The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold 113 2022 Competitors today
Cotswold 113 – 5th June 2022
Good morning all, I hope this email finds everyone well and getting ready for the summer’s race season ?
We’re a little over 2 months away from race day now, so I just wanted to send everyone out a quick email with some updates and news about the race
For those of you that have entered the race in the last few weeks, please head to the following link to catch up on February’s newsletter for lots of info about the race : https://www.113events.com/2022-113-classic-competitor-newsletter/
I’ll try not to make this one too long, so in this email, I’ll cover the following :
1) Familiarisation day
2) Getting family/friends involved
3) Course conditions and preparation advice
4) FAQ’s
1) Familiarisation day
Our Cotswold 113 Familiarisation day is going to be held on the 24th April.
This is a free of charge day, where we take you for a leisurely spin around a single lap of the bike and run courses (Bike lap is 28miles and run lap is 4.3 miles)
The emphasis on the day is leisurely, and the average pace is likely to be something like 14-15mph on the bike and 10-11min miles on the run. We’ll have plenty of stops for regrouping and to explain how things work on the day too.
These days are a great chance to come and see the course, meet the 113 team and to meet other competitors. From our side too, it’s a great chance to meet people in a less stressful environment than race weekend too, so we’re really looking forward to it our end.
We can’t, I’m afraid, do a guided lap of the swim course for a number of reasons (Apart from it not actually being that popular in previous years). These are mainly due to the variety of paces, and resulting in the faster guys/girls sometimes having to tread water in much colder temperatures for 5mins plus to wait for the regrouping, and people getting very cold.
You can however, book a swim slot with the lake guys directly on the day and swim their traditional 1,500m loop, which is very similar in layout to our 1,900m race day loop, at any time during that day or any other day if you wanted to get a taste for the water (Not literally, I hope)
Their website for booking swimming is https://www.lake32.co.uk
The day will start at 09:00 with the guided bike lap, and will go off in a few groups at short intervals. Realistically, that will take about 2hours. We’ll then have a shortish break for people to get changed and put their bikes away, before heading off for a lap of the run course around 11:30 which will take about an hour.
Although the day itself is really quite informal, we still need to use a booking system so we can get a handle on numbers and to get group emails out to you all with instructions, directions etc, so if you’d like to come along on the day, please can I ask that you head to the following link and get booked in : https://www.entrycentral.com/113famday
Our familiarisation days tend to be most popular with first timers to the distance, so if that’s you and you’re worried you’re alone in that position, you really aren’t as we get loads of first timers to Middle Distance (and to triathlon) so you can meet a few others and settle your nerves.
If you can’t make this day, but still want to see the course, there’s still options too
I live close to the lake and work from home, so am happy to nip out for a few hours during the week to show people around in small groups. My racing days are long gone, and my pace is best described now days as Sedate, but as long as you’re not looking to go around fast, I’ll happily show you around a lap of the bike and run courses, and in reality, I really need the motivation to get out and bike/run instead of staring at my laptop all day.
I generally can’t do weekends as I’m tied up with either other peoples events or my son’s racing, but can do weekday mornings with enough planning. Get in touch
2) Getting family/friends involved
As anyone who’s ever organised races will tell you, getting marshals is one of the hardest and most frustrating part of the job. We have around 180 paid positions on race day, and we still have a number we need to fill.
If you have anyone planning on coming along to watch on race day, we’d absolutely welcome them to our team of merry boys and girls in Red, and will ensure they have a really fun day, as a happy marshal is a great marshal.
We pay all our marshals too, and they can choose from either £20 cash or a £40 113 Event Voucher
We’ll also take them through a full briefing, kit them up in everything they need along with an event team shirt and keep them in free burgers, ice creams and hot/cold drinks during the day.
