Cotswold 113 Middle Distance Tri – 1st June 2025
Hey All, I hope you’re all well and ready for this year’s 113 at the start of next Month.
We’ve been super busy here getting everything ready for the big weekend, and it was great to meet the 65 or so of you yesterday that came along to our Familiarisation day.
If you missed the last newsletter with all the info on the race, or have signed up for the race in the last few weeks and didn’t get it sent to you, you can find that HERE
That specific newsletter has loads of info about the race, as well as a link to the race info pack, so please take a few mins to have a read through it.
You’re going to get a fair few emails from me over the next couple of weeks, but in this email today, I’ll cover the following:
Last minute changes
Swim Starts, Waves and Race numbers
We could really use some more marshals
Got any friends that still need a slot
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, or are just not ready to complete a full middle Distance tri in 20 days time.
Whilst we’re now well beyond the 8 week deadline for 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 under 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.
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.
I also have a limited number of places I can move over to the July 13th Middle Distance race if another 6 weeks would help.
With pretty much all of the above, I’d need to know by this Wednesday end of play please
Hopefully, that’ll give any of you that are unsure or unable to compete a full race so options in the fairest way possible, so please just get in touch
Swim Starts, Waves and Race numbers
Please 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
We have effectively 7 waves:
Mass Start – 06:25
Rolling start window waves:
Wave 1 06:30-06:40
Wave 2 06:40-06:50
Wave 3 06:50-07:00
Wave 4 07:00-07:10
Wave 5 07:10-07:20
Wave 6 07:20-07:30
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 slower 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 900. 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 8-900 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 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 15th May
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 010-900 – 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
We could really use some more marshals
As anyone that has organised events will tell you, getting marshals is one of the hardest parts of the sport.
We have around 180 Paid Positions on our marshal team on race day, and we still need to fill around 30 of them.
All our marshals get paid for their efforts, and they can choose from either £20cash or a £50 113 Events Voucher, and we’ll give them an event team shirt, and keep them in hot food, drinks and ice creams
We have 3 basic shifts :
Transition team – 04:30 briefing, finish around 10:30ish (2nd team- 10:00-14:30ish)
Bike Team – 05:45 briefing, finish around 11:30ish depending on location
Run Team – 07:45 briefing, finish around 14:30ish depending on location
All marshals will get a briefing, and kitted up with anything they need, plus we’ll make sure they have a laugh and enjoy it as happy marshals are good marshals
Marshals get free camping/parking around 100m from the race start too, so if you have someone with you that is avaibale to marshal, you can park there with them on race morning
All we ask is that they’re enthusiastic and know their left from their right, and are over 16 please
Drop me an email at graeme@113events.com
Got any friends that still want a slot but missed online entries closing
We closed the online entries on Saturday night with 998 people signed up. Since then, the insurance company has made a batch of withdrawals from people that have successfully claimed on their injury insurance, so we now have around 20 slots which are available by emailing me at graeme@113events.com
Right, that’s it from me for today
We’re looking forward to welcoming you along on the weekend of May 31st/June 1st and fingers crossed this spell of good weather continues
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions at all, or there’s anything I can help with, please just ask and you can phone me any time
Cheers and happy training
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events Team
Tel 07595 591612
Apex
113 Events have, this year, partnered up with Apex insurance who have enabled us to keep the price of the racing with us competitive despite facing numerous price hikes from Suppliers.
Tim, who runs Apex is a good friend of Nicci and I and is racing the 113 this year, so having them along with us for the 113 was a great fit and I know they offer a great service as we use them ourselves.
Apex offer a wide range of Professional Indemnity and commercial Policies, and if you let them know you came from 113 Events, they’ll do a free policy review with you and offer a 5% discount on commission
Click on the image below for more info, and getting a review costs you nothing, but helps us substantiate their help with keeping your entry fees low, and their help in the race going forwards
