Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast

Welcome to episode ninety-one of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’ve got a special episode for everyone this week! We just got back from the “PNW” after racing Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island Long Course on September 26th and we’ve got one hell of a race report to share chronicling all the highs and lows and highs of us racing this epic Swimrun.Initial ThoughtsWe’ve been looking forward to racing Orcas Island since it was first announced four years ago and we were finally going to take it on and we were super stoked to take on the challenge.Orcas Island was Pretty CoolWe rented an awesome house that was literally across the street from the start/finish line and we brought with us an LTBz flag that we had made for the occasion and must have been seen by almost every participant since they ran by our house on the way to the finish line.We co-hosted a shakeout Swimrun on the Saturday before the race and it was awesome to see so many people come out for that. We basically just ran around Cascade Lake to do a couple of swims and play at the cliff jump section of the run course. It was super fun on a beautiful day. All the credit for the shakeout goes to Trista and Amy of Team Adorkable for coming up with the idea, getting the fika, and just being awesome ambassadors for the sport. The event was co-sponsored by Ark Sports, Wild Swimrun, and Ödyssey. Race DayThe race was everything that we had hoped it would be: beautiful and brutal. We wouldn’t say that we set the course on fire but we kept moving forward and dug deep to get through the course. We finished the race in 6:33 which was good enough for 4th Place Men’s Team and 7th Overall. So that was nice!Final ThoughtsWhile we didn’t have the race performance that we felt we were capable of, we learned a lot at this race and gained a ton of experience. Overall, Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island was an amazing event and we will definitely be back to race it again next year, if able.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode ninety of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we have a long-time friend of the show, Mel Bartow, on to chat. She is part of the California Swimrun crew and she recently traveled to Sweden to race ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship with her race partner, the one and only, Andy Hewitt. She shares her amazing experience with us on the show!But first... Training UpdateIt’s race week!!!! Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island is this Sunday and we can’t wait to get up to Orcas Island and take on the super challenging long course. We’re as trained up as we’re going to get but we feel ready to take on the challenge.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out our wives. We literally wouldn’t be able to do this show and/or travel to races without their support. We know that it’s tough on them to handle everything around the house and deal with the kids while we are out in the woods tethered together and whatnot and we are full of gratitude for their support and love.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Bas Bood from The Netherlands. He raced Swimrun Lauwersoog over the weekend and put in a really good effort out there. Strong work Bas!Bonus winner this week is our friend Carolyn for running her first half marathon since giving birth to her beautiful daughter. Awesome job!Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.This Week in SwimrunWe’ve got something new for everyone this week. We’re calling it “Race Director Reports” and our first installment is with our friend and co-founder of EX Swimrun, Nicholas Roman. He joins us to talk about last weekend’s EX21 event.In other Swimrun news, the 5th edition of the Urban Swimrun Challenge took place over the weekend in Düsseldorf, Germany. It’s cool to see this type of urban format and the race looked like it was a lot of fun.The Folkhälsan Swimrun went off without a hitch on Saturday in Finland. This event is an ÖTILLÖ merit race and took place about 40km outside of Helsinki. Shoutout to friends of the show Nicolas Remires and “Beek” Tarayao (of Team Envol Baywatch) for winning the race! Finally, Backwaterman Swimrun took place in Austria. The races start and end in front of ​​Ottenstein Castle looks awesome! Shoutout to friends of the show Åsa and Henrik (A.K.A., the Swimrun Pappa) for finishing first place in the mixed team category of the 36km Marathon course. Strong work!That’s it for this week. Be sure to tip us off if there’s any news that you would like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur new merch is here! Check out our latest ways for you to show your Low Tide Pride in our shop!If you’re racing Orcas Island and aren’t sure what to do kit-wise, make sure to check out our latest episode of Gear Talk with the Swimrun Labs where we discuss gear considerations and tactics for the race.Mel Bartow’s Epic Swedish AdventureIt was awesome to get Mel’s experience of her trip to Sweden for the World Championship. Her enthusiasm for Swimrun is infectious and she got us even more stoked to try to qualify for the original Swimrun. This interview is solid gold! Enjoy.