The following email went out to all Cotswold 113 2020 competitors today
Cotswold113 – Coronavirus Update #3
Good afternoon all, I hope everyone’s well in these somewhat strange times ?
Firstly, let me apologise for lack of Cotswold113 Newsletters. I thought it was better to update you all as things change, rather than bombard you with ‘We’re still waiting’ style emails that you’ll soon get bored with.
There’s some hope in this email though, and as of last week, the BTF have agreed to start permitting events again from 4th July in line with the Government’s phase 3 relaxation of the rules, and just this week in the Daily Government update, Oliver Dowden, the government’s culture secretary, has said that Community sport should restart in July.
We’re obviously far from out the woods as a planet yet, but if you think back to how much things have changed in the last 3 months, a lot of things can change again between now and Sept 20th.
As far as we are concerned though, our planing now goes full steam ahead on the basis that we will run the Cotswold 113 on Sept 20th.
As you all had entered the Cotswold113 race this year, your entry is automatically transferred straight over to the Sept 20th date, and you won’t need to take any further action.
However, I think we’d be exceptionally naive to think that things will be back to any kind of normality in Sept, so we have a plan in place for racing to include some kind of social distancing measures and a variety of other things to ensure that attending is totally safe.
As some of you might know, we effectively run this event twice per year. Once in June (now Sept) and once early August. As the August race is going to be our first event this year now, and also our first attempt at running an event with social distancing measures in place, I wanted to share with you all how we are planning on approaching that race, and our proposed measures that have been approved by the BTF as a solution to where we are currently. Of course, a lot can also change in the next 6 weeks, but this is how we’re planning on making changes at that event based on where we are now.
Last week, I sent an email out to all August 2nd Cotswold Classic competitors explaining the changes for that race, and you can see that in the following link : https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic-coronavirus-update-3/
It’s worth remembering that the measures taken in the August race, although might seem a little extreme, are based on not only what could be a very different set of restrictions to what we’ll hopefully see in Sept, but also our first attempt at running an event in this current Covid era of Social distancing and hugely increased checking and hygiene, and of course with the safety of our competitors, local residents, team and marshals as our main priority, so we have gone belt and braces on everything for August.
By Sept, I’d hope that the measures imposed by the UK Gov have relaxed further, and also that we will review as a team post August race what worked well, and what didn’t, and we’ll adjust accordingly to scale up for Sept.
Realistically, the changes we expect to have to implement in September, are going to be as follows :
1) Registration by post/Briefings by video
2) Rolling starts
3) Tweaked run course to avoid two way sections
4) Increased Transition space
We’re also very aware that although pools are likely to be reopening on July 4th, and lakes have now reopened in the last couple of weeks, in many cases a lot of our competitors won’t feel like they will have had adequate swim training to want to take on the full 1,900m swim course. Therefore, like we’re doing in August, alongside the traditional 1,900m course we will also mark out an option for a shorter (Approx 400m) Swim course, and also allow people to skip the swim all together and start on the bike. All of those three options will still get to cross the line and collect their medals, have official finish times etc, and we will just produce 3 separate sets of results.
Virtual 113
If you didn’t fancy racing on Sept 20th, but still wanted to complete a middle distance race this year, we have rethought our virtual option, which has been quite popular with August Classic Competitors. We have done some number crunching and increased the incentive from the previously published £50 Voucher to a new £80 Voucher which can be used with us for future years racing.
How the Virtual 113 works is you can complete our distances in whichever format you like, wherever you like, over how ever many chunks or days, and then send us in your proof of completion. We’ll then publish the results on our website and post you over your medal, shirt and an increased bumper goody bag.
You can also post us some pics if you like and we’ll put them on our social media pages and website (In our experience of Triathletes, you either don’t want to send in pics at all, or you can’t send in enough, but either is fine with us – If anyone has a race picture or Virtual 113 Pic worse than mine from IMCH 2010 after my body gave up on the run, I’ll give you virtual high5 – Not for the fainthearted pic here)
You’ll then get an £80 discount code to use with us next year or 2022, where you can come along and experience the 113 in full.
If anyone’s interested on transferring over to the Virtual 113, please just drop me an email at graeme@113events.com and I’ll take care of the rest.
You have until August 1st to Swap to Virtual 113, but until End of Dec to complete it.
Right, that’s it from me for today.
If anyone has any questions, or there’s anything we can help with, please just give me a call on 07595 591612
We’ll keep everyone updated as things progress, but please take care in the meantime, and see you all soon
Cheers and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 events team
07595 591612
graeme@113events.com