF day license at registration
If you want someone else to register for you, that’s totally fine, and they will need a photocopy of your photo ID with a note on it to say it’s fine for them to collect and sign on your behalf, and if that photocopy ID is not a 2019 BTF card, you will need £5 cash for a BTF day membership for them
It absolutely must be a photocopy and not an original, as the BTF rules state that we must then retain that copy and pass it onto the BTF referee on the day, who will then make spot checks that people who are supposed to be racing are actually the ones who are racing. We will, of course, keep them safe for the duration and shred all of these post race so there’s no issues with ID’s getting in the wrong hands

Water temperature
Unless you’ve been living in Antartica or in a cave for the last couple of weeks, you will have felt that it’s been blimmin hot, and down here today was 34 degrees.
What this means, I’m afraid, is that the water temperature is currently above the cut off of 24deg, which would make, if we raced today, the Swim a compulsory non wetsuit swim.
The rest of this week is forecasted to be 30+ deg also. However, next week is looking cooler and the lake does drop in temperature very quickly due to being shallow.
I still think there’s a good chance that we will be within the ‘Wetsuit optional’ range on August the 4th, but just in case, I would strongly suggest that if you’ve not done any open water swimming without a wetsuit, this weekend would be a very good time to give it a go as it’s really not that bad at all.
The lake we use is available for Swimming this weekend on Friday night after 17:30 and Saturday and Sunday mornings before 10am, and they have a good cafe with some really nice cake too.
We do get some tolerance and air temp adjustments for Water temp on race morning. However, I’ve seen races where organisers have put swimmers in wetsuits where the temperatures are high, and it’s not safe for anyone. In the race I saw, they had several accidents in the first few miles of the bike due to heat exhaustion and people getting the wobbles as well as people being really quite ill in transition, so we will be applying the rules in a safe and sensible manner and your safety is the most important thing to us.
I recognise that many of you are not overly happy swimming in open water without a wetsuit, so to set your minds slightly at ease, I just wanted to remind you of a few things at our race that might help should we have to make the call :
1) The lake we use for the race has a few spots in it around our course where you can stand up, and you’re welcome to do so to take a short break
2) The water safety crew of canoeists will allow you to hold onto their canoe for a short break if you need. You can signal to them in the water and they’ll help you do that, but please make sure, if you do hold onto a canoe, that you hold either the front or rear tip only otherwise that canoeist will be in the water next to you, and probably not best pleased
To remind you all of a few things in the rules of a non wetsuit swim that we have to follow, as outlined by the BTF (you can find the rules here: https://www.britishtriathlon.org/britain/documents/events/competition-rules/british-triathlon-competition-rules-2019.pdf in section 4) here’s the outline of the basic things that will generally get asked
1) You will not be allowed to wear buoyancy shorts or any form of neoprene/floatation aid
2) You will not be allowed to use a tow float (I always found this to be a strange rule, but it is a rule non the less)
3) You can swim in just a swim suit for the ladies or speedos/shorts for the men, and don’t need your upper half covered
4) You cannot wear calf guards in a none wetsuit swim (again, another weird rule)

The forecast for the weekend is looking much cooler, as is next week, and I’ll keep our facebook and twitter pages updated, and also include a water temp update in our following newsletters

We’re here to help, so please don’t hesitate to give me a call or drop me an email in the run up to the race if there’s anything you need from me, or anything I can help with

Cheers and happy tapering

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

Cotswold Classic July Newsletter

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The following email went out to all Cotswold Classic 2019 Competitors tonight :

Cotswold Classic – August 4th 2019

Good afternoon all
I hope everyone’s well, out training lots and starting to think about race weekend in a little over a month ?
Over the next few weeks, I’ll send out more and more info on the race in digestible chunks, but in the meantime I wanted to get some early bits out about the day to get you started on your final preparation and planning.
The race start list is now fixed and frozen, so we’re getting closer to setting you all off in the water, and we hope you’re all as excited about racing as we are to welcome you all to our start line.
This could end up being a pretty long email, so please grab a coffee and perhaps some matchsticks for your eyes before reading as there’s some important info in here.

In this email I’ll cover the following :

Weekend info and planning your trip
Marshal Request
Waves and numbers
Kit Choices

