Firstly, thank you all for coming racing with us today, and an even bigger thanks to whoever of you managed to book today’s Weather. After yesterday’s downpours and last night’s heavy winds, we were expecting the worst today, but it turned out to be pretty much ideal racing conditions, and with the exception of the mud in places, we couldn’t have wished for better conditions (although the redness on my forehead suggests the sun was out a fair bit too)
Without you all entering our races, they simply wouldn’t happen, so pleased accept my thanks for putting your trust in myself and the team to put on a great day for you. and I truly do hope that we met (and exceeded) everyone’s expectations.
I was more than a little gutted not to be able to roll out our fancy new, and somewhat excessively oversized, swim Buoys, but we do now have a windy day proof anchoring solution, and can show them off at future events, just not today 🙁
I appreciate you’ve all probably had enough of my emails for one year, so I’ll keep this one as brief as possible as you’re probably all currently sat with your feet up and a beer in hand
In this final Cotswold 113 2026 email, I’ll cover the following :
Fancy another go at a discounted rate in 5 weeks time
How fast you went, and how good you looked doing it
Feedback
2027 Races
Lost property at the lake
Tell your mates
Fancy being in Red in July
Fancy another go at a discounted rate in 5 weeks time
As some of you know, we actually run another Middle Distance race from the lake lake on July 12th, called the Cotswold Classic tri. It has the same Swim and Run courses, but has a totally different bike course which heads West from the lake and takes in Ewan, Kemble, Malmesbury and Minety amongst other Villages and towns. The course is still pretty flat, but compared to today’s course, is more what we’d describe as ‘Gently Rolling’. It flows a lot better than the course we used today, and is largely about the same time to complete for most people.
Anyway, when we opened entries for both races last year, we offered a Combo Deal whereby if you enter both races at the same time, you get a discount of £60, so if you fancied another go in just a few weeks, we still have around 100 slots for that race, and as a June competitor, I can arrange a £60 discount on entry to match the combo deal. We’d love to see you back, so please just drop me back and email and I’ll send you over a discount code.
Feedback
Today was our 30th Middle Distance race there over the last 15 years, and although it has evolved somewhat over the years, we still meet as a team a few days after every race and debrief on everything that went on over the weekend in quite some detail. It takes a good few hours, but it’s a great way for us as a core team of around 14 people to get through all of what worked, and we need to do more of, or what needs tweaking and evolving for next time.
However, we only see the race from our side, whereas you all live and breath the race from the more important side. Subsequently, I’d absolutely love your feedback on what you liked, didn’t like, felt was great or you think needs improvement.
The only way we can be better and better and better every year is to hear what you all thought of the race, as well as the run up to the race, so if you could please spend a few minutes to drop me back an email, It’d be greatly appreciated by me and the team.
As I mentioned above, we had a technical hiccup (under estimation from my side) on the size of the anchors for the new buoys, so had to roll the old ones out Saturday. They’re a bit crap, as they’d been scrapped and didn’t stay totally inflated, and were hard to spot, so please accept my apologies for that.
Also, as you might remember from one of the earlier mails, we had a largely new bike course ready for this race, but because of the proximity to RAF Fairford, which is a forward operating base for the US military, and the current conflict in the Middle East, that course had to be scrapped this year, and we used last years course. The new version, which will plan to use from 2027 onwards, has a better flow and much improved road surface for the most part
2027 Races
Although the 2026 season has only just really got underway, we’re already into the planning for 2027 races.
Like this year, we will be having both the June 113 and July Classic, and should have dates fixed by the end of this month, and will plan to have entries open around the end of July
The dates we’re working towards are June 6th and July 11th
You’ll all get an email from us when dates are fixed, and entries are ready to be open, and we’d love to see you back on our start lines again.
Lost property at the lake
We always get lots of lost property at the lake, and today was no exception. In the past we’ve had False teeth and all sorts of other random stuff, but today it’s all the normal boring Wetsuits, goggles and bits of bikes, jarm warmers etc.
If you have already gotten around to clearing out your kits bags, then well done to you, but if you’ve realised you’re missing something, it’s possible that we might have it
If you’re staying in the area, we’ll be down at the lake tomorrow morning from around 9 until around just after lunch, and you’re welcome to pop along for a rummage around in our lost property box.
Alternatively, send me a google images pic of what you’ve lost, and if we have it, I’ll get it out in the post later this week
It’s also very common that people don’t get around to clearing out their bags for a good few days, only to find they have something that belongs to someone else, so although we may not have your lost property yet, there’s a good chance it’ll turn up in the post when someone else realised they scooped something out of transition that wasn’t theirs.
Tell your mates, or bring your club along next year
By far the best for of marketing for Triathlons like ours is word of mouth, so if you did enjoy today, and we truly hope you did, please tell your friends, recommend us on facebook groups etc so they come along next time too
You will have undoubtedly seen some fairly large presences from a few clubs today, and if your club can get a good group together, we offer a groups and clubs entry process, where you can save up to around £40 on each entry, and also have automatic sequential numbers in transition, space on the finish line area for a club gazebo, and we can even produce separate results for you if you wanted to make it a club championship, or even challenge another club to a weighted score competition.
Fancy being in Red in July
The marshals really are the beating heart of race day for our races, and I hope that you all felt totally safe, well looked after and received some amazing support from them. We’ve got a reputation for having some of the best marshals in the sport, and that’s something we’re really super proud of.
If you fancied coming along and being on our team on July 12th for the Classic, then we would absolutely welcome you in with open arms. It’s a fun day marshalling, and we’ll really look after you. Plus, you can earn discounts on next year’s races by doing so.
If you fancied coming back, but not racing, please drop me an email at graeme@113events.com
Right, that really is it for me for this race. We’ve had our post race team beer (pic above) and I’m now off to bed, as this has already been an 18 hour day, so thanks again to all of you for choosing 113 Events to race with, it’s hugely appreciated, and thanks for being an amazing group of competitors. Our team really feeds off the enthusiasm and smiles that come back from the competitors on the day, and you guys were all awesome, even yesterday when it was lashing it down in the briefings and well all got soaked
Please enjoy a well deserved rest, and we wish you a constant tailwind and downhill swim for any other racing you have planned this season
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
07595 591612
graeme@113events.com
