The following email went out to all Cotswold113 2018 Competitors today:
I hope everyone now has their feet up ?
Good evening all, I hope that everyone enjoyed today’s Cotswold113 ?
Firstly, thank you all very much for choosing to race with us, and we sincerely hoped that everyone enjoyed the day.
It was a tough start this morning, and I can only apologise that we had to delay the kick off and hope that everyone understands that your safety is a priority to me and the team, and it simply wasn’t safe to send you out in the water until the fog had lifted and our water safety crew could see you enough to ensure you all got around safely (and you all actually be able to see where you were swimming)
I sit here now, absolutely beat, but wanted to drop you all a quick email (Well, quick by my normal standards anyway), whilst I’m still awake and everything’s still fresh in my mind.
I’ll try not to waffle on too long, so in this mail, I’ll cover the following
How fast you went and how good you looked doing it
Summary of the day, and feedback request
Fancy racing with us again this year
Don’t fancy racing again, but wouldn’t mind being part of our team
Next year’s event
How fast you went and how good you looked doing it
I know this is the only bit of this email that any of you are actually interested, so I’ll get it out the way first :
The main results sheet is here: http://dbmaxresults.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=16421&RId=2218
Event Photo’s will be here by Monday night-ish https://www.charleswhittonphotography.com/cotswold-113-tri-10618
We pay for the first couple of downloads, and Charlie will then have another few available to purchase on his site if you so choose
Summary of the day, and feedback request
As you unfortunately saw this morning, we had to delay the start of the race today by 90mins due to the fog.
This lead to a few problems later on in the day, largely that by starting just 90mins later, meant that the bike course was still in full swing when the traffic started to build up on the roads around the course, and some cyclists encountered more cars on the road or congestion in junctions than I would perhaps have liked, so please accept my apologies for this if you were expecting largely traffic clear laps, and you did happen to get stuck behind a caravan or a random slow Sunday driver. Nearly all of the behaviour on course towards other road users was impeccable from yourselves, so thank you very much to all of you for that.
As I explained in the briefing, maintaining local relationships in the area we race in is super important to me, as I want this race to carry on being the race all the local residents love, so a big thanks from me and the team for being so well behaved considering we had you all standing around for 90mins getting cold, when all you all wanted to do was go out and race
I love your feedback too, so please take a couple of minutes to write down your thoughts or come and see me and let me know what you felt about the day.
I’m conscious there’s a few bits we can’t change (largely the overlap of the run and the bike at Spratsgate), and that I was so boring in the Saturday briefing’s that Mike (our BTF referee) actually fell asleep on the grass next to me in the 2nd one :), but there’s lot of little bits of the race that you guys see that I simply don’t, and that’s the feedback I relish as you all see the race with a completely different set of eyes to me and the core 113 team.
Anyway, I truly hope that every single person that started the race today had a great time, but please let me know what you liked and what you think can be improved on. What do you think of my style of mails and communication and that I try and being very hands on with everything. I have thought about it all being more formal, but in reality, that’s just not and the way I deal with people in life and just not very me or 113, so if I tried to become all formal on race emails, it’d come across as a bit fake. I’m keen to know what you think
As a team, we’ll all meet back up again later this week and debrief on every race we do from start to finish in minute detail, and it’s that debrief that forms any changes or tweaks we make in time for August 5th, when we effectively re run exactly the same race again, so let me have your thoughts in time for that and I’ll bring it all up in the discussion.
Although I’m having to go back to my normal day job on Tuesday and probably Wednesday this week (boo), I’ll be back down the lake all day tomorrow clearing up if anyone needs to come and collect something or just wants a coffee, and again later in the week on Thursday and Friday to finish up cleaning up all the kit, counting it all in and getting it back in Storage.
We’ll undoubtably have a load of lost property too, so let me know if you’re missing anything once you’ve found the energy to unpack your kit bags, and I’ll see if we have it and get it posted off.
Fancy racing with us again this year
If you fancy having another go at today’s race (although I’d imagine that’s the last thing on your mind right now), we still have around 25 slots of the 1000 available in our August 5th Cotswold Classic Middle Distance, which is basically identical to todays race in every way but name, shirt colour and medal design. Details are at https://www.113events.com/cotswold-classic/
Alternatively, if you fancy a nice flat, closed roads Half Marathon on Sept 9th, our 113 team are involved in the organisation and running of the New Swindon Half Marathon starting and finishing in Swindon’s town centre – www.newswindonhalf.co.uk
Don’t fancy racing again, but wouldn’t mind being part of our team
Alternatively, you may well have enjoyed our marshals on the course today, and fancied having a go at that yourself ?
If so, then we’re always after new marshals and we’d love to have you on the team for the August 5th race. Hopefully this reflected in how our marshal team was today, but we always try and make sure the marshals with us have fun, and we try and look after them as well as we can so they enjoy their day, as a happy marshal team makes for a great race for you guys.
You’d get paid too, and you can choose from either £20 cash or a £40 113 Events voucher to use with us next year
Next year’s Cotswold 113
We haven’t fixed the date for Cotswold113 2019, but it’s not likely to change much from this year’s race date (ie 2nd Sunday in June), and entries are planned to open on Sept 1st.
As soon as dates are fixed, we’ll post them up on facebook, twitter and our website, and we really hope to see lots of you back racing with us again
Right, anyway, that’s it from me. I had less than 2 hours sleep last night, and I’m battered, so I won’t ramble on much longer as I really need a hot bath and my bed (probably just like you all do too)
Thanks again for choosing to race with us, and we hope that everyone enjoyed the day, achieved what they wanted, and got home safely after the race.
We’re always here to help, so if there’s anything you want from us, please just ask and we look forward to welcoming many of you back to our start line again another time
Cheers and happy recovery
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
Tel 07595 591612
Graeme@113events.com