The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold Classic 2018 Competitors today:
Cotswold Classic 2018 – Feb newsletter
Good morning all, I hope this email finds you all well on this cold February Monday morning ?
Although it certainly doesn’t feel like it outside today, race season is actually just around the corner, so I wanted to send you all out an email to bring you up to speed on this year’s Cotswold Classic race on August 5th, and to get you out some info on the event
Those of you that have raced with us before, know I can type for England, and my mails can waffle on a bit, so if you’re feeling very much like a Monday, I’d suggest you get yourself a strong coffee and a comfy seat as this mail could be a long’un 🙂
In this email, I’ll cover the following :
What to expect from us in the next few months
Familiarisation day – July 1st
Race information pack
Being part of our team
Race Sponsors
What to expect from us
Over the course of the next 22wks, we’ll keep you updated on various things about the race as they become more pertinent nearer the time.
Those of you that have raced with us before, will know that you can choose your own wave and/or race number if you so choose.
Around 5 weeks out from the race, once the start list is finalised, I’ll send an email out to you all asking if you wanted to choose the above. Please can I ask that you await this email around July 1st before making the request as we work the numbers on first come first served basis, and in the interest of fairness to those that have not entered yet (the race is still open and we have around 150 entries left), we do all the waves and number fixing once the start list is fixed. For info – We start the race in 8 waves, and they go off at ten minute intervals starting at 06:30.
The first thing we have coming up is our Familiarisation day, which you can read about later in this mail.
Also, we’ll keep you up to date on water temperature etc much nearer the time, but just to put anyone at ease that’s not confident about racing without a wetsuit, we’ve run our races 17 times from the lake now, and we’ve never yet had to ban wetsuits due to the water being too warm and we normally race over the summer with it around 20deg.
I’ll try and keep the emails out to a minimum as I’m aware that you’ll all get tired of my rambling on, but if you need anything from us, please just ask as that’s what we’re here for.
Familiarisation day – July 1st
On July 1st, we’re holding a free of charge course familiarisation day for the Cotswold Classic, which is a great chance to come down to the race location and get a guided tour of the courses.
The bike course and run course laps are completely free of charge, but if you wanted to Swim, the guys that own the lake will charge you a £5 day membership fee for the pleasure.
The emphasis on the day is very much leisurely, and this is more a chance to have a look around a single lap of the courses ( on race day, swim is 1 lap, bike is 2 laps and run is 3 laps), and let us point out where the Aid stations and various things will be on the day.
Also, it’s a nice chance for us to meet many of you before race day, as I’m well aware that on race weekend you’ll all have your race faces on and we’ll be lucky to hear anything other than a grunt out of you, rather than a proper conversation 🙂
Like I said above, the pace will be very leisurely and no-one will get left behind – Think 15-16mph average on the bike and something like 10min/miles on the run with regular regrouping points.
The laps will be guided by me and the team, and of course, we’ll all be on hand to answer any questions you might have.
Typically, the Swim lap will start around 8am, the bike lap around 10am, and the run lap around 12:30 and you can duck in and out of all or any as you see fit.
So we can keep a tab on who’s coming and who isn’t, we ask that you book yourself in through the following link please :
https://www.entrycentral.com/113events
It’s free to sign up, and if you want to Swim, you’ll need to pay the lake guys £5 on the gate on arrival.
Once you’re booked in, we’ll keep in touch with specific instructions nearer the time via email.
If you have friends that are perhaps thinking about the race for next year or just want to see where you’ll be racing on the day, then please feel free to bring them along too, as they’re more than welcome to join in.
If you want to see the course over the summer, and can’t make the day on July 1st, it’s not the end of the world. I live fairly near to the lake, and work from home on my day job, so am always happy to skive off for a few hours on a weekday morning and show you around at another time. My Tri racing days are long gone now, so as long as you don’t mind my current ‘overweight and undertrained’ riding and running pace, I’m happy to meet up and show you the bike and run courses. It’d need to be weekdays though as generally my summer weekends are taken up with other stuff, or my kids racing.
Race information pack
You can download the competitor information pack here – https://www.113events.com/cc18-competitor-info-pack/
This race information pack contains everything you need to know about race weekend for both competitors and spectators, and has some important info in it, so please can I ask that you all take the time to read through before race weekend.
We’ve tried to make it as comprehensive as possible, but let me know if you think we’ve missed anything and we can update it as we go along. I’ll email this out to you all a few times as it’s important that you all know what happens when and where
It’s worth taking the time to read this, so my suggestion is always to print it off and keep it somewhere that you’ll get time to read it.
We’ve made it in a word doc and not too colourful, so you can pretend you’re working and read it at your desk, or if like me, the only place you ever get any peace and quiet is on the toilet, print it off and leave it next to the magazines in the bog so you can read it without interruption 🙂
Being Part of our team
We have around 150 paid marshal positions over race weekend, and we’re always looking for more. Typically, our marshal team is made up around 50% of regulars, and the other 50% are people who are there supporting friends and family racing.
Our races have a great reputation for having some of the best marshals in the sport, and we’re very proud of that, so we really look after all our marshals on race weekend.
They all get paid too, and you can either choose to get paid £20 cash or a £40 113 Events voucher to use with us at another race.
All marshals get hot and cold food, hot drinks, cold drinks and free ice creams too, and we’ll provide you with an Event team technical t-shirt and everything you could possibly need to have on the day, plus a full briefing by our course managers.
Marshals don’t need any experience at all, and all we ask is that they know their left from their right, and are enthusiastic.
We can only pay official marshals over the age of 16, but if you have a family coming down, the kids are welcome to assist the marshalling adult, and we have team shirts down to a 2year old’s size, and of course they can still take advantage of the free ice creams. They will, of course, need to be supervised at all times, and if you have kids with you, you’d be largely limited to the run course so that you’re not near a road.
The main roles we have are:
Pre-race guides / transition
Bike course
Run course
The bike course roles will mean you’d be finished in time to see anyone other than the very fastest racers finish, and the run course roles will mean that you see the start of the race.
If you have club mates, friends, family, fan clubs or even enemies coming down that you can press gang into being on the team, please drop me an email at graeme@113events.com and we’ll welcome them to the team.
You also might want to see how the race works from the other side before August, so we’d welcome anyone to the team on June 10th for the Cotswold113 Middle Distance Tri, which is identical to the August Classic in all but name
Race sponsors
We now have a vacancy for a race sponsor, so If you fancy having your company logo on the back of our shirt, branding on the course and info in our race packs, please drop me a line to discuss the options we have. We can also provide you space to have a gazebo up during registration and during the race too if you so wish.
Info: graeme@113events.com
Right, that’s it for me today. Hopefully, I’ve not put any of you to sleep and you’re currently snoring away at your desk or on the train ?
We’re here to help, so if you have any questions at all, or just want to chat triathlon, please get in touch
Look forward to meeting many of you at the familiarisation day
Thanks and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612
@113events
#113events
facebook.com/113events
www.113events.com