Weekend Info and planning your trip
Hopefully by now you’ve all taken the time to download and read the race info pack ?
If not, then shame on you, and you can find it here : https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CC2019-–-Race-Information-Sheet.docx
The weekend will start with registration taking place on the afternoon of Saturday the 3rd between 12:00 and 17:00
We will run 2 briefings on the Saturday also, which are identical and will be at 13:30 and 16:00.
These will each take around 45mins, and we’ll go through the race in full detail from start to finish, and there’ll be loads of chances to ask any questions you might get.
They’re not compulsory, but they’re worth attending.
We’ll even try and make them a bit entertaining as I’m very conscious that I’m pretty boring when I talk, so we’ll try and throw some rubbish dad jokes in and some examples we’ve seen at our races of what not to do.
All our racking is done on the Sunday morning, so you won’t need to bring your bike on Saturday unless you really want to.
If you genuinely can’t make registration on Saturday, in a later mail, we’ll give out some instruction on how you can get someone else to register for you, or how we can arrange another time to collect your pack (We cannot post them unfortunately as the magnets used in the postal system play havoc with the timing chips) as we’ll have them ready at our house by around Wednesday night of race week.
On Sunday morning, our transition opens at 4am and will shut again at 6am.
Later on in this mail, I’ll go through the wave sequences
If you’ve still not booked accommodation, there is a campsite literally next door to the lake, and you can find info on that place at http://www.go-by-cycle.co.uk/camping.htm
Alternatively, if you want a hotel, the nearest and by far the best hotel in the area is called the Devere Cotswolds Hotel, and is on the spine road around 3 miles from the race start. I can’t seem to add a link for the Devere, but a quick google search will find them, and they serve and early breakfast on race day and you can keep your bikes in your rooms as long as they’re clean. Many of our regular competitors stay there and report on how good it is.
Alternatively, if you google hotels around the race location, which is GL76DF, you’ll find a load of alternatives within a 10-15minute drive.

Marshal requests
We still have around 23 unfilled Marshal positions of the 200 we require for the race that we’d love to have names against. If you have anyone coming along with you, or can bring someone along with you that wants to be part of the team, please get in touch
We’ll make sure they have a good day too, as happy marshals are good marshals, and they’ll get the best seat in the house to cheer you on
Our marshals get paid, and they can choose from either £20 cash or a £40 113 Events voucher to use with us on any of our other future events, and we can find them somewhere to put up a tent on the site on the Saturday night too if they want to stay over.
All we ask is that they’re over 16, enthusiastic and know their left from their right.
Please email graeme@113events.com

Waves and Numbers
Our race will start in 6 waves going off at 10 Minute intervals starting at 06:00 :
06:00 Wave 1
06:10 Wave 2
06:20 Wave 3
06:30 Wave 4
06:40 Wave 5
06:50 Wave 6

By default, the start list is filtered by youngest first and oldest last regardless of gender, and the waves are filled roughly in that order.
In the past, the average swim time in each wave is roughly the same, with only a minority of the really fast swimmers opting for wave 1, and in many cases, some of the slower swimmers also opting for wave 1 to get more time in the water with other people around them, so they all generally average out. The race is rarely won from wave 1 too, and we have had the fastest time of the day set from wave 6 in the past.
We have an ‘Official’ overall cut off of 7.5hours from the start of the last wave (8hours 20mins from the start of the first), and no cut offs for either the Swim or the Bike. We’re pretty flexible with the overall cut off, and our take on it is that as long as you’ve not stopped for a 2hr roast dinner at one of the pubs out on the bike course, within reason, we’ll keep the finish line open for as long as it takes as long as long as you’re still making some form of progress,

If you so wish, you can now choose a specific wave and/or race number. Or you might want to get your club mates together in transition with a group of numbers. The window to this is now open, and will shut at Midnight on Sunday the 7th July. I’ll explain how to get a request in later, so please read the following first.

Here’s some examples of why you might want to choose a specific wave :
1) You might think you’re the next Michael Phelps, so want wave 1 to have completely clear water in front of you when you start
2) You might want to see a couple of waves go off before you start so you can get an idea of how it all works, so could want wave 3-4
3) You might want no one getting in the water behind you and swimming past you, so would ask for wave 6
4) You might not want to be the last person on the run course as you feel like you’re one of the slower overall competitors, so would want an earlier wave, say 1-2*
5) You might have forgotten it was your wedding anniversary on race day, so want to be finished early to avoid divorce, so would want wave 1, a tailwind on the bike and a downhill run.
6) You might not fancy having breakfast at 4am, so would want a later wave
7) You might not want to have to be out of transition by 6 and stood around for too long, so would want an earlier wave
* For more nervous Swimmers, we always recommend to people that they get in the water and line up, but when the wave starts, they give the others 15-20seconds to clear off, and then start off at their own pace without having a large group of other swimmers around them. We get 3-4 people always do that in each wave, and in the scheme of what could be an 8 hour race day, what’s 20-30seconds for the sake of a clear swim start ?
We also often get swimmers that swim the whole 1.2miles doing breaststroke with their heads out the water, and we have no issue with that. It’ll mean you’ll have to talk with the canoeists, who are pretty boring to be honest, but we don’t have a swim cut off at all – We’ll allow you as long as it takes as long as the water safety crew don’t think you’re a danger to yourself or others around you.
You can also choose a lucky number if you so wish, or if you have a club or a bunch of mates racing, we can get you in a random set of sequential numbers as our transition works sequentially numerically, so you’ll all be together in the racking.
Typically, for each race, we get about 7-800 requests for waves and/or numbers, and as you can imagine, this is hugely time consuming for me to do (I literally block out 4 days/40hrs to do these). I like that we can offer this out to you, but please please please make my life easier by following the guidelines as below :

