Hey all, I hope you’re all well and feeling nice and ready for racing at the end of next week ?
The Sun’s been shining, the Water temp has finally risen, and yesterday was around 19.5, and everything is starting to look set for a great race day on the 1st.
We’re just a week and a bit away from the big day, so in this instalment of the newsletters, I’ll cover the following :
Race Info pack
Start list / Registration requirements
Swimming on the Saturday
Car Parking
What’s coming next
For anyone that has recently signed up with us, or missed the previous newsletter with all the info and advice on the various sections of the race (Newsletter #2), you can find that HERE our info on how the swim waves work (newsletter #3) HERE
Race Info pack
The downloadable race info pack should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the race, and it’s important that you all please have a read through it, so you know where you need to be and when next weekend
We’ve got 982 people signed up to race next weekend, but by looking at the download stats on our website, it appears only about 33% of you have downloaded the race pack to have a read through.
For those of you that haven’t yet read it, please can you download it HERE
If you get any questions on it. please just drop me an email or give me a call any time – 07595 591612
Registration requirements
We have our registration on Saturday May 31st between 12:00 and 17:30.
Also on the Saturday afternoon, we will have two separate Briefings at 13:00 and 16:00 by the Swim exit/transition area.
These are not compulsory, as your compulsory briefing will come out by video link next week, but each will take about 45mins, and we’ll talk through the race in some details and offer up some last minute advice and help. Myself and Dave are really not a great stand up comedy duo, but we’ll try and make it a little bit entertaining to stop you all going off to sleep, and it’ll be very informal with loads of chances to ask questions.
Last year, the BTF introduced their new Racepass system, which is what most of know as a ‘Day license” for non BTF members – membership or a race pass are compulsory within the BTF rules, and provide the competitor with personal liability insurance for the duration of the race.
Once the start list was finalised on the 15th, I sent it off to the BTF for them to go through and validate either your race pass purchase when you signed up through the entry system, or your valid BTF membership for 2025.
On the start list, which I’ll link in a moment, you will see each name now has either an ‘M’, ‘RP’ or is blank and highlighted Red
If you have an ‘M’ next to your name, it means the BTF have confirmed your valid membership for the race date
if you have an ‘RP’ against your name, they have confirmed that you bought a Racepass from them directly through the entry system when you signed up
If you have a Red Blank against your name, it means you now need sort a race pass, or verify your membership
it’s very possible that if you are a member, and it’s showing as a blank, that they’ve just not found it, or you’ve input your membership number incorrectly, and we can sort that, and I’ll cover more on that in a bit.
If you’re not a member, and need to buy a race pass, I’ll also explain in a minute how you can do this
If you have an RP or an M against your name, all you will need for registration is a photo ID (ie, driving license, passport, NHS card etc)
There’ll be a few of you that can’t get there on Saturday, so will want someone to register for you and that’s totally fine.
In order for someone to register on your behalf, they will need a printed version of your photoID with a note on it to say it’s fine for them to register on your behalf. This needs to be a printed version rather than the original, as we have to retain that in line with the BTF rules, and then our ref will make checks at transition check in Sunday AM to to ensure the person registered is the person racing. We will, of course, dispose of these properly by having them shredded post race
For relay teams, all competing members will need to be either BTF members, or have bought a race pass.
As relay teams are not showing an M, RP or Blank, we will need to check BTF membership cards, or race pass purchases for all members of the team. One person can register for the full team, but will need photocopies of the others members ID/Racepass proof, or BTF photo card (i’m conscious not everyone has a photo on their online BTF portal card, so a pic of that, and a photo ID of another format is totally fine)
If you now need to purchase a Racepass from the BTF, you can do so at the following link HERE
You will then need to bring with you a screenshot of your race pass purchase confirmation email (showing that on your phone is fine) along with PhotoID.
