Cotswold113 – 1st June 2025
Competitor Newsletter #2

Good afternoon all, I hope you’re all well and getting ready for this year’s Cotswold113 in a smidge over 2months time
We’re getting closer to the race, and we’re busy here at 113 getting all the last few things in place ready for you all to have an amazing day on June 1st
Over the next couple of months, I’ll drip feed out more information for you all in these newsletters, and we’ll always post them also to our Facebook at Twitter accounts incase they end up in your junk mail (facebook and Twitter are both @113events )
For anyone wanting to whet their appetite of what’s coming, here’s a cool short video from last year’s race HERE

This email might well be quite a long one, so please grab yourself a coffee and buckle in

In this email, I’ll cover the following;

Bike Course update
Planning your kit
Race Information pack
Familiarisation day
What’s coming next
Not feeling quite ready yet
Getting Involved and parking/camping by the start/finish
Capacity update
Apex
Accommodation near the lake 

Bike Course Update
As some of you will have heard, we are/were looking at a different bike course for the 113 for 2025.
The reason behind this was that a couple of sections of of Tarmac on the current bike course had become a bit of a state, and although perfectly usable, we’d see a fair few punctures there each year and they were encroaching on falling below the standard that you all come to expect from our races.
We have had a ‘PlanB’ course lined up for a couple of year’s now, and although it’s a good course, there were still some bits that needed surfacing work, which we were told were in the pipeline. These bits have not yet happened, and we’re now two months out from the race. Understandably, we were getting slightly nervous.
In typical Highways Irony, they have, however, resurfaced the two concern sections of our normal course already (largely The first turning from Spratsgate lane, and the whole of Silver Street in South Cerney) to a really high standard.
With this in mind, we have opted to continue with our standard course for this year, and push ahead to use the new course in 2026. Apologies if you’d been waiting for something new this year, but our standards are high, and we didn’t want to put people out on a substandard course just to give some change 🙁
Info on the course is in the race info pack later in the email

Planning your kit
This far out from the race, I suspect that you’re all now turning your attention to what kit to bring on the day, so I wanted to give you all some info on the courses and advice from our side:
Transition kit. As with all races under the BTF regulations for the last few years, you are not allowed to bring rigid plastic boxes into Transition and leave them by your bike in the racking. Our transition is on Grass, and although it may not be raining, the morning Dew on the grass can mean your kit can get wet. We always recommend to people to bring along a large plastic bag (Ikea bag, bin bag or similar) to leave their kit either on top of, or in. This will stop your socks getting wet from the grass, or potentially your run shoes getting filled with water where you hang your wetsuit on the rack and it drips into your shoes. If you have a small transition bag or rucksack, that’s totally fine.
We will have a couple of small Male/Female changing tents if you wish to use them, but most people opt to change by their bikes at the racking. The BTF have a no nudity rule, so please try and be discreet if you’re making a full change by the racking. Often, people will bring a towel to get changed under, or a dry robe. We’re pretty relaxed with rules, so if you unintentionally happen to slip your towel whilst changing, that’s fine. Full naked stretch lunges by the racking, or big naked sawing motion undercarriage drying moves, are not – I’ve seen both at our races, and either images are hard to shake 🙁

Swim Section. Our Swim course is a single lap. The lake is quite shallow at around 6-7 foot deep for 90% of the course. There are a couple of places on the course that you can stand up and take a short break if you so need, and we have no issue with you using those spots to empty your goggles of water and readjust your wetsuit back over your shoulders whilst taking a breather. You can swim Front Crawl, Breastroke or even butterfly for the 1,900m, but we ask that you don’t swim backstroke. The reason for this is that if you get into trouble in the water, you should roll on your back and raise your arm. The water safety crew will see this as a sign of distress and come rot your assistance.
By virtue of the lake being very shallow, it has a large surface area to volume ratio, so changes temperature (ie Warms up) quite quickly.
We operate in line with the BTF swim rules on Wetsuits, whereby Wetsuits are optional between 16 and 24deg. Over the last 27x Middle distances races we’ve held at that lake, we have always been in the Wetsuit optional range, and very much expect that to be the case again this year. What that means is that 99.99% of you will wear wetsuits, which is totally fine.
All Swimmers will get an event Swim cap at registration, and these are all the same colour so do not define your wave etc. If you are very nervous about the Swim section of the race, you can see my team on Sunday AM, and we will have a handful of ‘Nervous Swimmer’ hats, which are a different colour, so the water safety crew can keep a better eye on you to ensure you’re ok.
It’s really important that you only take one of these if you are truly very nervous, as the more that are taken, the more it dilutes the message to the Kayakers keeping an eye on the really nervous swimmers
We don’t have a specific Swim course cut off, and as long as the water safety crew don’t think you’re a danger to yourself or others around you, you can take as long as you like assuming you’re making some form of reasonable forward motion.
We often get swimmers who ‘Head out of water Breaststroke’ the whole 1,900m and that’s totally fine
We have two different types of Swim start, Mass or Rolling, and nearer the race time, you will get an opportunity to choose which type of wave you want, and what wave number you’d like