1) Please email me from your registered email address and include your full name and date of birth
2) Please request not only a specific lucky number, but also a 2nd and 3rd choice if you have them as the numbers can go very quickly (69 and 13 both seem to be very popular, as do your typical years of birth – Ie 68, 82 etc)
3) If you are asking for a group together in transition, please make sure you do the following:

  • Please list out full names, emails and dates of birth – You’d be surprised how many duplicates of seemingly unique names we have, and that I have no idea who ‘Big Ring Steve’ is or ‘Chalky Brown’, so please use registered names rather than what you might know them as
  • Please clear it with all members of your group first, as we often get requests to be racked with Joe Bloggs, and this person has already requested to rack with another group already or has asked for a lucky number.
  • Please don’t CC in everyone when you put your request in as invariably someone clicks reply to all, I get roped into all your personal messages, and I have no interest in reading 50 emails about how Swim lane etiquette in your tri club is deteriorating, or how your garage extension is coming along
  • Please check your friend that you want to rack with is actually racing

4) Please title your email ‘Waves and Numbers’ and send it to Graeme@113events.com
5) You can only request numbers 10-900inc
Relays have a separate numbering system, so cannot request numbers, but can request waves
Please get your group right first time, as it’s a real pain to try and squeeze more people into a group that are racked together from a request already as often the numbers at both ends of the group are not available, and in many cases I won’t be able to do it if you try and add more at a later date – You have 5 days in this window to get it right, so please don’t rush in and try and make changes later
All number requests are strictly first come first served.

To make things easier, and to give you all a chance to see who else is racing, I’ve uploaded an early start list for the race, which you can find here : https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/cotswold-classic-start-list/
Please can you also take 5 mins to check your own name and to ensure that the spelling of your name or the club name are correct, as beyond Monday, the numbers will be printed with your names and we then can’t change that.

The deadline for getting these request in is Midnight on Sunday the 7th July
At some point next week, I’ll publish a new start list with all the waves and numbers listed. I won’t be able to respond to all your emails individually as there’ll be several hundred, so please await that start list to confirm (We can normally accommodate all wave requests and groups)

Kit Choices 
For those of you that have the luxury of choosing between a road bike or a TT Bike, it’s a TT bike course all day long. Apart from one small hill, it’s pancake flat for the whole 56miles, so prime conditions for Aero Wheels, Helmet and bike. Largely, the course is quite sheltered from cross winds with only a few gates exposing the roads to any side wind, but there are a couple, so if you’re a lighter racer and it looks like it might be a windy day, I’d think twice about using a disc wheel.
The run course is around 60% tarmac, and the rest is on hard packed lake side pathing with only about couple of hundred meters on grass. As long as we don’t get a fortnight of heavy rain, it’s a road shoe type of course. We will, of course, keep you updated on conditions nearer the time, but I’d be aiming for a road shoe if I was still racing.
The swim is Wet and flat (hopefully), and the current temperature of the lake is around 20deg. I’m pretty confident it won’t change much between now and August 4th unless we have 4 solid weeks of 30deg sunshine, so I fully expect race day to be within the ‘Wetsuit Optional’ range. I swam in the lake last week both with and without a wetsuit, and it’s about the right temperature for both in my opinion (although I am getting increasingly fatter, so better insulated)
We often get questions about what you can and can’t have in transition at our races, and we follow the BTF rules for this, so you won’t be allowed plastic boxes in your spot at the racking. Our racking is pretty tight, so we recommend that you bring a soft bag or a plastic bag to put your stuff in/on. The transition area is on grass, and if there’s been any rain, it does hold some amount of water, so a bin bag or a large plastic bag to put your stuff in/on is perfect.
We don’t have changing tents, so if you like to make a full change between swim/bike/run, then I’d suggest you bring a reasonable sized towel with you to get changed under. The official rules say no nudity, but we apply that rule with an amount of common sense – I.e. if you’re towel is hard to hold and something slips out, that’s fine. If you’re doing naked lunges up and down the racking, that’s not so fine.

Right, that’s it from me for now
I’ll get a couple of emails out between now and race day with info as it becomes available or more important nearer the time. We’re here to help, so please get in touch if there’s anything we can help with or you need from us
Thanks and happy training

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team

graeme@113events.com
07595 591612

Cotswold Classic 2019 – June Newsletter

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The following email went out to all Cotswold Classic 2019 Competitors today:

Less than 2 months to go

Good morning all, I hope everyone’s well ?
We’re less than two months to go until this year’s Cotswold Classic Middle Distance Tri on August 4th, so I wanted to get some info out to all of you in advance of the race
I’m very conscious that if I send you all too much info in one go, very few of you will actually read it all, so I’ll be drip feeding it out in the run up to the race over a few emails.
I can waffle on a bit in my emails, so I’ll keep this one relatively short as it’s Monday morning and you’re all probably half asleep.
In this email, I’ll cover the following:

