The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold Classic 2025 Competitors today
Cotswold Classic V2 – 13th July 2025
Hey all, I hope everyone’s well and not melting in this current heatwave
On the positive, the lake temperature is now up to around 21deg, which is pretty much perfect racing temperature, and will mean we’re comfortably within the Wetsuit Optional range
I’m going to cover a fair amount of stuff in this newsletter, so please grab yourself and comfortable seat and a coffee, and I’ll promise that the next few newsletters in the run up to the race will be much shorter
We’re just 3 weeks away from race weekend now, so in this instalment of the newsletter I’m going to cover the following
Catch up on any info missed and Race info pack
Last Minute Changes
Race start waves and numbers
Swimming on the Saturday
Getting your friends and families involved
What’s coming between now and race day
Catch up on any info missed and Race info pack
I’m conscious that many of you will have signed up to the race since the last couple of newsletters have come out, and will have potentially missed quite a bit of info on the race
You can find the full race info pack HERE
This should tell you everything you need to know about where to be and when, along with start times, rules etc
This is your info pack though, so if you think we’ve missed anything, please let me know and I’ll add it in
Although I’ll get more info out over the next few weeks, in newsletter number 2, we covered a lot of information about our Swim, Bike and Run courses
We also covered a section on accommodation near the lake incase of you hadn’t yet thought about that.
You can find that newsletter HERE Last Minute changes
Around this sort of time in the run up to a race, we seem to get inundated with panicked requests where people have suddenly picked up and injury, remembered it was their Wedding anniversary on race day and don’t fancy the doghouse, or are just not ready to complete a full middle Distance tri in 22 days time.
Whilst we’re now well beyond the 8 week deadline for free year on year deferrals, I hope that the fairest way we can still try and accommodate people rather than just applying a blanket ‘No’ is that if you really need to defer to next year, we’d ask that you help contribute some costs towards the cost of your entry in three weeks that we now can’t backfill. Get in touch with me, and we can discuss that. Obviously, that will go up the closer we get to the race, as the more we have to spend against each entry.
Whilst we’re still filling places in our team, we’ll also happily exchange deferral for marshalling for us on the day if you fancied doing it that way.
Also, if you wanted to move your solo entry to an Aquabike or BikeRun category, we can sort very easily now if you can let me know in the next couple of days please.
The same goes if you are currently in either of the above Categories, but now fancy taking on the whole thing, or even doing it as a relay.
Hopefully, that’ll give any of you that are unsure or unable to compete a full race some options in the fairest way possible, so please just get in touch
Race Start Waves and NumbersPlease can I ask that you read all the following before you get your request in :
You will now get the chance to choose which wave you’d like, and/or if you’d like a special number or a range of numbers to be racked with your mates, you can do that also
By default, anyone not requesting a wave will be sorted youngest to oldest in rolling start waves 1 – 6 regardless of gender
All waves get a race time regardless of type, and your race start time will commence at the point you cross the mat to get into the water for a rolling start, or on the buzzer for the mass start – Previously, the fastest time of the day hasn’t always come from the Mass start (they actually won from wave 3 and 5 previously), but some people like a mass start with their mates to they can measure exactly their time against them when out on the course, whereas others like a more leisurely and spacious start on their own in the rolling start waves
In the rolling starts, you can start as a small group together if you like, otherwise you’ll be set off individually at 2-3 second intervals from the chute.
For reference, the average swim time in each wave is pretty much the same, and only the mass start waves tends to have a slightly faster average swim time
Some things to consider if you’d like to choose a wave.
– You might want to watch a few waves go off before you or don’t want to rush, so could ask for a middle or later wave
– You might want to get home in time for a Sunday afternoon BBQ or to watch Antiques Roadshow, so would want an earlier wave
– You might want to get going straight away and not hang around, so would like an early wave
– You might be a steadier paced overall triathlete, and don’t want to be the last person on the run course, so would want an earlier wave to give you best part of an hour over those in the last wave – Our Swim course is very wide and has very few pinch points, so don’t worry about being swum over by faster swimmers if you’re in an earlier wave, but are a steadier swimmer
We do have some flexibility on waves on the day too, so don’t worry if you’re in wave 6 (for example) and want to go off in wave 3, we can slot you in if you come and see us on race morning
You don’t need to choose a wave or a number, but if you do, they’ll be on first come first served basis once the window opens
If you have entered as part of one of our many group/club entries (ie, you paid a club and they paid us, and you entered through the entry system with a free entry code), please can you ask the person who co-ordinated your group and sent me the spreadsheet/payment to get in touch with which wave you’d like. I will put you all together in transition in a spare sequence of numbers, so if you contact me directly and ask for a certain lucky number, I can normally sort it, but will mean you’re not racked with the rest of your group in transition and may not be in the same wave
If you would like a lucky number, you can choose any number between 10 and 600. These are normally really popular, especially the low numbers (and randomly, number 69), so please put a 2nd, 3rd and maybe even 4th choice down as there’s a good chance that unless you email me within the next 2 minutes, your 1st choice number will have already gone.