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, the gang talks through the various gear considerations for the upcoming Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island race in beautiful Orcas Island, Washington. This is the first time that they will all be racing the same event since Casco Bay 2018. Annie and Brooke share their wealth of knowledge of the course as previous participants to help Chipper and Chris dial in their race kit for their first time racing Orcas. That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode eighty-nine of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we have our course preview for Ödyssey Swimrun Ludington. We're joined by special guests Aaron Palaian and John Stevens from the Ödyssey crew to talk us through their newest race and share some great training tips for this unique course. Trust us, this race sounds like it's going to be dope!PURE MICHIGAN MAKES FOR PURE SWIMRUNNINGMuch Like Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island, Ludington offers Swimrunners an opportunity to explore a very cool part of the state of Michigan. Aaron shared with us how he settled on the coast of Lake Michigan to host a Swimrun and why Ludington will be an awesome venue for athletes and families.Travelling to Ludington is pretty straightforward with several airport options. Lodging is also straightforward as Ludington has a lot of options.SAND IS YOUR FRIEND (or at least keep telling yourself that)We are lucky to have the only person to have actually ran and swam on the course, John Stevens, to walk us through each leg of the race for both the long and short course. The short course meets up with the long course at Swim 4 (of the long course) and follows the same course to the finish line so we will only mention Run 1 of the short course separately.The long course clocks in at 19.33 miles with 16.2 miles of running and 3.13 miles of swimming with 1,500ft of elevation gain. The short course is 10.68 miles long with 8.55 miles of running and 2.13 miles of swimming with 750ft of elevation gain.Both courses feature a variety of terrains that should make for a super fun event. As you listen to the leg by leg breakdown, we recommend looking at the course map to help orient yourself and visualize what you will experience on race day.Annotated Leg By Leg BreakdownLONG COURSERun 1 (1.45mi)“Urban running” through the downtown LudingtonThere will be some sidewalk traffic involvedSwim 1 (650m/711yd)Coldest swim of the day (Mid to upper 50 degrees Fahrenheit) Pretty straight forward swim along the beachRun 2 (2.15mi)First half is on roadsBack half of the run is a paved trail through the woodsSwim 2 (565m/618yd)The lake is really darkRun 3 (2.05m)Last run on the roads for a whileSand dune climb at the end of the runSwim 3 (400m/437yd)“Steven’s Lake”Swimming though an old quarryRun 4 (3.75mi)Aid station at the start of the runRunning on trails and then on sand towards the endSHORT COURSE Run 1 (1.75mi)This first run is a doozyThere are some wooden platforms at the start that can be very slippery when wetThere are some sand trails towards the middleA “crazy” sand dune climb at the end of the runSwim 4 (1,365m/1,493yd)You swim under a bridge near the startIt’s a pretty shallow swim on the second halfRun 5 (.40mi)Straight up a 200 meter sand dune at the start of the run“Embrace the suck.” -- John StevensSwim 5 (200m/219yd)Nice and short!Run 6 (3.25mi)This run has it all! It goes from woods to sand to the oceanLots of sand hereYou’ll run through some shallow poolsAwesome climb at the end over a ridge that will give you a cool view of the Big Sable Point LighthouseSwim 6 (250m/273yd)This swim is around the Big Sable Point LighthouseThis swim might be cancelled if the conditions are too gnarlyÖdyssey will make the call on race dayRun 7 (3.0mi)Dirt road runIt’s exposed so it could be hot if the sun is outDefinitely hit the aid station at the start of the runSwim 7 (1,610m/1,761yd)This swim is down river so it should be pretty fastNear the end of the swim you go under a low bridge that can be a little nerve rackingRun 8 (.15mi)Sweet little beach run to the finish lineDO IT FOR THE ICE CREAM!John Stevens shared a couple key workout sessions that will help athletes prepare for the demands of the Ludington course. He recommends some high tempo running mixed with some hill work such as a running workout consisting of 6-8x 30 second hard uphill into an extended 4-5 minute tempo effort. The swims are pretty straight forward so being comfortable with the distance and being able to apply some power will serve athletes well.As far as a key Swimrun workout, John recommends doing a couple of rounds consisting of a 300yd swim at race effort with a fast transition into a hard 1-2 minute uphill and then settle into some race effort tempo running for a 1 mile.CLOSING THOUGHTSThis race looks great and we give major kudos to Aaron, John and the rest of the Ödyssey crew for finding such an awesome location to host a Swimrun. All the different types of terrain that this event offers is very unique and will make for a great adventure for everyone that will toe the line. Huge thanks for Aaron and John for taking the time to help us put this course preview together. These episodes are an iterative process so please let us know what you think about this evolving format.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. Yo