Race information pack and weekend planning
Familiarisation day on July 7th
Being on our team

Race info pack and weekend planning.
For those of you that have signed up recently, and missed our previous emails, you can download the race info pack here : https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CC2019-–-Race-Information-Sheet.docx
Please please please, take the time to read this as this contains everything you need to know about race weekend. It’s your info pack, so if you think we’ve missed anything out, please just ask and we’ll add it in.
We hold our registration on the afternoon of Saturday the 3rd of august between 12:00 and 17:00.
You can get someone to register for you if you can’t get there yourself, or if you’re passing Swindon in the days before the race, we’re aiming to have the packs ready by around Wednesday night of race week, so you’re welcome to come by and collect. Our kettle is always on, and if you’re lucky, there might even be some biscuits too (If I haven’t eaten them all myself)
All our racking is done on Sunday morning between 04:00 and 06:00, so you won’t need to bring your bike and kit with you on the Saturday.
The race will start in 6 waves going off at 10 minute intervals from 06:00.
In the next few weeks, you’ll get an email from me, which, if you want, will give you the chance to choose a specific wave and/or race number. Please don’t ask for a wave or number until this email comes out, as in the interest of fairness to all, I will only arrange those after that email lands in your inbox (This will be in the next couple of weeks) and they’ll be on a first come first served basis.

Familiarisation day on July 7th
On July the 7th, we’ll be holding our Course Familiarisation day, which is a great chance for you to come get a guided lap of the Swim, Bike and Run courses you’ll be racing on on the 4th August.
The emphasis of the day is very much ‘leisurely paced’ and should be suitable for everyone, so if you’re a more experienced athlete and you were hoping to use this as a training day, be prepared for a much slower than usual pace.
Typically, we’ll swim in a large group with plenty of stops to regroup or ask questions, and we’ll average around 2min/100m. The swim is a single lap on race day, so we’ll swim 1,900m on the Familiarisation day, but there is a spot around the half way mark that comes close to the entrance, so you’d be welcome to just swim half and then drop out if you wanted. Our course won’t be marked out on the day, but the lake will have their usual 400m/750m/1500m swim loops out, so you’d be welcome to just come along and swim some of their loops instead if you liked.
The bike course is 2 laps on the day, so we’ll be cycling around 28miles for a single lap at an average pace of around 15mph with a few stops to regroup and to point out aid stations etc.
For those of you that followed our June 9th Cotswold113 race, we used a temporary bike course for that race due to a badger set induced road closure, but are expecting to revert back to our normal course for the August Classic. It’s entirely possible that the Kempsford road might not be fixed by July 7th, so we’ll have a short detour around it if that’s the case, and cover around 95% of the course.
The run is 3 laps on race day, so we’ll cover a single 4.33 mile loop on the Familiarisation day, which we’ll do at an average of around 10min/mile with a few stops along the way.
We’ll have a good chunk of our team there, so it’s a great chance for you all to meet other competitors, and to ask us any questions you might have. It’s also a great chance for us to meet some of you in a more relaxed environment as you’ll all have your game faces on over race weekend, so we barely get a grunt from most of you 🙂
You can dip in and out of any of the three disciplines, and the bike and run course are completely free of charge, but if you want to Swim, the lake guys will ask you for £5 day membership on the gate payable in cash.
The day will start off with the Swim at 08:00, the bike will start at 10:00, and the run normally around 12:30, and as I mentioned above, you’re welcome to do all or any of them as you please.
If you want to attend, please can you book on at www.entrycentral.com/113events and book the event marked ‘Fam Day Classic’
It all sounds very formal having to book on, but we use this as a way of gauging numbers, and also to be able to communicate final info to you in the run up to July 7th. If you have friends and family that are coming to see you on race day, and want to see the courses themselves, they’re welcome to book on to attend too

Being on our team
As anyone that’s ever organised events will know, one of the hardest bits of race organisation is getting marshals.
We have around 190 paid positions on race day, and we’re always after filling roles from the competitors friends and family if you have anyone coming with you that could get involved please.
All our marshals get paid too, and they can choose from £20 cash or a £40 113 events voucher to use at our future races, and they all get an event shirt and we’ll keep them in hot food and drink on the day too.
They don’t need any experience at all, and we’ll take them through a full briefing and supply them with anything they need, and pair them up where possible so they won’t be stuck somewhere on their own.
Due to insurances, we can only have over 16’s marshalling on our course, but if they have kids with them, we can of course get the kids a team shirt, and they’re welcome to enjoy the free burgers and ice creams that marshals get during the day (We’d put the adult marshal on the run course too, so the kids with them are not on a road)
There are two main shifts, which start with a sign on, kitting up and briefing:
05:45-11:45ish Bike Course
07:45-14:30ish Run Course
There’s free parking and camping for Marshals too
If you have club mates, family, friends or enemies that you could pressgang to get involved, please ask them to drop me an email at graeme@113events.com

Right, that’s it from me
I’ll get a few more emails out over the next few weeks, but if you get any questions or need anything from us, please just ask as we’re here to help
Hope to see many of you on July 7th

