The following email went out to all Cotswold113 2019 Competitors today :
Only a few days to go…..
Good evening all, I hope everyone’s well, and getting to grips with their tapers in readiness for June 9th ?
We’re less than two weeks to race day, so i wanted to get you all out a bit of information before the race to give you something to read, as I’m well aware that a tapering athlete can be a grumpy athlete and probably quite bored too.
I’ll put out a few emails before the race as I’m conscious you won’t read it all in one go, so in this first instalment I’ll cover the following :
Race info pack
Bike course update
Lake Temperature
Race morning tips and car parking
Saturday Briefings
Can’t get to Registration on Saturday the 8th ?
Race info pack
This went out to you all in a previous email or two, but it still seems that out of 1050 competitors, it’s still only been downloaded around 600 times. That means that over 40% of you are so confident you know what you’re doing that you don’t bother to read it.
There’s some important info in here, so please please please take a few mins to download it and digest it
You can download the pack here : https://www.113events.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/1132019-–-Race-Information-Sheet.docx
Bike course update
If you’ve been following our social media, you would have seen that following Badgergate, we now have an amended bike course to avoid the now collapsing section of road over the Badger sets.
You can see a map of the amended bike course for June here : https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/2511529435
This amended course now has the whole section with the one hill of the course removed, and is replaced by a couple of out and back sections. I appreciate it’s not perhaps as picturesque as our normal course, but on the positive, it’s exceptionally fast and now includes a few miles of one of the UK’s fastest 10mTT courses.
We’re aiming to have pro maps drawn up by race weekend, so will have these up in the registration tent, but the more computer savvy of you will be able to extract a map and a GPX file from the above link
Lake temperature
The recent spell of good weather has picked the lake temperature up nicely, and it’s now sitting at a near perfect 19deg. I ventured into the water a few days ago for a swim (I say swim, but as this was the first swimming I’ve done of any form since last summer, it was more of a ‘Sink’) and it was lovely.
I’m not expecting that to change massively between now and next weekend, so I fully anticipate our race to be firmly within the Wetsuit Optional range.
Race morning tips, and car parking
We rent a field from a local farmer around 400m from the race start to use as a car park for the race weekend.
As such, there is a car parking charge for both days or £2 on the Saturday and £5 on the Sunday.
Sunday morning is always a bit nuts to get into the carpark, so please can you A) arrive in plenty of time, and B) try and buy Sunday’s carpark pass on Saturday as it saves a big queue of cars trying to buy entrance passes on the morning in the dark.
It’s cash only payments, and you can buy Sunday’s pass either as you arrive at the car park on Saturday, or in the registration tent whilst you get your pack.
In fairness to the Farmer, he does donate a percentage of car parking fees to a local charity, and last year this was Wiltshire Air Ambulance.
Being a field, it’s reasonably uneven, so if you were planning on coming along in your Ferrari, I’d suggest you reconsider please. It’s totally fine for normal cars, but just to make you aware it is still a field.
When you arrive in the car park, and this is especially important for Sunday morning, please make sure you park in the lines as directed on the morning by the parking team, and please park nice and close to the car next to you as we can very easily run out of space in there if everyone decides to leave 8foot between them and the car next to them or park at 45 deg. This might not effect you at the time, but it’ll mean that spectators who arrive later won’t have anywhere to park and will be turned away. Even better if you can car share where possible.
Morning tips – Our transition will open at 04:00 for you to rack your bike and all the racking will be labelled up with your names and numbers. We follow the BTF rules in transition, which basically state, you cannot bring in plastic boxes and should use a small soft bag for any kit to be left by your bike. The transition area is on grass, so I’d recommend you bring something waterproof to put your kit in or on top of as if it rains the night before, the grass will be wet (We do cut it short, but it will still hold some water). A bin bag or a large shopping bag would be perfect.
You’ll see a couple of Toilets in Transition, but these will not be open until the race starts, and the 40 pre race toilets are located around 200m from the transition on the other side of the start area. The walk between the transition and the toilets is a hard packed gravel, so although ok to walk on bare footed if you have feet hardened it, for most people it involves a walk that looks like you’re taking on a line of hot coals. If you have some old trainers, flip flops, hotel slippers or thick socks you want to bring along, you’re of course welcome to do so and just leave them in a line near the swim start as you get into the lake, and you can grab them again once you finish as you’ll be finishing around 10m from here.