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, we have a roundtable discussion regarding the different tiers of Swimrun wetsuits (entry-level, mid-range, and high-end) and what features you typically get for the money.Make sure to check out our companion video on YouTube to get a closer look at the different tiers of wetsuits.Gear UpdatesAnnie tested out the HOKA ONE ONE Torrent 2 shoe. She wanted to really like them but they didn’t work out for her for Swimrun. She also recently tried the Saucony Switchback 2 shoe for Swimrun and found that the shoe did not drain water very well. She plans on drilling little holes and reporting back if that solves the draining issue.Annie has also been practicing in the Ark Sports Korp and has been very happy with its durability. She also went commando for a Swimrun practice and is now a convert.Chipper wanted to shout out the new Precision Hydration PF 30 Energy Gels. Chipper, Chris, and Annie have all tried them and think they are great!Wetsuit Suit-OutWe get questions every week asking us for recommendations for wetsuits. Our answer is always “depends.” There are a lot of considerations in deciding what wetsuit to settle on. Free SuitsIf it’s your first Swimrun and you have a triathlon or surfing wetsuit hanging around, you can totally use that with either zero or a few modifications by cutting the legs above the knees and the arms above the elbow. You can also check out the Swimrun Swap Meet on Facebook for a used suit.Entry LevelThese suits cost on average under $250. They have few bells and whistles but there are some really great options out there including the Synergy Swimrun Wetsuit and the Ark Sports Korp. (We have full reviews on both!)Mid-RangeThese suits run on average under $450-500 and offer a lot of upgrades from entry-level suits including thinner neoprene, different materials, and sometimes come with arm sleeves. The Ark Sports VIGG and HEAD My Boost suits are great examples of this range.High-EndThese suits will offer premium everything and you definitely get something special for the price. They are lighter, they wick water away better, and generally more flexible. The Ark Sports ORNO X is a great example of what is available at the pointy end of things.DiscussionWe all agreed that there are some features that we love and features that we can live without. We all thought that having Gen 2 bottoms, suits with good shoulder mobility, toothy zippers, a comfortable neckline, and removable arm sleeves are essentials for us. Chipper also really likes having a kangaroo pocket in the back.Annie really loved having a thermal core panel in the suit. If you tend to not lead the swim legs then something a bit warmer might be a good idea.We all thought that internal pockets in a suit, cargo pockets on the bottoms, Three-quarter leg length, dual zippers to help with cabbing down, mini pockets for a whistle (or a joint), and Gen 1 neoprene bottoms weren’t things that would entice us towards purchasing a suit. Brooke likes zippers that end at the waist so that they don’t get tangled up with the pull buoy and/or tether belt.Closing ThoughtsAll in all, there’s a Swimrun wetsuit for every budget. We hope that this episode has helped lay out what features you get for the money and, more importantly, what features you will find most important. Make sure to check out our companion video on YouTube to get a closer look at the different tiers of wetsuits.That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode eighty-eight of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we have someone who really has no business being on our show...but that just lets you know how awesome of a person he is. We are super lucky to have author, speaker, and coach Brad Stulberg on the show this week. His latest book, The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success that Feeds--Not Crushes--Your Soul, was just published this week and we chat with him about all things human performance, sustainable success, and well-being.