Cheers

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

Cotswold113 2019 Post race email

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The following email went out to all Cotswold113 2019 Competitors today:

Cotswold113 Post race mail

Good evening all, I hope everyone had a great time today and now has their feet firmly up and a glass of something other than High5 in their hand ?
I suspect you’re all very bored of my emails by now, so this will be the final Competitor newsletter you will receive from me, but I wanted to get out a last bit of info, and get a couple of small requests in from ourselves please ?
Firstly, and most importantly, thank you very much for choosing to race with us this year. You were all a great bunch, and we had some laughs with many of you along the route today. You all kept Dave motivated enough to keep shouting, which is great for me and my ears as he’s now lost his voice and I get some peace and quiet tomorrow down at the lake working with him on the clear up 🙂

In this email, I’ll cover the following :

How fast you went and how you looked doing it
Fancy racing with us again this year
A chance to win one of 3 free entries to next year’s 113
Feedback request
Next year’s races

How fast you went and how you looked doing it
I know this is the only important thing for many of you, so I’ll get the links up first
You can find the results at http://dbmaxresults.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=16421&RId=2252
You will be able to find the photos from the race in the next few days at https://www.charleswhittonphotography.com/cotswold-113-tri-9619
It typically takes the photographer a few days to sort through all the pics, and upload them, but normally they’re ready by around Tuesday PM

Fancy racing with us again this year
Enjoyed today, and fancy having another race with team 113 this year ?
We still have two more races in 2019, which are :
August 4th – Cotswold Classic Middle Distance Tri
This is effectively a re-run of todays race, but 8 weeks later.
We will be back on our normal bike course as we’re told the Badger set road will reopen Mid July. We have around 80 of 1,100 slots remaining for that one:
https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/

Sept 22nd – Nationwide Building Society Swindon Half Marathon
This is the 3rd year 113 have been running the new Swindon half, and it’s very much run in the style of all 113 events, with an emphasis on fun, and on a flat and fast course. Starting and finishing in the town centre with completely closed roads for a single 13.1mile loop it takes in the Magic Roundabout and Swindon Outlet village as well as the Oasis Leisure centre and Railway museum. Plus, we have 16 charity atmosphere stations around the course, and last year got a Silver in the prestigious ‘Running Awards’
www.newswindonhalf.co.uk

A chance to win one of 3 free entries to next year’s 113
This is our favour to ask of all of you please, and will take you literally 2 mins
We’re in a good position with the councils for the 113 race today, but as with all councils, they tend to work purely on numbers. In order to give ourselves better leverage on getting them to fix roads on our course etc, I’d like to be able to present to them some tangible figures for economic benefit to the area and some info on good causes from the race.
We, of course, have all our own data for a million different things, but what we don’t have a handle on, is what you guys are spending during your visits, or any money you’re raising for charity in the process of racing with us.
I’ve put together a very short survey, that will literally take you two mins to complete based around whether you and your group of supporters etc. spent any money on hotels, food, petrol, taxi’s or anything else in the area as a direct result of today’s race (or, in some cases, if you came along to our familiarisation day, and stayed or ate in the area then too)
I appreciate that completing surveys is boring, so as an incentive to get you all to take the time, I’ll pick 3 names at random out of all those that completed the survey and give them a free entry to either of next year’s Triathlons (I’ve set the Survey deadline to June 16th please)
You can access the survey here : https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9QNLZRZ

Feedback request
We get to see lots of the race, and we get a lot of feedback from our marshals. However, you guys see the race from the sharp end, you get to see it all with a completely different set of eyes and perspective, and your opinion is massively important to us.
Later this week, we’ll get together as a team and debrief on the whole race bit by bit (as we do with all our events) and we’ll pick through it in minute detail to see what worked that we can do more of, or what didn’t work and what we can do to change those things.
This is where you guys come in as what you see, what you enjoyed and what you didn’t is exactly what we want to hear.
Please can I ask that you all take a few minutes to email me back and let me know what you thought of the race today, whether that be out on the course, in the run up to the race or even the post race experience. It’s really important for me to know in an honest fashion, what you liked or didn’t like, and I’ll feed that back into our meeting this week so we’ll see what we can tweak, scrap or do more of.
Over the last few year’s, the competitor feedback is exactly what has shaped this event into being what we hope you all want from a Middle distance race, so please help us to improve it further, and please be brutally honest if you need to as that’s exactly what we need in order to continue to improve.