I’ll pre-warn you that phone signal on some providers isn’t amazing at the lake, so might be worth taking a screenshot on your phone so you can show a pic of the confirmation rather than trying to get your emails to load
If you don’t get a chance to purchase one before the day, don’t worry, and we can sell you one on behalf the BTF on the day for the same cost of £8. It will need to be cash though please, as we don’t have facility to take card payments (please see previous note on phone signal)
If you’re not sure on any of the above, and I’d totally understand as it’s blimmin complicated, please just ask by email or phone
We have had a record 848 requests for waves and numbers this year during the recent window, and as much as it was a headache, I genuinely hope that we managed to accommodate 99% of them.
You can find the start list with Waves / Numbers / BTF status HERE
Although I’m afraid we now can’t do anything with the numbers as they are now fixed and have gone off to print, if you now decide that you want a different wave, please see the team at registration on Saturday, and they will try and accommodate you where possible
Swimming on the Saturday
A good few of you have asked if it’s possible to have a Swim on the Saturday (or Any other time outside of Sunday) and the answer is yes.
We don’t get control of the lake on the Saturday, but the Lake32 team do have their own Pay-As-You-Go swimming slots that you can book online 7 days out from when you want to book.
Although on race day, you obviously won’t need [or be allowed one], the lake have a Mandatory Towfloat rule for their PAYG swimming slots, so just be aware of that if you wanted to swim on Saturday you will have to use one (they do rent them if you don’t have one, but there is zero exceptions to that rule, so please can I ask that you respect it if you did want to swim outside of race day)
You can book their PAYG swimming a rolling 7 days out at https://lake32.co.uk/product/payg-swimming/
Car Parking
As anyone that has raced with us before will know, we have a parking field that is around 200m from the lake entrance, and about a 5 min walk to transition check in. It’s owned by a local farmer, who like some farmers, likes to make a few quid. Subsequently, in order to get even close to covering our rental costs, we have to charge £5 to park each day per car please. When you arrive one Saturday, you can buy Sunday’s parking pass please, as this will make Sunday morning arrival flow significantly better rather than having hundreds of cars fumbling for change in the dark on entry. The carpark is a field, and has a single gate in, so the quicker we can make this process by having everyone already purchase their passes, the quicker it is for everyone. It can take a few mins though, so please cater for this in your Sunday AM arrival time planning
Also, it is a cut grass field, so although it’s pretty smooth and ok for 99.99% of vehicles, if you’re in the lucky position to own a very low lamborghini, I’d suggest you bring a car more suited to driving over a grass field please
If you have someone just dropping you off Sunday Am, and then heading back to bed to come along later, I’d suggest they drop you off at either entrance gate to Lake 32 or the Beach and Country park as once they’re into the carpark, they’re going to have a longish wait to try and get back out. Both the Lake and Beach gates are along the main road, and you’ll spot them as you drive along easily enough.
The carpark will take all competitors and a handful of spectators, but if you can lift share or get dropped off, it makes everyone’s life easier
Alternatively, if you have your family coming along later, that want to use the beach and country park facilities that our run courses goes through, and is right next door to our start and finish location, and they want to park literally up against our transition, they can book in advance to park in the Beach and Country park at https://www.cotswoldcountryparkandbeach.com/
Please be mindful that they don’t open their gates until just before 10, and if the weather is looking decent, it gets super busy in there so they would definitely need to prebook as it sells out quickly
It’s a cool place for families, and has a lifeguarded beach, a kids paddling area, inflatable water adventure etc, and without prebooking, they will not be allowed to use any of their facilities
What’s coming next
As much as you’re probably tired of my mails by now, there’s still a couple more to come
During next week, we’ll send out a mail with a link to the compulsory video briefing, and then later in the week, we’ll put out some final bits in prep for the race
If you get any questions, or there’s anything else we can help with, please just ask
You can reply to this email to reach me, or please feel free to give me a ring any time – 07595 59112
Enjoy the rest of you taper, and we’ll see you all next week
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
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