(Full Disclosure: Chris is Brad’s speaking agent and the COO of his media company, The Growth Equation)But first... Training UpdateÖdyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island is 3 weeks away! We’ve got a couple of weeks of hill work left before heading to the Pacific Northwest and we will be doing a couple of long-ish Swimruns to get our transitions dialed in. It’s safe to say that our stoke level is very high for this race!ShoutoutsThis week we’re acknowledging a couple of folks. First, big shoutout to our newest Patron on Patreon, Miriam Fendler. She trains at the same pool as us and she’s super stoked on Swimrun. Thank you so much for helping support the show and we can’t wait to hear how Ödyssey Swimrun Ludington goes for her and her partner Sarah, A.K.A., Team PB and Bananas.We’re also shouting out Mårten Westlund. He left us a DM over the weekend letting us know how much he’s been enjoying our memes. To quote him: “The sheer amount of incredibly funny content is too much to even take in. So damn great!” Thank you for that! Finally, shoutout to Mark Sealy from Oxfordshire by way of Zimbabwe. He reached out to let us know that he and his partner David have been enjoying our brand of Swimrun content and they’ve signed up for their first race at the Lock to Lock Swimrun Oxford happening on September 19th. Super stoked for you guys and let us know how it goes.Feats of EnduranceThis is a tough week for Feats of Endurance because there was an overabundance of feats that took place in Sweden this week. So we thought that we would give a global combo award to everyone that lined up in Sandhamn on Monday for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. A special shoutout to our Strava Club members that raced: Max V., Annika, Maire, Sabina (2nd place Mixed Division), Beek, Philip, Sean, Mel, Ben, Jonathan, Tim, Anders, Max A., and Per. Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.This Week in SwimrunThere’s so much to cover this week that we released a special bonus edition of This Week in Swimrun to discuss the results of the 15th edition of ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. Check that out wherever you are listening to this episode.In other Swimrun news, Zêzere Swimrun took place over the weekend and it looked like a magical day for Swimrunning in central Portugal.Over in the U.K., Breca Swimrun hosted the UK National Swimrun Championship at their Jersey race over the weekend. The competition was tough but the course was lovely and made up for everything else. 220 Triathlon Magazine had a great write up on the race so head over there to check that out.In the bummer portion of the show, Swimrun Georgia might be postponed to 2022 due to permitting issues. We’ll share more updates as we get them.Swimrun Costa Brava is scheduled to take place next weekend on September 18. This race is 100% on our bucket list after hearing about how awesome it is from the Boston Wet Sox and Mia and Fanny from Wild Swimrun.That’s it for this week. Be sure to tip us off if there’s any news that you would like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur new merch has arrived! Check out our latest ways for you to show your Low Tide Pride in our shop!We would also like to share that we have surpassed 50,000 total downloads! We can’t thank you all enough for tuning in and listening to our super-niche content. Brad Stulberg InterviewWhat can we say about today’s guest? Brad is the co-author of Peak Performance, The Passion Paradox, and author of the newly published, The Practice of Groundedness. His books have sold more than 250,000 copies and have been translated into more than 15 languages. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wired, New York Magazine, Forbes, Sports Illustrated, and other national and international outlets. If that wasn’t enough, he’s also a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, where he writes a regular column on the science and art of success and well-being. He also has a coaching practice where he works with executives, entrepreneurs, physicians, and athletes and gives keynotes and workshops across the country. Finally, he’s the co-founder of The Growth Equation, an online platform dedicated to defining and attaining a more fulfilling and sustainable kind of success.We asked Brad to come onto the show to talk about his new book and share his insight on sustaining

Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast! This week’s episode is a recap of the 2021 Ötillö, The Swimrun World Championship. We stayed up way beyond our bedtimes to watch as much as we could live and break down the 2021 edition of Otillo, The Swimrun World Championship.The live race production that Otillo had on their Facebook was solid. They featured a mix of live-action footage, on-course interviews, and a studio production which resulted in an entertaining broadcast.2021 Ötillö, The Swimrun World Championship ResultsHere are the podiums for each division of the 2021 Ötillö, The Swimrun World Championship. For the full results head to Ötillö’s results page.Women’s Division Race1st Place: ARK Swimrun Helena & Kristin | 9:00:472nd Place: Wild Swimrun West Coast | 9:11:27 +10:403rd Place: Head Swimming | 9:16:27 +15:40Mixed Division Race1st Place: Team Envol Head Swimming | 8:14:57 (Course Record)2nd Place: Team Envol Switzerland - HEAD | 8:32:36 +17.393rd Place: ARK Swimrun Marika & Alexander | 8:33:50 +18:53Men’s Divison Race1st Place: Team Simcoachen | 7:38:43 (Course Record)2nd Place: ARK Swimrun Fredrik & Lars | 7:44:55 +6:123rd Place: ARK Swimrun France | 7:49:08 +10:25Final ThoughtsWe are even more pumped about this race. It was really inspiring to see everyone give it their all in the Stockholm Archipelago. Special shoutouts to the team from the United States who made everyone back home proud. In the mixed division that was California Swimrun and in the men’s division It Be Me Me Me and Timothy, Team Envol Baywatch, and The Swimrun Monks.