The reason we don’t put the toilets near to the start or transition is that these ones are also part of the run course, and as anyone that has encountered race toilets will know, they’re properly minging on a hot day and you don’t want them anywhere near where people congregate out of choice.
As part of being able to offer everyone to be able to choose their own wave and/or race number, it means that the transition area is very mixed up of people in different waves in different parts of the racking. What this means to you all, is that we absolutely have to have everyone racked and out of transition before the first swimmer is in the water, and to make sure it’s completely clear when the race starts. So, the transition will be shut from 06:00 onwards.
If you’re in one of the later waves, and don’t fancy standing around for 40mins in just a wet suit, please feel free to bring a coat or a jumper along with you, and your can put them just inside the massage tent near the start, and grab them after the race. Please don’t bring anything of any value outside transition to leave by the start, as that area will be unattended for some time, so anything you dump there is at your own risk.
Also, if you’re staying in any of the local hotels, please don’t leave your bikes on display in your cars or vans in remote car parks, as a couple of year’s back, we had a competitors car broken into overnight at a hotel not a million miles away, and he woke up to no bike and a smashed door lock.
The area we race in is typically super low crime, but with the rise of bike theft in the UK, you can really never be too safe, and I keep reading of people’s bike’s disappearing off car roofs or out of boots at various other races around the UK, which is a sad state of affairs.
Saturday Briefings
We will hold two briefings on Saturday during registration
These will be 13:30 and 16:00 and will be by the Swim exit next to transition. I’m hoping we don’t get any rain, as these are outdoors, so bring a brolly if it does hammer it down
Each briefing takes about 45mins to an hour and we’ll go through the race bit by bit
They’re not compulsory, but well worth coming along to if you’ve not raced with us before or are new to the distance.
Registration on Saturday
Our registration is on Saturday the 8th June between 12:00 and 17:00.
When you come to register, you will need either your valid 2019 BTF card, or a form of photo ID and £5 cash to buy a BTF day license. All competitors must have either a membership of the BTF, or buy a day license during registration. These day licenses are provided to us by the BTF and cover you for personal liability amongst other things.
It’s not the end of the world if you can’t get there, you can still get someone to register for you.
They will need a photocopy of your BTF license, or a photocopy of your photo ID, and this must have a note on it to say that they are fine to sign and collect your pack on your behalf. It must be a photocopy not an original as we have to retain these and pass them onto the BTF referee marked up with your number so that he can check competitors are who has signed up for the race, and not someone random that has your pack.
Sorry to be strict on this, but it must be a photocopy of your Photo ID or license as this is the BTF rules, and they will be checking in transition when people turn up
We will, of course, shred all your photocopied ID after the race so no one can get hold of your personal ID details.
The chips we use for the race are rented in, and we hope to get those next Monday, and will then start building the packs over a few days. This means that we’re hoping to have them ready by around Wednesday night of race week, so if you’re passing Swindon on the M4 and fancy popping to our house to register before the day, you’re more than welcome and the kettle is always on here. Generally evenings work best as I’m largely at the lake during the day on race week, and although Nicci works from home, tends to be in and out a bit. Either way, the offer’s there.
Your registration pack contains your chip, strap, bike sticker, and your swim cap, the colour of which dictates your wave. You will also collect your shirt and goody bag.
If you’ve not already found it, the start list with waves and numbers on is here : https://www.113events.com/cotswold-113/start-list/
Right, that’s it for this instalment of the pre race info.
I’ll get some more info out to you all over the course of the next 12 days, and we hope you’re as excited to be racing with us as we are to be welcoming you all to our start line to kick our triathlon season off.
We’re here to help, so if you get any questions at all, or there’s anything we can help with, please don’t hesitate to either give me a call or drop me an email
Thanks and happy tapering
Graeme, Nicci and the 113 Events team
Graeme@113events.com
07595 591612