We have free parking and camping for marshals on site too
If you have anyone planning to come along that would like to get involved, please drop me an email at graeme@113events.com
Marshals also get an invite to the end of day team beer too 🙂
3) Course conditions and preparation advice
Now is about the time I suspect you’re starting to think about what kit to bring with you on the day, so I wanted to get some early pointers out now:
The main swim will start in waves at 06:00. The sun will still be fairly low at that point, and as the course is effectively circular, there’ll be a section near the start where you’ll be swimming towards the sun. With that in mind, it’s worth having tinted goggles if it is a clear day and you’re in an earlier wave.
We work in line with the BTF rules on Wetsuits, whereby they’re optional between the temperatures of 13 and 24deg (Compulsory below 13, and not allowed above 24)
In our 21x Middle Distance races so far in this lake, we have always been in the ‘Wetsuit optional’ range of water temperature, and are fully expecting the same again this year – It’s been pretty close to the upper range later in the season, but in early June should be just fine.
The bike course is very flat, so if you are lucky enough to have aero bike options, these are definitely worth considering. Largely, the course is sheltered from the wind (ie, it’s not on open plains) and if any wind is coming from the normal South/Western Direction, you’ll have a slight tailwind on the outward section, and more of a head wind coming back in. It’s a not a particularly windy area of the country, so you’ll get standard weather roulette as you would with any Summer bike ride in the UK.
Most of the course has really decent road surfaces, but there are of course, a few potholes as this is the UK. We pester the council constantly on these, but their budgets prevent them from fixing them all, so we’ll head out in the days before the race and spray paint the worst ones in whatever brightly coloured paint we can get hold of and put signs up in the worst sections. Mainly, the course is OK though.
The run course is made up of a mixture of Tarmac (about 50%), Grass (5%) and hard packed lake paths (45%)
The hard packed lake paths are largely under shade of the trees, and handle wet weather very well. It’s a road shoe course all day long, unless we have 2 weeks of solid rain beforehand, and even then, it’s only really an off road shoe course for those of you out towards the very end that have had several hundred pairs of feet churning the ground up before you.
It’s worth bringing both options just in case, and you can always nip back into transition after your first lap if you think you’ve made the wrong kit decision.
4) FAQ’s
We always get a load of questions running up to the race, and although you’re more than welcome to give me a call or drop me an email, I thought Id answer a few of them here just in case you didn’t want to ask. Can I cross the line with my family ?
Absolutely, of course. We do ask that you’re considerate to people behind you who are also finishing, but you are more than welcome to come down the red carpet with your family. Having had an incident a few years back, we do ask that you please ensure you are grabbing your own baby in the finish chute as we’ve had someone grab a baby from the wrong mother, who promptly got really quite angry and jumped over the fence to chase said competitor running across the line with a baby that wasn’t their own. She was then followed by another slightly confused mother (the chap in questions wife) with the correct baby. As much as it was funny for us, I’m not sure either mother saw the funny side, so we don’t want a repetition of that please 🙂 Can I get fully changed in transition ?
We don’t have changing tents for this, and we ask that if you want to get fully changed (as some people do) that you try and do it discreetly under a towel please. The BTF rules say no nakedness, and our interpretation of that is that if you’re trying to be discreet as possible and rushing, that’s fine. If you’re either doing full sawing motion tackle drying or naked lunges down the racking, that’s not, and when the referees have picked themselves off the floor, you’re likely to get a penalty. Can I bring my own drinks or food for the run aid stations ?
Yes. If you don’t fancy what we have on offer at the aid stations (please see previous newsletter for info), please come along to transition on race morning with anything you want to have on the stations in a plastic bag clearly marked with your race number and the station you want it on, and give it to the registration team so we can get it out to that aid station to be waiting for you when you get there.
Right, that’s it from me for today
We’re here to help, so if there’s anything else you need from us, have any questions or there’s anything we can help with, please just ask as it’s what I’m here for
The next email you’ll get from me will be in the next couple of weeks with a link to the full race information, so in the meantime, get out there and enjoy the good weather to get the miles in, and we’ll look forward to seeing some of you at the Familiarisation day, and the rest on race weekend
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team graeme@113events.com
07595 591612