When requesting a specific number, please include your full name, Date of Birth and registed email address
All number requests are first come first served based on the time I receive the email request.
As I am going to get around 5-600 email requests for waves and numbers in the next few days, please understand that I can’t reply to all of them to say that you’ve been successful in getting your number, and you’ll need to await the start list coming out next week.
If you would like to request a group of numbers in sequence to be with your mates, please can you read the following guidelines for this.
– Please speak with your group first and get their agreement, as in the past, a good chunk of the requests would come in for a group only to find that Joe Blogs or Sarah Smith doesn’t want to be with that group, and has already requested a wave and number
– If you’re sending a list of names, I will need their full name, Date of Birth and registered email address please as we tend to get duplicates of seemingly unusual names, not just John Browns and Anne Harris’s, and people are often referred to by their friends by names that they’ve not registered with – Ie I won’t know who ‘Bomber Harris’ or ‘Fast Tracey’ is
– Please check they’ve actually entered as I don’t want to spend an hour scratching my head trying to find someone in your group, only to later discover they either didn’t enter, or have swapped their name to someone else racing in their place, or two months ago deferred their entry to next year
– Please get the above right first time as once you’ve created a group to be racked together, I will allocate them a sequence of spare numbers, and the next sequence of numbers will be allocated to another group, so I can’t then add the next number to your group if you miss someone first time out (this happens an awful lot)
I love being able to offer this service, but this is a really time consuming job for me to do (it literally takes 3-4 days solid), so please make my life easier by getting it right first time and not chopping and changing as we can’t add people in later, and it’s a pain trying to group a bunch of people only for half of them to come in with different requests.
Relays have a separate pen, so although they can go off in, and request, any wave, they cannot choose a number I’m afraid as they work on a different number sequence to individual entries.
Aquabike entries will be mixed in with the solo’s, so can choose a number
BikeRun entries can choose a number, but as they’re obviously not Swimming, won’t need a choose a wave
In order to get your request in, the Window opens now and closes at mid-day on Thursday the 26th June
To request a wave and/or number, please email graeme@113events.com using ‘Waves and Numbers’ as a title
In summary ;
You can choose any wave from mass start to rolling wave 6
You can choose any individual number for yourself between 010-600 – Please also include 2nd/3rd/4th choices if you have them
Please check with your mates that they want to be racked with you and in the same wave before requesting it
If you are part of a club entry, please get the co-ordinating person to contact me with which wave you’d like, and I’ll do your numbers together in transition anyway
If you don’t choose a specific number or wave, you’ll be allocated a number at random, and the waves are sorted youngest first / oldest last
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/
Getting your friends and families involved
On race day, we have around 180 paid marshals positions across the race location, and out on the bike and run courses
We still need to fill around 25 of these across the bike and run course teams
If you have anyone coming along with you that would like to get involved, we’d welcome them in with open arms, and make sure they have a great day enjoying the race from the more fun side of the fence
They’ll get free parking and camping right by the start location (this of course, is available for you too, if you’re bringing a marshal with you in your car on the day, or are staying with them overnight on the Saturday) and we pay all our marshals too
The marshals package is free food, drink and ice creams, as well as £20 Cash or a £50 113 Events Voucher, and all marshals will get an event team shirt to keep and we’ll take them through a full briefing
We have two shifts if they have a preference, and these are :
Bike Team – 05:45 briefing, finish 10:30-11:30 depending on location
Run Team – 07:45 briefing, finish around 14:30
We can get people too and from their spots if needs be, and will partner everyone up where possible with someone more experienced if required
Just drop me an email at graeme@113events.com and we’ll welcome them into our team
They also get an invite to the post race beer with our team, which is normally fun for about 30mins, and then most of us are falling asleep into our beers and we’ve been awake since 2am 🙂
What’s coming between now and race day
Over the next three weeks, I’ll be drip feeding in info as it becomes available
The next you’ll hear from me will be around a week’s time, when the start list is published and finalised, and we also send that off to the BTF, who do a further verification check against everyone’s race pass purchases or BTF membership statuses.
That email will also have all the info on what you need to bring to registration on race weekend, as well as info on how you can get your friends to register for you etc, if you can’t get there yourself on Saturday the 12th.
After that, I’ll send an email out with the video briefing for the race where you can get to see my face for radio talk through everything about the race for 20mins, and there’ll be an opportunity to book in for a bike service or check up on the Saturday too with the shop that we have at our races over the weekend
Other than that, I’ll keep you all posted on course conditions, updates, advice for race weekend etc.
Right, that really is it for that monster of an email, and I hope you’ve managed to stay away until this point 🙂
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions, or there’s anything at all we can help with, please just ask
You can send me an email, or feel free to give me a call any time – 07595 591612
Please enjoy the your last little block of training in this Sunshine we now have, and we’ll look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612
