The following newsletter went out to all Cotswold Classic 2018 Competitors today:

Cotswold Classic Tri – 5th August 2018

Good afternoon all, I hope this email finds you all well and as excited for race weekend as we are ?
We’re just over a month to go to the race, so I wanted to drop you all out a few mails over the coming weeks with info on the race
I’m conscious that many of you don’t actually make it to the end of my waffling emails before you’re asleep or your attention has drifted back to the TV, so I’m going to send you out regular mails in the run up to the race to cover a load of different things, all of which are important so require some attention.

Before I get started, I just want to say a quick thank you to everyone that came along to yesterday’s course familiarisation day. With around 150 people turning up, we had a cracking day of Sunshine, and I hope that everyone found seeing the course (And Dave Falling off the paddle Board into the lake !) useful (and funny) ?

In this, the first of my race month emails, I’ll cover the following :

Race Info Pack
Start list
Waves and Bib Numbers

Race info pack
Hopefully, by now you’ve all downloaded and digested the race info pack. If you haven’t, then please take the time to read it as it contains everything you need to know about the race weekend, and what to expect, what to do, and where you need to be at certain times etc.
You can download the pack at https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/downloads/

Start list
The race entry list is now fixed and frozen, so you can find the start list of all competitors here https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/cotswold-classic-start-list/
Please can I ask that you take a couple of mins to find yourself on there and to make sure your name etc is spelt correctly.
A few races ago, we had a lady enter by the name of Virginia, and when she had entered the race online her spell check had changed her name to something sounding very similar that was more related to a very personal lady part. Luckily, it was picked up before it ever got printed onto her race bib, so it’s worth taking a couple of mins just to make sure you’ve actually entered with your own name correctly spelt before you spend 113km with something else written on your bib 🙂

As the race is now fixed and finalised, we now cannot make any changes to competitors (ie swap your name for someone else racing in your place), and as we now cannot backfill your slot, we’re now past the stage where we can offer any deferrals or refunds (Unless you took out the 3rd party refund insurance at sign up), sorry

Waves and Bib Numbers
The race on August 5th will start in 8 waves going off at 10 Minute intervals from 06:30.
By default, these waves are decided by youngest going off first, and oldest going off last and the start list is filtered by age and chopped into 8 equal numbers. Relay teams and males/females are mixed together, so the waves are not gender or entry type specific.
Most waves have around the same average swim time, and the race has been won in the past from waves 2, 4 and 6 rather than only wave 1 as you might expect.
As those of you that have raced with us before will know, you can now have the chance to choose a specific wave and/or race number if you wish.
In terms of the waves, I appreciate it’s not an easy task to think which you might want to be in, so I’ll give you a few examples of why you might want to choose a specific wave if you want to do so;

1) You feel like you’re going to take a while to complete the course and don’t want to be the last person on the run course, so you might want to choose an earlier wave to have more time on the run with others around you.
2) You might have missed the olympic swim squad selection by 0:0001 Seconds, and want clear water in front of you, so would likely want wave 1
3) You might be a more nervous swimmer, and don’t want subsequent waves catching up with you in the water, so would want the last or a later wave
4) You might want to be home in time for Songs of Praise, or have a dog grooming appointment mid afternoon, so need an earlier wave to give you time to get finished and home.
5) You might just want to see a few waves go off before you start to see how it all works, so might want a wave in the middle

As well as a wave, you can also choose a specific race number or a group of race numbers so that you and your club mates can go off together and be racked next to each other in transition (Our racking works numerically). If you’re not fussed about the specific numbers, I can find you a set of random sequential numbers grouped together so you’re all next to each other.
If you are asking for a specific number, these are first come first served, so please also list a few alternatives in case the number you are asking for has already been snapped up.
You can select any number between 10 and 900inc, and the numbers that relate to years of birth (ie 74, 82etc) are very popular and go very quickly, as do 111,222,333 etc, so please give me a 2nd/3rd/4th preference

If you are asking for a group of numbers for other people, please can I ask that you work to the following rules:
1) Please ask your club/mates first. I regularly get emails asking for a group of people to race together, and two of the people actually want to race with other people, or have already selected a wave and number themselves.
2) Please check the start list to see if anyone in your group has actually not entered, and that’ll save me spending ages scratching my head to find someone that actually didn’t get around to entering the race (this happens a lot – Maybe 5-10 email requests per race)
3) Please list the persons name, DOB and email as you’d be surprised how many duplicates of seemingly unique names we have racing, not just your John Browns, or Sue Smiths. Also make sure you use the name that they have registered with as I won’t know who ‘Chalky Brown’ or ‘Speedy Jones’ is if they’ve not registered with that name
4) Please don’t CC your entire group into the email to me as normally someone clicks reply to all to start an ordinary conversation, and as interested as I might be about your loft conversion, or your new promotion at work, it distracts me from putting in race numbers and waves 🙂
5) Please get your request right the first time, and don’t start adding names in at a later date as this is not always possible. Take your time to actually think who you might want to race with, check with them and then submit your request

Typically, if a race has 1100 competitors as next month’s Cotswold Classic does, I will get around 900-1000 requests for waves and numbers in the next 6 days. As you can appreciate, this is massively time consuming for me, so I literally block out 4 full days at 48hours this week to pick through all the emails in front of an excel chart. I love that we can offer this for you guys, but please make my life easier by getting your requests right first time and not keep coming back to me to change or add names into your group, as often this is not possible.

The window for requesting waves is open now by return email to me using the title ‘CC18 Waves and Numbers’ and you have until Midnight on Sunday the 8th July to get your requests in.
Sometime next week, I will publish the start list where you can find your waves and numbers allocated, so please accept that I physically cannot respond to all request emails.
After Midnight on Sunday the 8th July, I cannot then move people around waves or change people’s numbers, so please make sure you get your request in this week !
All waves and numbers are first come first served, and once a number is gone, it’s gone, and once a wave is full, I’ll put you in the nearest one I can.

Right, that’s it from me for this week. I’ll send out another email early next week which will include the start list with all waves and numbers, and the next instalment of info on the race

We’re here to help, so if anyone needs anything from us in the run up to the race, please just ask

Thanks and happy training

Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
graeme@113events.com
07595 591612