Next year’s races
We’ll have the dates for next year’s Cotswold113 fixed and published within August of this year after the Classic race, but we’re not expecting to change weekends from this year for the 113, so 99% fixed as June 7th 2020
Entries will open at 00:01 on Sept 1st, and we have an early bird discounted rate for the first 150 sign ups

Right, that’s it from me now. It’s been a long day for me (my alarm went off at 2am after going to sleep just before 1am), so I’m going to leave you all to get on with your recovery (Sports Scientists will have you believe that hydration and gentle exercise is the best recovery, but I always preferred whiskey and Pizza).
Myself and Dave will be working down the lake on the clear up all day tomorrow, so if any of you have left anything behind or just want to come and say hello, please drop in or give me a ring during the day

Thanks again for choosing to race with us, and being such a fantastic group of competitors. It’s you guys that make our races what they are, so thank you for trusting us with your race today, and we sincerely hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did having you racing with us.
We look forward to welcoming many of you back to our start lines another time, as I’ll even try and book today’s weather again for future races.

Cheers

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

Cotswold 113 – Wednesday pre race mail

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The following newsletter went out to all competitors of the 2019 Cotswold 113 today by email;

It’s race week….

Good afternoon all. I hope everyone’s well and getting ready (and probably restless) for Sunday’s race ?
We’re only a few days away, so I just wanted to drop everyone a quick email with a few final points and updates for the race on Sunday.
In this email, I’ll cover the following :

Get your bike booked in for some go faster oil
Weather forecast, lake temps and course condition
Rules and Regulations
Getting there on race morning
Marshals
Live results

Bike servicing and repair
I’m conscious that most of you turn up some absolutely immaculately prepared bikes for racing, but some of you also turn on less well looked after bikes and we’ve seen some proper nails in our transition over the years.
For this year’s Triathlons, we have Joe from VeloWorks offering pre-race servicing and providing our on-course mechanical race support.
During race weekend itself, VeloWorks are offering a pre race tune-up service throughout Saturdays registration period for £20 that can be booked in 30min slots by visiting their website www.veloworks.co.uk. On race morning, they will be located near transition to provide any last minute support before heading out onto the bike course in case anyone needs mechanical assistance to get back into T2.

Weather forecast, lake temps and course condition
The weather forecast for this weekend is looking like we might get some rain on Sunday, although if I was as good at organising races, as Weather men are at forecasting Weather, you’d be turning up to a picnic or rock concert on Sunday and not a triathlon.
However, given that it certainly feels a lot cooler outside today, I think it’s reasonable to assume we’re not going to have 25deg and Sunshine all day on Sunday. We could have 30deg or snow, but it’s certainly worth preparing for all eventualities and bringing some warmer bike kit to put in transition, just in case.
You’re always better to have it and not need it. than need it and not have it.
The lake temperature this morning was 19.6deg, and I’m not expecting it to vary much more than 1-2 deg from that before Sunday at most, so we’ll be well within the ‘Wetsuit Optional’ range of water temperatures.
The run course handles rain pretty well, and is made up of around 50% tarmac and 50% Lakeside Pathing. Some of the lakeside paths are compressed mud, which is under trees so doesn’t get muddy and wet though unless you get a few full days of rain. There are a few exposed roots for around 50m of the course, and if I was racing, I’d wear normal road running shoes.
Today, I have been out and spray painted any potholes on the bike course. The roads around here are generallly in really nice condition compared to the some other areas of the UK, but there are the occasional hole. Most notably, about 0.75 miles from the lake just before you get to an intersection. You’ll obviously be riding well outside the drafting distance on the bike, so should be able to easily spot them, but I have painted them all a nice shade of yellow and red today so they’re a bit easier to spot from a distance

You can now probably see why I work in events and not anything that involves artwork 🙂
We will have 3 motorbike support riders out on the course as well as the BTF moto Ref’s, and the support guys will have a few tubes and basic tools with them. However, please don’t rely on them, and ultimately it’s your responsibility to repair any punctures or mechanicals you might get. They will get to you eventually, but it could take a long time if they’re busy fixing other people’s bikes.
If you get a bigger bike issue, Joe from Veloworks will be at the bike course aid station with a full tool kit (Hammers, Duct tape and zip ties)

Rules and regulations
Sorry in advance for the rant, but this bit is very important
We are governed by the British Triathlon federation, and as such, use their rules for racing https://www.britishtriathlon.org/competitionrules
We are aware that we seem to have had in the past, some racers that want to come along and draft at our races as they think we’re lenient with it, and this is something we are going to make an effort stamp out.
The drafting rules are very clear (we will also have them on display in registration on Saturday), and if you are flaunting those rules to gain and advantage, we will be making examples of people and asking our moto ref’s to be particularly vigilant about penalising people if they feel it’s justified.
Also, we are very lucky to able to race in such a beautiful part of the countryside, but littering from cyclists is a big issue around here. There are circa 60 marshals on the bike course, and each of those will have a bin bag with them. You must not throw your litter anywhere on the course, and you will get ample opportunity to drop it near a marshal or at the aid station on the way around.
The roads are also very quiet around the lake, but invariably, you might encounter a car on the course or pulling off their driveway onto the course. They have as much right to use the roads as we do, so please ensure you give them plenty of space and do not be tempted to hurl abuse at them as they’re in your way or not going as fast as you’d like. We had a complaint from a vicar a couple of years back where he was driving to church in the morning, and got some grief from a competitor of ours and had a few bikes undertaking him. Needless to say, his language on the phone was pretty fruity for a man of cloth, but it’s not something that we will accept from our competitors and we most certainly do not want a repeat of that incident or anything like it.
If you are caught littering, or are in anyway rude or abusive to other road users, it will be a straight DQ without exception or appeal, and you’ll not be allowed to carry on in the race.
Sorry to be very strict on this, but one incident of this nature could see our permission to race in the area pulled for good, so we are going to be very strict on this on Sunday.

