The following newsletter went out to all Cotswodl113 2016 Competitors today ;
Cotswold113 Newsletter
Good morning all, I hope this email finds you all well and getting ready for race day in a little under 2 months
As we’re getting closer to the big day, I just wanted to drop you out a quick mail to let you know what’s going on in preparation for the race and to go through a few things.
As many of you will already know, I can rattle on a bit in my mails, so grab yourself a cup of coffee and get yourself comfortable 🙂
In this mail, I’ll cover the following ;
- General Info
- Familiarisation day
- Weekend Outline
- Marshal request
- Other 113 Events races
- Transfers to the August Classic
- BTF Qualifiers
General Info
The Lake is starting to warm up nicely now with the recent Spring Weather, and it’s now at an almost tropical 10deg. The Open water swimming groups swim their all year round without wetsuits (nutters), but the season for triathletes to start getting in with wetsuits is upon on now. The lake we use is open for all guests any day before 10 and a few weekday evenings, so if anyone wanted to head to the lake for a swim, then you can find out info on those guys at http://www.ukwatersports.co.uk
We have been out riding and testing the new section of the bike course, and we’re confident that it’s perfect for our event and still keeps in line with our very flat and very fast policy. Those that have raced with us before, will know we had an issue last year with a Badger set causing subsidence on a part of the bike course, and these Badgers have since been re-homed, the section completely resurfaced, and the chances of our competitors being eaten by a killer bader during the race significantly reduced 🙂
Familiarisation day
On May the 22nd, we’ll be holding our annual 113 Course familiarisation day at the lake.
These days are very informal, and a great chance for competitors and their friends and family to come along and have a guided lap of the run and bike courses at a leisurely pace.
It’s a great chance to meet other competitors as well as our team of guys and girls, and for us, it’s a nice chance to meet the competitors in a nice, relaxed environment rather than race weekend, when people have their race heads on.
The bike and the run course are completely free of charge, and if you wanted to swim beforehand, we’ll have Jason, our swim coach, doing a guided lap of the lake. Our course won’t be marked out on this day, but he can take you around the rough shape of the course, so you can get an idea of how it works. If you wanted to Swim, the lake guys will charge you a £5 day membership on the gate, but otherwise parking etc is all free on the day for all.
In order to get an idea of numbers, we ask that you book yourselves in to this day at www.entrycentral.com/113events
The day will start around 7:30-8am to arrive and get yourself parked up, and Jason will kick off the swim lap at 08:45
We will then head off on the Bike course in groups at 10:00 from the lakeside cafe. The bike course lap is leisurely paced at around 14mph average, and we’ll have a few stops to regroup and point out aid station locations etc
Once all the groups are back at the lake, we’ll have a 20-30min Q&A and change time before heading out on the run course for a single lap (Bike course is 2 laps on race day, and run course is 3) – The run course lap will be around 9-10min/miles and like the bike course, we’ll have a few regroup and pointer stops
The postcode for the lake is GL76DF and you’re looking for Waterland Outdoor Pursuits on spratsgate lane.
Jason of Southwest Swim runs open water swimming skill sessions down at the lake, and will be holding one that morning if anyone is interested in coming along a bit earlier and brushing up on their open water race skills. This starts with a classroom session going through SwimSmooth techniques, before getting in the water and practising what you’ve learnt with the guidance from Jason. The session is from 06:00-08:30, and we have arranged a discount with him by using the code ‘113Competitior’
More info on this session can be found at https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/home?studioid=319852
Weekend Outline
In the next few weeks, we’ll email out the full race info pack, but in the meantime, here’s a rough outline of the weekend schedule
Saturday 11th June
12:00-17:00 Registration
Sunday 12th June
03:45 Car Park Opens
04:00 Transition Opens
05:50/06:00/10/20/30/40/50 Race briefing at Swim Start for each of the 7 waves
06:00/10/20/30/40/50/07:00 Race Starts for each of the 7 waves
14:30 Prize Giving
All competitors must attend their safety briefing before getting in the water. The briefing literally takes about 2 mins, and you’ll then have 6-7mins to get in the water and warm up before your wave starts.