Bike section. Our Bike course is very flat, and subsequently, a higher average speed is quite achievable. If you happen to have the luxury of choice between a road bike or a full TT bike, an Aero TT bike is the best option all day long.
In reality, any bike is fine and as long as it’s not an E-Bike and has two working brakes and is in good working order, you don’t need either. We’ve seen people complete our event on Hybrid bikes, and some chap a few year’s ago even did it on a geared BMX with skinny tyres and was actually pretty quick.
We’ll have 5 BTF moto Referees out on the course, around 80 marshals, and 4 of our own guys on motorbikes who are there to support you and ensure you get around safely. There will also be a bike mechanic based at the Aid Station.
Ultimately, it’s the competitors responsibility to fix their own bikes if they have a mechanical, but our guys are there as a backup. It’s well worth knowing how to fix your own flat tyre, and carry at least a spare inner tube and pump/cannister with you along with basic tools.
It’s also important to start the bike section with enough food and drink on your bike to reach the first aid station, which is at around  21 miles into the loop, and you get it again at around 52.

Run Section. Our run course is around 50% Tarmac, 45% hard packed lake paths (as per below pic) and 5% Grass. For 99.9% of conditions, this is a road shoe course, and you only would want off-road/trail running shoes if we’ve had a couple of weeks of really heavy rain. We always recommend to people to bring more kit than you’d need as you’d rather be looking at it, than looking for it. You can access transition after lap one/two if you need, and just ask the 113 team on the way past, and they’ll let you in.
There’s 3 sets of toilets per lap, and we’ll put baby wipes in them as well as normal bog roll. The Medical team at two of the aid stations will carry feminine products if you need them.
It’s shaded for a good chunk of the course, but there are some open bits, so if you’re more susceptible to sunburn, ensure you bring some suntan lotion. In a strange regulation stipulation, we’re not allowed to supply sun cream, but can help you apply it if you have your own
Race Information pack
You can download the race info pack HERE
This has everything you need to know about where to be and when, and anything else you might need to know about the weekend.
It’s really important that you please take the time to read this, and I’ve purposely made it look not too much like Triathlon pack, so you can read it at work etc and not get in trouble.
If you think there’s anything else that can go in there, please just ask as we can create revisions as we go along

Familiarisation day 
On May the 11th, we’ll be holding our free of charge Course Familiarisation day where you can come along and have a guided lap of the bike and run courses, and meet myself and the team, as well as other competitors
These are a great chance to see the courses in a relaxed environment at a really leisurely pace, so suitable for all abilities (think something like 13-14mph av. on bike, and 11-12min miles on the run)
We’ll have lots of stops for regrouping and to point out various things like aid station locations etc.
We don’t do a guided Swim lap on the day, as the pace disparity is huge, but there will be a chance to have a swim on the lake’s own courses on the day, and I’ll put booking info on that out to everyone booked onto the day nearer the time.
We love these days as it’s the only chance we really get as a team to meet competitors away from race weekend, when everyone has their race faces on and is deadly serious. The familiarisation days are really informal, and really just a fun guided spin of the Bike and run courses (these are two laps, and three laps on race day respectively, and we only do a single lap of each on the Fam day)
If you were thinking of making this a hard training day and you’re on of our faster competitors, then you might want to think again, as the pace will be super easy for everyone
In order to get a handle on numbers and give us a direct line of communication nearer the day, we ask that everyone who wants to attend please books on. You’re welcome to bring others [who aren’t racing] with you, but they will need to book on too please
It sounds very formal, but it really isn’t and it’s just a nice chance to see the courses, meet myself and the team and to ask any questions you might have.
The booking link is HERE
Once you’re booked on, we’ll get back in touch a week or so out with all the final info, but the rough outline of the day is:
10:00 meet up and head off in a couple of groups for the bike lap. This normally takes around 2hrs and a bit, and once back at the lake, we’ll have a short break and change to run kit
12:30 Meet up and head out on the run lap – This will take around an hour
13:30 Ice cream, questions and head home
For anyone wanting to swim also, I’ll send out the lakes Swim booking link nearer the time
We normally get around 100-150 for these days, so we’ll hope to see many of you there

What’s coming next 
Around 4-5 weeks out from the race, you will all get an email from me with a window to choose a wave and/or race number.
Please can I ask that you await the email for this window to open at that time as everything is first come first served and it’s not fair to jump the queue.
You will then get a chance to choose a wave type/time as well as a special number, or a group of numbers so you can be racked with your mates.
Unless anything else comes up in the meantime, that will probably be the next email you get from me. After that, you will then get a series of emails with course condition updates, links to the video briefing as well as links to live tracking, info for spectators and more updates on marshalling and other registration options if you can’t be there in person on the Saturday
I will always also post any newsletters to our Website under the news section, as well as to our Facebook and Twitter pages just in case you think you’ve missed one