Getting there on race morning
The field you use on Saturday, when you come for registration, is the same one you use on Sunday morning.
As per our previous mail, there is a cash payment for parking, which is £2 for Saturday and £5 for Sunday. In order to speed the process up Sunday morning, please make sure you buy your Sunday parking ticket on Saturday. You can buy these in both the field when you pay on Saturday, or at registration.
It’s the one part of the race that really is a bottle neck, so please allow yourself plenty of time on Sunday to get parked up, and please make sure you park nice and tight to the car next to you in a neat and tidy fashion or we’ll quickly run out of space on the day.
The postcode for the race is GL7 6DF and it’s Waterland Outdoor pursuits, Spratsgate lane.

Marshals
We could still use a few more marshals on Sunday.
We have two shifts, which are
Bike 05:30-11:45ish
Run 07:30-13:45ish

Both start with a briefing in the race control tent at the above shift start times, and if you have anyone that can get involved, please get them to head to the briefing’s and get themselves signed in, kitted up and briefed, and we will welcome them in with open arms.

Live results
The link for the live results / tracker are is on our results page, which you can find at https://www.113events.com/cotswold-113/results/

Right, that’s going to be the last email you get from me before this weekend unless anything really urgent comes up
We hope you’re all looking forward to racing with us as much as we are to welcoming you to our start line
See you at registration on Saturday afternoon

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

Cotswold113 – Pre race mail

By

The following email went out to all Cotswold113 2019 Competitors today :

Only a few days to go…..

Good evening all, I hope everyone’s well, and getting to grips with their tapers in readiness for June 9th ?
We’re less than two weeks to race day, so i wanted to get you all out a bit of information before the race to give you something to read, as I’m well aware that a tapering athlete can be a grumpy athlete and probably quite bored too.
I’ll put out a few emails before the race as I’m conscious you won’t read it all in one go, so in this first instalment I’ll cover the following :

Race info pack
Bike course update
Lake Temperature
Race morning tips and car parking
Saturday Briefings
Can’t get to Registration on Saturday the 8th ?

Race info pack
This went out to you all in a previous email or two, but it still seems that out of 1050 competitors, it’s still only been downloaded around 600 times. That means that over 40% of you are so confident you know what you’re doing that you don’t bother to read it.
There’s some important info in here, so please please please take a few mins to download it and digest it
You can download the pack here : https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/1132019-–-Race-Information-Sheet.docx

Bike course update
If you’ve been following our social media, you would have seen that following Badgergate, we now have an amended bike course to avoid the now collapsing section of road over the Badger sets.
You can see a map of the amended bike course for June here : https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2511529435
This amended course now has the whole section with the one hill of the course removed, and is replaced by a couple of out and back sections. I appreciate it’s not perhaps as picturesque as our normal course, but on the positive, it’s exceptionally fast and now includes a few miles of one of the UK’s fastest 10mTT courses.
We’re aiming to have pro maps drawn up by race weekend, so will have these up in the registration tent, but the more computer savvy of you will be able to extract a map and a GPX file from the above link

Lake temperature
The recent spell of good weather has picked the lake temperature up nicely, and it’s now sitting at a near perfect 19deg. I ventured into the water a few days ago for a swim (I say swim, but as this was the first swimming I’ve done of any form since last summer, it was more of a ‘Sink’) and it was lovely.
I’m not expecting that to change massively between now and next weekend, so I fully anticipate our race to be firmly within the Wetsuit Optional range.

