Cotswold 113 – 2nd June 2024

Hey all, I hope this email finds you all well, and you’ve got outside on this rare nice day for this time of year (or so it seems this year)  ?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve already over indulged on Easter eggs, but we’re just 9 weeks away from the race this year, so I’ll now start ramping up the competitor newsletters with all the info on race weekend etc.
For those of you that have entered the race since our last newsletter at the beginning of last month, you can find that HERE and that has loads of info about the race in it, so please take a few mins to bring yourselves up to speed.

I’ll try and keep this newsletter reasonably brief, and I’ll cover the following :

Familiarisation day
Refer a friend and earn a few quid
Join our team
Swapping info and between races
Payment plan update
What to expect between now and race weekend

Familiarisation day
On the 12th May, we will hold our free of charge Familiarisation day where you can come along and have a leisurely paced guided lap of the Bike and Run courses (bike lap is 28miles and run lap is 4.3, as they’ll be 2 & 3 laps on race day)
These days are super relaxed, and the emphasis is very much on just seeing the courses and asking any questions, so it’ll be at a pace that’s suitable to everyone (think <13-14mph av on the bike and >12min miles on the run) and we’ll have regular regrouping stops along the way to point out things like aid stations etc.
These are a great chance to meet myself and some of the team, as well as lots of other competitors and you’ll have loads of opportunity to ask any questions you might have.
The bike and the run parts are totally free, but if you wanted to swim during the day too, the lake guys will have a booking system open around a week out from the day, where you can also book to have a swim either before or after the Bike and Run. Our course won’t be marked out, but it’s broadly similar to their 1500m course, and it’s a good chance just to get a taste of the water (not literally, hopefully)
We at 113 love these days as it’s always a nice chance for us o meet you guys in a much more relaxed atmosphere than race weekend, when you all have your race faces on and we barely get a grunt out of any of you.
It sounds all very formal, but if you are planning on coming along, you’ll need to book your place online, so we can both get a handle on numbers, and also have a way of communicating with your nearer the time on how to book swimming, parking etc.
You can book online at www.entrycentral.com/113famday
If you have friends and family that might want to come along too, that’s totally fine, but they will also need to book on please
The basic outline of the day will start with a meet up at 10am for a quick briefing and then head out on the bike course for a single lap – This normally takes up to around 12:15. We’ll then have a quick break for around 15mins and head off on the run course for a single lap around 12:30 ish -This will take around an hour, so we should be done by around 13:30 and hopefully we can all sit and have an ice cream in the sunshine

Refer a friend and earn a few quid 
It’s no secret that it’s a tough time in the UK Triathlon industry for all events, and we need to come up with new ways to get people to sign up for our races, as neither of ours are close to full yet (the 113 has around 700 of 950 normal slots taken, and the Classic around 550)
That’s why we’ve come up with the referral scheme, whereby if you, as one of our signed up 2024 entries, refer a friend to race with us this year, we’ll give you 2 x £20 discounts to use with us for future races – If you have a group of 5 or more that want to race, they can still take advantage of our group entry discounts to save even more money – More info on Group entries HERE
All you have to do is get someone to enter a online with us this year at either the June 2nd 113 or the July 14th Cotswold Classic as either a Solo, Relay or Aquabike, and get them to list your name and email in the ‘Referred by’ section of the online entry system and we’ll take care of the rest.
If you can think of other ways of getting people in, we are, of course, all ears.

Join our team
Fancy being  part of the amazing team that help deliver the event on race day ?
We still are looking for more Marshalls to join the 180ish paid roles on the day.
We have a series of roles in the marshal team that they can choose from :
Transition team – 04:30 to mid morning
Bike team – 05:45 Briefing, finish around 11:45ish
Run team – 07:45 Briefing, finish around 14:45ish

All our marshals can camp for free on site (that means if you bring a marshal, you can camp for free too – around 100m from the start line) and we pay all our marshals too: either £20 cash or a £50 113 Events Voucher.
Marshalling is good fun too, and we’ll make sure you enjoy your day, give you an event shirt to keep and keep you in hot food, drinks and ice creams all day
All we ask is that you’re over 16 and know your left from your right. If you have under 16’s with you, they can of course, assist a parent or helper who’s marshalling and have an event shirt/ice creams, but due to insurance we can’t officially employ them and pay them
If you’ve got anyone wanting to be involved, just drop me an email at graeme@113events.com and we’ll welcome them in with open arms

Swapping info and between races
We’re 9weeks out from the race now, and I’m conscious that there’s possibly a good few of you that are wishing they either had a few more weeks to train or want someone else to race in their place, so need a name swap. If so, then now’s your chance to ask me to move you back to the July 14th Middle Distance race, which we can do for free and in two clicks of a button, or swap names against an entry, which we can still do, but is a bit more work. You may also want to swap from an Aquabike to Solo, or vice versa, or Solo to Relay etc, which we can still sort too
As we get closer and closer to the race, it becomes increasingly difficult to make changes to people’s entries, so these requests might not always be possible, so this is just a heads up if you’re considering a change
You might also fancy racing in July too, and although you may have entered this Cotswold113 Race on it’s own, I can still arrange the combo discount (£40) if you now want to also enter the July Cotswold Classic as well – Just get in touch and I’ll sort the discount out
If you’re not sure whether you’re ready for June, just get in touch and I can go through the options

Payment plan update
If you’ve either completed your payment plan, or you entered and paid up in full at the start, you can ignore the next bit
We’ve still got a fairly large number of people that have either only paid the first instalment, or have paid the 2nd but not the final instalment.
The Payment plan system was brand new to us for this year’s races and It’s been a steep learning curve. It wasn’t instantly obvious that payments 2 and 3 were not taken by direct debit and you’d need to go into the entry system and make payments 2 and 3.
We’ve given everyone a couple of months grace period, and sent out quite a few emails to all involved since. We’ve not yet withdrawn anyone that’s not made staged payments, but I’m afraid it’s getting to that time where we’re not left with any choice, as we now have to start committing to more firm numbers on race day, and have already spent out a fair amount based on numbers of entries
If this is you, please just get in touch and we can try and accommodate your needs.
If you want to head online and make the final payment(s) now please, there’s a unique link on your entry confirmation email or reminder emails that you can follow to make payments against your accounts. if you don’t have this, or it’s since expired, just drop me an email and I’ll regenerate the link for you
I’m here to help, so please just get in touch if you’re unsure

What to expect between now and race weekend
Despite it really not feeling like Summer weather outside right now, we’re getting very close to race season and it will soon be upon us.
I’ll trickle information over to you all over the next few weeks so that you know everything you can possibly need to know in the run up to race weekend
We put some info on the race weekend outline timings and accommodation/camping options in the last mail so if you missed that, you can find that at https://www.113events.com/2024-competitor-newsletter-1/
The next you’ll hear from is in the next couple of weeks, when I’ll send the full race information pack out
Around 5 weeks out from the race, once the start list is nearly finalised and I can manipulate it on a Spreadsheet, you’ll get an opportunity to choose a race number and/or Wave and start grouping together people. We can’t do any of that just yet, so you’ll need to await the email around end of April/Early May.
After that, the emails will become almost weekly with updates on the start list, info on course conditions, links to the online briefing, advice, and final details on what to bring/what not to forget

Right, that’s it from me for today.
We hope to see lots of you on May 12th at the Familiarisation day,  but if not, then please don’t forget that we’re here to help, so if you get any questions at all, or want any help or advice with anything, please just email or call me any time, as that’s what I’m here for.

Cheers and Happy training

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