Not feeling quite ready yet
Every year, we get inundated with late requests from people that don’t feel they’re quite ready to race. These normally come a few days out from the race, and by that point, we’ve committed to various things for the Sunday, so it’s not always possible to make changes.
With this in mind, this far out from the race, most of the stuff we’ve committed to is largely interchangeable between the June 113 and the July 13th Classic Middle distance race, so if you are one of those people that are currently worrying about being fit and ready in two months time, and another 6 weeks would really help, we can still sweep you over for free to the other race on July 13th. The Swim and Run courses are the same, but the bike course is totally different and is more ‘Gently rolling’ than the 113’s pancake flat profile (it’s still actually pretty flat and very fast)
You may also feel like you don’t now fancy Running or Swimming, and would like to change to an Aquabike or Bike/Run category, or even move your entry to a relay
We can do all of the above really easily right now totally for free, but the closer you leave it to race day, it might not be possible at all, or have to carry some cost implications.

We’ve also had a disproportionally small amount of instances where people have claimed on their optional 3rd party race injury/illness cancellation policies for those that took it out at sign up and since have become ill/injured
This is possibly a really good sign as it means no-one is getting injured, but if you’re unsure if you took it out or not, it was offered for sale by the entry system when you signed up, and will show on your entry confirmation email as Xcover.com and would’ve been around £12
If you do have it (around 80% of you do), it’s really easy to claim on if you can’t race, and you just head to www.xcover.com and follow the claims link
I wouldn’t normally mention this in the newsletters, but having seen the latest report from them, I can see that they’ve had really very few claims this year, so I’ll take that as positive and that you’re all super healthy and ready go.

Getting Involved and parking/camping by the start/finish
Did you know that our Marshals get a free camping/Parking slot right near the start/finish area in our marshal feild ?
Therefore, if you could talk your Partner, club mate, cousin etc into being on our amazing team for the day, and can come in a car/camper with them, you can camp and/or park with them right by the start finish.
We have around 200 paid marshals positions on the day, and getting the last few people to help out is one of the hardest bits of organising races
We have a great reputation of having some of the best marshals in the sport, and that’s because we really look after them and ensure they have a fun day. A happy marshal is always a good marshal.
We pay all our marshals too, and they can choose from either £20 cash or a £50 113 Events voucher for you/them to use in the future, and we keep them in hot food, drinks and ice creams all day and make sure they enjoy it.
All we ask is that they’re over 16, are reasonably enthusiastic and know their left from their right.
We have three basic shifts to choose from
04:30 Briefing – Transition team
05:45 briefing, finish around 11:30 Bike Team
07:45 Briefing, finish around 14:30 Run team

if you have anyone that you’re bringing along, who fancies being part of the day, we’d absolutely welcome them in with open arms, and we always try and pair the individual marshals up with someone more experienced
They even get an invite to the post race beer and Pizza
Just drop me an email at graeme@113events.com

Capacity update
If you’ve got any friends that are still undecided about racing with us this year, a quick update on Capacity and entry numbers is as follows as of today
Cotswold 113 – 90/1000 slots left
Cotswold Classic – 350/1000 slots left
Entry to both races is available at www.113events.com

Apex
113 Events have, this year, partnered up with Apex insurance who have enabled us to keep the price of the racing with us competitive despite facing numerous price hikes from Suppliers.
Tim, who runs Apex is a good friend of Nicci and I and is racing the 113 this year, so having them along with us for the 113 was a great fit and I know they offer a great service as we use them ourselves.
Apex offer a wide range of Professional Indemnity and commercial Policies, and if you let them know you came from 113 Events, they’ll do a free policy review with you and offer a 5% discount on commission
Click on the image below for more info, and getting a review costs you nothing, but helps us substantiate their help with keeping your entry fees low, and their help in the race going forwards

There’s dozens of airbnb’s etc near by in Somerford Keynes, Ashton Keynes and South Cerney, but if you are after a hotel, the best and closest hotel is the Devere Cotswold Waterpark Hotel. It’s 3miles from the lake, and actually on the June Bike course.
The website for them is https://www.devere.co.uk/cotswold-water-park-hotel
They tend to book up pretty quickly around race time as it’s also summer Holidays, so worth getting in quick.

If you like a bit of camping over race weekend, there’s a campsite around 500 meters away, which although not run by us, is used uniquely for triathletes on race weekends. You can book through them at https://cotswoldlakescamping.com/

Alternatively, like in the earlier segment of this mail, if you have a marshal with you in your tent or motorhome, you can camp for free around 100m from the race start/finish

Right, that finally is it from me for today. I apologise that this has been a bit of trawl to get through, and hope you’re all still awake
The sun’s shining outside now, so the summer has finally started to arrive, so happy training to you all
If you have any questions at all, or there’s anything I can help with, please just drop me an email or feel free to give me a ring any time – 07595 591612
See you all in two months time, and a few of you on May 11th

Cheers

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