Race morning tips, and car parking
We rent a field from a local farmer around 400m from the race start to use as a car park for the race weekend.
As such, there is a car parking charge for both days or £2 on the Saturday and £5 on the Sunday.
Sunday morning is always a bit nuts to get into the carpark, so please can you A) arrive in plenty of time, and B) try and buy Sunday’s carpark pass on Saturday as it saves a big queue of cars trying to buy entrance passes on the morning in the dark.
It’s cash only payments, and you can buy Sunday’s pass either as you arrive at the car park on Saturday, or in the registration tent whilst you get your pack.
In fairness to the Farmer, he does donate a percentage of car parking fees to a local charity, and last year this was Wiltshire Air Ambulance.
Being a field, it’s reasonably uneven, so if you were planning on coming along in your Ferrari, I’d suggest you reconsider please. It’s totally fine for normal cars, but just to make you aware it is still a field.
When you arrive in the car park, and this is especially important for Sunday morning, please make sure you park in the lines as directed on the morning by the parking team, and please park nice and close to the car next to you as we can very easily run out of space in there if everyone decides to leave 8foot between them and the car next to them or park at 45 deg. This might not effect you at the time, but it’ll mean that spectators who arrive later won’t have anywhere to park and will be turned away. Even better if you can car share where possible.
Morning tips – Our transition will open at 04:00 for you to rack your bike and all the racking will be labelled up with your names and numbers. We follow the BTF rules in transition, which basically state, you cannot bring in plastic boxes and should use a small soft bag for any kit to be left by your bike. The transition area is on grass, so I’d recommend you bring something waterproof to put your kit in or on top of as if it rains the night before, the grass will be wet (We do cut it short, but it will still hold some water). A bin bag or a large shopping bag would be perfect.
You’ll see a couple of Toilets in Transition, but these will not be open until the race starts, and the 40 pre race toilets are located around 200m from the transition on the other side of the start area. The walk between the transition and the toilets is a hard packed gravel, so although ok to walk on bare footed if you have feet hardened it, for most people it involves a walk that looks like you’re taking on a line of hot coals. If you have some old trainers, flip flops, hotel slippers or thick socks you want to bring along, you’re of course welcome to do so and just leave them in a line near the swim start as you get into the lake, and you can grab them again once you finish as you’ll be finishing around 10m from here.
The reason we don’t put the toilets near to the start or transition is that these ones are also part of the run course, and as anyone that has encountered race toilets will know, they’re properly minging on a hot day and you don’t want them anywhere near where people congregate out of choice.
As part of being able to offer everyone to be able to choose their own wave and/or race number, it means that the transition area is very mixed up of people in different waves in different parts of the racking. What this means to you all, is that we absolutely have to have everyone racked and out of transition before the first swimmer is in the water, and to make sure it’s completely clear when the race starts. So, the transition will be shut from 06:00 onwards.
If you’re in one of the later waves, and don’t fancy standing around for 40mins in just a wet suit, please feel free to bring a coat or a jumper along with you, and your can put them just inside the massage tent near the start, and grab them after the race. Please don’t bring anything of any value outside transition to leave by the start, as that area will be unattended for some time, so anything you dump there is at your own risk.
Also, if you’re staying in any of the local hotels, please don’t leave your bikes on display in your cars or vans in remote car parks, as a couple of year’s back, we had a competitors car broken into overnight at a hotel not a million miles away, and he woke up to no bike and a smashed door lock.
The area we race in is typically super low crime, but with the rise of bike theft in the UK, you can really never be too safe, and I keep reading of people’s bike’s disappearing off car roofs or out of boots at various other races around the UK, which is a sad state of affairs.

Saturday Briefings
We will hold two briefings on Saturday during registration
These will be 13:30 and 16:00 and will be by the Swim exit next to transition. I’m hoping we don’t get any rain, as these are outdoors, so bring a brolly if it does hammer it down
Each briefing takes about 45mins to an hour and we’ll go through the race bit by bit
They’re not compulsory, but well worth coming along to if you’ve not raced with us before or are new to the distance.

Registration on Saturday
Our registration is on Saturday the 8th June between 12:00 and 17:00.
When you come to register, you will need either your valid 2019 BTF card, or a form of photo ID and £5 cash to buy a BTF day license. All competitors must have either a membership of the BTF, or buy a day license during registration. These day licenses are provided to us by the BTF and cover you for personal liability amongst other things.
It’s not the end of the world if you can’t get there, you can still get someone to register for you.
They will need a photocopy of your BTF license, or a photocopy of your photo ID, and this must have a note on it to say that they are fine to sign and collect your pack on your behalf. It must be a photocopy not an original as we have to retain these and pass them onto the BTF referee marked up with your number so that he can check competitors are who has signed up for the race, and not someone random that has your pack.
Sorry to be strict on this, but it must be a photocopy of your Photo ID or license as this is the BTF rules, and they will be checking in transition when people turn up
We will, of course, shred all your photocopied ID after the race so no one can get hold of your personal ID details.
The chips we use for the race are rented in, and we hope to get those next Monday, and will then start building the packs over a few days. This means that we’re hoping to have them ready by around Wednesday night of race week, so if you’re passing Swindon on the M4 and fancy popping to our house to register before the day, you’re more than welcome and the kettle is always on here. Generally evenings work best as I’m largely at the lake during the day on race week, and although Nicci works from home, tends to be in and out a bit. Either way, the offer’s there.
Your registration pack contains your chip, strap, bike sticker, and your swim cap, the colour of which dictates your wave. You will also collect your shirt and goody bag.
If you’ve not already found it, the start list with waves and numbers on is here : https://www.113events.com/cotswold-113/start-list/

Right, that’s it for this instalment of the pre race info.
I’ll get some more info out to you all over the course of the next 12 days, and we hope you’re as excited to be racing with us as we are to be welcoming you all to our start line to kick our triathlon season off.
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions at all, or there’s anything we can help with, please don’t hesitate to either give me a call or drop me an email

Thanks and happy tapering

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