Cotswold Classic – Competitor update / newsletter
Hi All
As the weather has been so hot this week, and is looking to continue into the weekend, I wanted to get a last mail out to you all in advance to most of you travelling down, to bring you some last updates so you can prepare accordingly :
In this email I’ll cover the following:
Weekend Car Parking update
Water Temperature
Weekend Car parking update
Our carpark is big enough for all competitors and a reasonable chunk of spectators.
However, with the forecast being so good this weekend, the Water park is going to be super busy, and the beach and country park that you walk through is now fully booked and bursting to capacity. They are taking no more car entries or walk in entries.
Therefore, there’s a couple of things to note :
1: When you arrive at our carpark on Saturday, you will be given a green wristband that allows you to walk through the Beach and Countrypark to our registration area. It is super important that you and your supporters that come with you do not try and go into the Beach and Country park area beyond just walking through.
They’ve been good enough to let us have access to walk through to make your journey from the carpark to the regulation area easier, but have very strict control of numbers in their facility and safety cover etc, so we cannot push this offer by using their facilities please
2: Because of the above, we’ve agreed with them that we will shut our carpark on the Sunday for all access from 10am (which is when the beach and country park opens)
As competitors, you’ll all be in well before that. However, if you have supporters coming along later, they will need to be into the carpark before 10am please
We cannot sell parking tickets for Sunday to anyone other than competitors, and anyone coming later will be first come first served.
If that car park fills up, or your spectators are coming along after 10am, then there is a Pay and Display carpark at Neighbridge country park, which is a 10-15min walk to the start/finish location, and is actually on the run course.
The what3words location for Neighbridge is ///replaying.island.remote
Somerford Keynes is a residential area, so please do not park on water lane
Water Temperature update
We’ve been down the lake all this week, and since Tuesday, it’s been over 30deg every day.
The water temperature is now increasing significantly, and today and tomorrow are forecasted for more of the same
There is now a very real possibility that Sunday’s race may have to have a ban on Wetsuits.
The BTF rules say that over 24.6deg is a Wetsuit Ban, and this needs to be measured at 3 locations around the course at a 60cm depth 1hour before the first swim wave.
This morning, (at the edge, and at the surface) the water temperature is over 23. This would be around 22 at depth around the course.
Tomorrow AM early, we will take a properly measured reading at 3 points around the course, and that will give us a good indication of what Sunday’s Water temp is likely to be, and then we have to make a final judgement 1hour before the first swimmers get into the Water on Sunday, so 05:25
Being realistic, I think there’s about a 30% chance that it will be a non wetsuit swim, so still pretty good odds for those of you that do want to wear one.
We will let everyone know at registration tomorrow what the Saturday AM readings were, and I will also post it to our Facebook, Instagram and 113events.com/news pages.
I will put a link to the BTF rules on what you can and can’t wear on a non wetsuit swim below, but in Summary : You cannot wear a swim suit that extends beyond your elbows or knees, and you are not allowed to wear Buoyancy shorts or use any kind of flotation device.
The Swim section is number 3
BTF RULES HERE
I’m conscious that many of you will now be getting somewhat nervous, but please remember that we are here to support you, and also remind you that there’s a couple of spots on the course where you can stand up and take a break if required. Our canoeists are all super experienced and will help you all around as much as possible and ensure that you are safe.
That’s it from me for the pre race emails. I’ll update our pages with a Water temperature update tomorrow morning, and again at around 05:45 on race morning
We’ll look forward to seeing you all in registration tomorrow, and hope you all have a safe journey down to the Cotswolds
Cheers
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612