If you can’t make registration on the saturday, then not all is lost as you still have a couple of options ;
1) You can get someone else to register for you
2) We’ll have the packs ready at our house by around Wednesday of race week, so if you’re passing Swindon on the M4, Nicci and I live around 2 mins from Junction 16, and the kettle’s always on in our house, so you can come and collect your pack directly
If none of this works for you, get in touch, and we’ll see what we can sort out
We can’t, unfortunately, post the packs out as the postal system uses magnets, which play havoc with the chips and we don’t want anyone not to get their times for the day because of this.
Within next month, once final start lists are fixed, I’ll drop you all a mail asking if you want to choose a specific number or wave, so please hang on until then, as it’ll be first come first served following that mail, but we can’t accommodate those requests until the start list is fixed and I have it on an excel spreadsheet in front of me.
I’m currently trying to arrange with the lake to allow swimming on the course on Saturday morning before registration from 10-12, but I’ll keep everyone posted once I know if it’s possible or not
Marshal Request
Getting Marshals is always one of the hardest parts of organising events, so I wanted to get my request out to you all if you have friends and family coming down that could get involved, or club mates or enemies that you can press gang into it
We pay our marshals too, so they get something back for their efforts
We have around 120 paid positions on the courses on the day, and the standard marshal pack includes
£20 cash or a £40 113 Events voucher
A Technical Events team shirt
Unlimited hot food, drinks and ice creams
Marshalling is fun, and we don’t ask they have any experience, just the ability to tell their left from their right and be enthusiastic.
We can accommodate families too (although we can’t, unfortunately, pay under 16’s), and if you have kids with you, they can still get a team shirt and make use of the free icecreams and food, and we’ll of course, get you a role away from the road.
Our team will take them through a full briefing before, and provide them with everything they need for the day to be fun for them and for the competitors
If they’re interested, we have two shifts; Run and Bike
Bike is 05:45-11:30ish
Run is 07:45-14:30ish
We also have a few Saturday build jobs and course tear down roles too.
We’d love to hear from you, so please ask around to see if anyone is able to help
Also, if you have someone that can marshal at two of our events this year, then they/you can have a free entry into either of the middle distance races in 2017 instead of discount vouchers
Our other events
The June 113 has been sold out for a while, but we still have slots available at our other events this year ;
July 16th/17th – Cotswold226 Wknd
Saturday 1.9km and 3.8km Timed Swims
Sunday 90 and 180km Tri Rules Sportife (no drafting, Aid stations, draft busters, police etc – Running on the same course at the same time as the 226 Tri Itself – Just like a tri, but without the swim or full run. We will have a secure transition if 226wknd bikers want to make it a brick session)
July 17th – Cotswold 226 Long Distance tri
Based on a different course to the 113, the 226 is based at the same lake, but has a more rolling bike course rather than the pancake flat 113 course. It’s still very fast, and the run is, of course, completely flat.
As a 113 Competitor, you can get a £40 discount off entry to the 226, so please get in touch if you’re interested in racing an Iron distance race this year and I can arrange a discount code
August 21st – Cotswold Classic Middle Distance tri
Identical to the 113 in everything but name and shirt colour, we still have a few slots available for this event this year
Transfers to the August race
As I mentioned in my last email, now’s about the time where competitors start to realise they’ve not got the training in they wanted over the winter, or their work is now posting them to Uruguay for the month of June, or your partner forgot to tell you that you’re going to a wedding on June 11th and you don’t fancy racing with a hangover, so we start to get a lot of requests to move to the August 21st Race, which is identical to the 113 in everything but name.
As long as slots remain, we can quite easily make the swap over for free up to May the 1st, but after that it becomes much more difficult and we start to incur lots of costs for changing things. With this in mind, if you do think that another 10weeks will help you recover from an injury or step your training up, please can you let me know within the month of April, as we can do it without charge then, but after May 1st, it might not be possible to do at all
BTF Qualifiers
After some deliberation from the BTF, they have now confirmed that all our races are eligible to submit results for BTF Qualifiers should you wish to carry on to the Euro’s or World stage at Middle or Long distance
Anyway, that’s it for my ramblings today. I hope I haven’t put anyone to sleep ? 🙂
We’re here to help though, so if you get any questions at all or just want to talk triathlon, please feel free to get in touch
Cheers and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
Graeme@113events.com
Tel 07595 591612
facebook.com/113events
@cotswold113