The following post made email went out to all competitors today :
Cotswold113 2024 Post race email
Firstly, and by far the most importantly, thank you all for coming racing with us today. It’s a tough time in the UK Triathlon industry with there being more events than there are competitors, so a massive thank you to you all for putting your trust in us at 113 to deliver your race experience. We truly hope that you all got everything you ever dreamed of out of today, and we exceeded your expectations in every way.
It was a warm old day today, so I’m hoping that you’re all sat with your feet up and a big beer in your hand right now reading this, and have your medal proudly around your (hopefully not as burnt us mine) necks.
I appreciate you’re probably all bored with reading my emails now, so I’ll keep this one fairly short, and in today’s final 113 24 Competitor email I’ll cover the following
How fast you went and how you looked doing it
Fancy another go with us in 6 weeks time on our other course, with a discount
Left anything at the lake
Loved the Marshalls today, and fancy a bit of that yourself in 6 weeks time
2025 Races
Race director debrief
How fast you went and how you looked doing it
I know this is probably the only bit you care about, so I’ll get this bit done first
You can find today’s full results at https://dbmaxresults.co.uk/Results.aspx?CId=16421&RId=441&EId=1
We had some unreal performances today at both ends of the field, and for those of you that positioned at the sharp end of our categories, I’ll get your trophies out in the post this week
I’ll explain quickly why we don’t hold prize giving on the day, if you’ll just bear with me for a couple of lines : It’s really important to me that no one feels like the race is finished and over whilst they’re still on the course, so historically, we used to hold prize giving right at the end of the day, as it meant that the last finishers in didn’t feel like we were just waiting around for them, but also meant that some of the crowd and competitors hung around and cheered them over the line.
What this meant in reality, was the fastest guys/girls would be finished some 4-5hours before prize giving, and understandably, didn’t always stick around so we had a prize giving for <50% of competitors most times. Subsequently, it was a simple decision to sack off prize giving and just post trophies. Hope that makes sense ?
Fancy another go with us in 6 weeks time on our other course, with a discount ?
If you feel like you now have all this fitness, and fancy racing with us again in 6 weeks time at our Classic race on July 14th, we can arrange the discount you will have recieved if you’d have entered both races together through our Combo deal (£40 discount)
Our Classic V2 race is the same Swim and Run course as today, but with a totally different bike course. It’s more gently rolling than today’s pancake flat course, but I think is a much prettier course, and is actually as fast, if not faster, than today as it’s one large triangle effectively, so flows a lot better.
If you fancy racing with us, just drop me an email and I’ll gladly send you out a discount code
Entries are open online until June 20th
Left anything at the lake
We’ve got a fair amount of lost property* down at the lake still, and myself and Dave will be down there tomorrow all day carrying on with the clear up, so if you’re still in the area and want to pop down, we’ll be there from around 10:00 onwards.
We’ve also got lots of left over shirts, so if you picked up the wrong size and want to swap, or just fancy another, please pop along
* unfortunately there’s nothing exciting in lost property, and we’ve not added to our funny list of things left behind, which currently includes a set of teeth, and a pair of sexy pants
if you’re not in the area still, and you’ve lost something, please send me a pic of what you’ve lost (A google pic is fine) and your address, and if we have it, I’ll get it posted out to you later this week
Loved the Marshalls today, and fancy a bit of that yourself in 6 weeks time
I like to think that our marshals are some of the best in the industry and I really hope that they all helped you around today on the courses.
We really need more marshals for the July 14th race, so if you fancied a bit of seeing it from the other [more fun] side in 6 weeks, we’ll absolutely welcome you to our team, and you can even earn a £50 voucher to use with us next year (Or £20 cash)
Drop me an email if you’re up for it and I’ll welcome you in with open arms
2025 Races
Our two 2025 races are well into the final planning stages, and we’ll get some info out to you all as soon as they’re fixed
We’ll aim to get them open for entries soon after the July Classic race, and in order to try and encourage people to enter early and make our lives a lot easier with knowing how many competitors we’re planning for, we’ll work them in a series of pricing tiers which will reward the early sign ups, where we’ll have a super deal for the first 200 sign ups, a decent deal for the next 200, and then a fixed price thereafter.
We’ll still offer our 33/33/33 Payment plan system again, of course, as that was super popular this year and accounted for around 40% of our entries, and we’ll also have our normal discounted group entry system for clubs, teams or groups of mates that all want to enter together in one go.
I’ll email everyone once fixed, so you’ll all be the the first to know, but promise not to bombard you with spam
Race director debrief
Hopefully this came across in the way that I’ve communicated with you all over the last few ,months, and the way in which we, as a team, delivered the race this weekend, but it’s super important to us that you all enjoy the day and the only way we can really know that is that if you can take to the time to let us know what you did enjoy and what you didn’t, so we can constantly review and improve.
We’ll meet back up as a team, as we do after every race, and debrief this week once the dust has settled on every little last detail of the race to see how it all went, and what we can tweak as we move forward
Today was our 26th Middle Distance race at that lake over the last 14years, and it’s a constantly evolving thing.
I’ll email the Aquabike entries separately in the next couple of days too, as this was our first stab at incorporating that category, and that’s something that we really would like to build on in the future, and we can helpfully grow into a bigger part of the race going forwards.
There’s always issues behind the scenes in race direction, but we hope that what you all experience is largely the swan swimming along serenely on the surface, and what I experience is a pair of feet kicking wildly in the head below the surface to move water. We had some small issues this weekend which went above the surface (Largely, our Toilet company delivering not enough portaloos, and promising us the rest Saturday evening that never turned up, and a shortfall on XS shirts of around 5, that seemed be replaced by 25 large shirts that we didn’t order (I’ll email the 5 that didn’t get an XS shirt in the next few days, and get them ordered in and posted out ASAP) so apologies for those.
It’s always a stressful job organising these races, but seeing the elation so many peoples faces as they crossed the line today, that in many cases, they never thought they’d reach, makes it all worth while (Although I wasn’t too keen on someone phoning me at 01:30 this morning to say they’d forgotten to register yesterday – I’ll laugh about it tomorrow, once I’ve actually had some sleep )
You lot as competitors were some of the best we’ve ever had, and the amount of littering was really very minimal, and in nearly all cases can be classed as accidental. We picked up far less litter around the course than normal, so that’s a big thanks from me and the team.
Everyone seemed to be happy today, and I’ve had some lovely messages from many of you already, which I’ll of course, share around the team.
Anyway, that’s finally it from me for this race. We really do hope that we see lots of you back again, and please tell as many people that will listen if you enjoyed the day, as word of mouth is by far the most powerful form of marketing in this sport.
I’d love to see many of you back either racing, marshalling or supporting our races, and thanks again for putting your trust in us for delivering your middle distance experience, it’s greatly appreciated and means the world to us
Cheers and happy recovery* time
A very tired Graeme, Nicci and the rest of the 113 Events Team Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612
* medical science will tell you that protein, rest, hydration and gentle exercise is the most effective form of recovery, but I prefer Beer, Pizza and putting my feet up, so I strongly suggest you all try the same as it’s way more fun, and what does science know, eh 🙂