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty-seven of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island 2021 is in the books and we welcome back to the show friends of the pod, all around amazing Swimrun ambassadors, and LTBz correspondents in the field Trista and Amy from Team Adorkable to give us their race recap from their weekend up in northern Michigan for the first edition of Ödyssey’s newest race. But first... Training UpdateÖdyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island is 4 weeks away! (Make sure to use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration to any/all Ödyssey Swimrun events.) Unfortunately, the air quality has gotten pretty bad here due to wildfires to the north of us so we’ve had to bail on some big runs and take things indoors. We did manage to get in a mondo swim session in the books on Thursday which was “fun” and definitely LFG-esque.ShoutoutThis week we’re shouting out the fudge stores on Mackinac Island. No we didn’t have any fudge but it sure did look good!Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Kathryn Meinhardt. She posted a workout this past week where she mentioned LTBz in the title which results in an automatic win in our book. (To recap, the current criteria for posts to automatically win include: workouts completed in Puerto Rico, workouts with a ton of elevation gain, and workouts that include LTBz in the title.)Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.UpdatesMake sure to check out this week’s special bonus ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship race prediction show with special guests Henrik Wahlberg and Jonas Ekman. It was super cool to get Henrik and Jonas’s insights and you should make sure to tune in to ÖTILLÖ's complete coverage of the event on Facebook Live where they will be commentating.We’ve got some new shirts and hoodies dropping in the LTBz store next week so stay tuned for the latest ways for you to show your Löw Tide pride!Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island 2021 Race Recap w/Team AdorkableIt was really great to have Trista and Amy, a.k.a. Team Adorkable, back on the show (check out our interview with them on Episode 58) to talk about their race over the weekend. We chatted with them about their whole weekend adventure in northern Michigan. The conversation was really fun and their enthusiasm was 100% infectious (in a good way) and we don’t think that anyone had more fun at Mackinac Island than they did. Their finish line antics are becoming legendary so make sure that you check their Mackinac video out.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re super stoked to share our inaugural ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship Race Prediction show with special guests Henrik Wahlberg and Jonas Ekman. Henrik and Jonas aren’t just elite Swimrunners with a ton of experience racing ÖTILLÖ but they will also be providing commentary on the Facebook live feed that will cover the entire race on September 6th. In this bonus episode, Henrik and Jonas walk us through the elite Women’s, Mixed, and Men’s fields and give us their takes on which teams are looking fit and their podium predictions for the 15th edition of the race that started it all. That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty-six of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re honored to have Michael Lemmel, Co-Founder of ÖTILLÖ on the show this week. We had a great conversation that covered a lot of ground where we looked back over the 15 year history of the race that started it all (ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship) and looked forward to what the future holds for ÖTILLÖ and Swimrun.But first... Training UpdateThe training block has begun for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island. Running hills will be a staple of this block and luckily, there is no shortage of mountains for us to run up and down. We ran the “Ninja Loop” on Saturday (a local trail runner favorite) and we will probably be hitting that loop multiple times before race day.ShoutoutThis week we’re shouting out Caroline Wolek and Patrick Reagan. They recently won the Ödyssey Legend Award as voted by the race participants at Casco Bay a few weeks back. This award shines a spotlight on athletes who embody the spirit of Swimrun: putting others above self, spreading positive energy to other racers, and taking action when faced with adversity. Caroline and Patrick are well-deserving of this recognition by their fellow Swimrunners. Congratulations! Feats of EnduranceThis week’s award goes to Nate Budziak. Nate ran the Waldo 100k over the weekend and totally crushed the 61ish mile (with 11,000’ of elevation gain) trail race finishing in 16th place overall. Awesome performance!Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.This Week in SwimrunLots of updates this week so let’s get right to it!It’s race week for Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island! Make sure to sign up if you haven’t already (using the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration) and follow our Instagram channel where our two LTBz Field Correspondents (Trista and Amy from Team Adorkable) will be “covering” the event.The Zêzere Swimrun hosted by our friends at Swimrun Portugal is just a few weeks away. This race is taking place on September 5th and offers two distance options. If you’re in need of a Swimrun holiday, then check out this race!We’re also just a few weeks away from the Breca Swimrun Jersey. Taking place on September 4th, this race is also the UK National Swimrun Championship. We’ve talked about this race before and it’s 100% on the bucket list!Over in Sweden, the Immeln Swimrun put on by A to Be Events took place over the weekend. The race looked awesome and we were stoked to see that the Ultra distance (that we talked about about a month ago) ended up getting enough participants for it to happen.The 10 Island Swimrun also took place over the weekend. What this 20km race in Gothenburg lacks in a creative name, it definitely makes up for it with a super hard but also super fun course. Definitely check out their Instagram page for some great race photos.That’s it for this week. Reach out to us with any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.Michael Lemmel InterviewThis week’s guest doesn’t need an introduction for anyone who is familiar with Swimrun...but we’ll give one anyway. Michael is the co-founder of ÖTILLÖ and is one of the most important figures in the sport. His (and the entire team at ÖTILLÖ) approach to adventure racing, race directing, protecting nature, and building community has helped to build the global Swimrun movement. We covered a lot of ground in this interview recorded on the eve of the 15th edition of The Swimrun World Championship and we discussed the past, present, and future of Swimrun. You can learn more about ÖTILLÖ on their website.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty-five of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship less than a month away! To get everyone hyped for the race, we asked our friend and previous guest of the show Oscar Olsson to walk us through the legendary 75km course. This episode is a masterclass and super helpful for anything racing the World Championship or just curious about what teams will face on September 6. Get your notepads out for this one!But first... Training UpdateFor the first time in a long time we had a chill week of training now that Casco Bay is in the rear view mirror. We’ll be starting to ramp up soon for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island race and we foresee a lot of running up (and down) hills in our future.ShoutoutThis week we’re shouting out Henry Loveless who let us know that he did his first Swimrun over the weekend in Finland at the Strömfors Swimrun. He started listening to the show to get ready and we got him super stoked! (Mission Accomplished!) Congrats Henry and thanks for listening. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s award goes to Drew Wilson. This guy biked 105 miles (with 7,000ft of elevation) in Taos County New Mexico over the weekend...on a tri bike. Impressive on multiple levels. Strong work dude!Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.This Week in SwimrunLots of updates this week so let’s get right to it!Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island is fast approaching! The race is on August 29 and we already are experiencing FOMO. Lucky for us, we will have two LTBz Field Correspondents (Trista and Amy from Team Adorkable) “covering” the event for us and they will be sharing all the weekend festivities on our IG stories and we’ll be doing a race recap episode with them as well so stay tuned for that.Another race that is giving us FOMO is Swimrun Georgia. This race is taking place on October 10 and we recommend that everyone who is in the general area of Georgia or in the United States to register! Programming note: are hoping to interview the race director Tony Hammet before the race so stay tuned for that.Up in Canada, Swimrun Victoria took place over the weekend. Lots of smiling faces at this event that offered 27km Long Course and 13km Short Course options.Over in Europe, all eyes are on ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship on September 6. That’s not all that is going on across the pond. ÖTILLÖ’s Final 15k sprint race is taking place on September 4 which looks like a ton of fun!Finally, Swimrunman Laffrey is happening this weekend in France. This race offers a bunch of distance options including an ÖTILLÖ Merit race distance that features a legendary/brutal vertical kilometer final run to the finish line. There’s also a kids Swimrun which is awesome! This is yet another race that’s on our bucket list. Sigh!That’s it for this week. Reach out to us with any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesIf you haven’t already, make sure to check out our Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay Race Report episode. Spoiler Alert: we had a good race and a lot of fun.Chris recently co-hosted the morning shakeout podcast with Mario Fraioli for the quarterly “Ask Mario Anything” series. A lot of great insight about marathon and ultramarathon training, nutrition, and the importance of taking breaks that is worth a listen.Finally, we are going to be restocking the LTBz store soon so stay tuned for new ways to show your Löw Tide Pride.ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship Course Walkthrough We are super lucky to have someone like Oscar Olsson come back on the show to walk us through the legendary ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship course. He knows the course like the back of his hand and he drops some major pro-tips that are good for everyone from first-timers to experienced teams racing on September 6. Basically, he gives us a masterclass on strategy for the 75km. He’s a great ambassador for the sport who clearly loves Swimrun and wants to help grow the sport. You definitely want your note pad out for this one!Oscar’s World Championship Solid Gold Pro-Tips:With 24 runs and 23 swims, working to keep your transitions short and crisp will save you a ton of time over the dayDon’t worry about jockeying for position on the first run in Sandhamn because the beach before the first swim is very wide and there’s plenty of spaceTake advantage of non-technical sections on the runs to find some pacePlan on cabbing down on the three long runs on the course unless the temperature is very cold to make sure that you’re not losing too much electrolytes that will affect your speed towards the end of the raceAlways take a gel before the Pig SwimMost athletes will be cold after the Pig Swim so try to keep moving to get the body temperature upTake energy before the swim that takes you to Ornö because there isn’t an energy station until about 8-9km into the long 20km runCab down for the Ornö runIn training, make sure do a long Swimr

Welcome to episode eighty-four of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’ve got a special episode this week! We just got back from racing Ödyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay on Sunday August 8th and we’re going to share our race report on what was a great weekend in Portland, Maine. Hope you enjoy it!Initial ThoughtsThere was a lot of buildup for this race. We’ve basically been training for this thing since January in the hope that races wouldn’t get canceled because of COVID...again. We definitely put in the work and the pre-race nerves were all about being able to put in a performance that was commensurate with all the training that we had been doing.Getting to the Maine EventGetting to Portland was uneventful. We flew separately which wasn’t ideal but we hang out enough already.Just like in Austin last November, it was awesome (and a little surreal) to meet so many new people, put faces to names from our Strava Club and Instagram DMs, and reconnect with previous guests of the show. We did our best to try to remember everyone that we met, so here’s a shout out list: (Super sorry if we forgot anyone)Luke from New Hampshire (hope the Ark Korp worked out for you)Lucas, the Renaissance Man as termed by John StevensBrooke and Samantha Fallon (finally met them!)Ben from Arizona who we met outside of Otto's PizzaGrace MobergRay ConboyChris Sweet (a local)Ian and Nick from the UKMick from Australia Caleb Baity (finally!)Scott H. from Boston Jenny Hinshaw (Sarah Fergot’s race partner) Liza and Mike from LA (we met Mike at Catalina last year)Chris from Tower 26 (Feel free to use the testimonial that Chris gave you at the post-race party)Jett and Derek Rosner NikosJohn from the ca Swimrun crewJohn’s friend Heather from BostonSophie MolsberryScott Turner from DC (Extra special Shout-out)It was also great to see former guests of the show and folks that we have met at previous events. There are too many of them to list but you know who you are!Finally, some special bonus shoutouts to the four US teams that are racing the ÖTILLÖ World Championship next month that all came out to Casco Bay for a final tuneup before the big dance. You’re all great ambassadors for US Swimrunning and we’ll all be rooting for you! (Programming alert: we’ve interviewed all of them...except for Mel Bartow...which we will be rectifying soon!)Team Envol Baywatch (Beek and Blake)It Be Me Me Me and Timothy (Jonathan and Tim)The Swimrun Monks (Sean and Phillip)California Swimrun (Mel and Andy)Race Day/The Shark Email/Ferry Ride to the StartAt 4:06am on race morning, Ödyssey made a bunch of people shit their pants when they sent out an email letting everyone know about a tagged shark sighting about 4 miles off of Cushing Island (so basically near/not so near the first and second swims.) Obviously, they made the right decision in letting everyone know but it probably wasn’t helping calm the nerves. For our part, we weren’t thinking about it. Our nerves were more about putting together a good race to justify to ourselves that all our training culminated in good race execution, which doesn’t always happen.The ferry ride was cool and hanging out with everyone at the start line was a lot of fun. Then, just like that the race started!LTBz Long Course Play-By-PlayR1: Peaks Island (2.0mi)S1: Peaks Island to Cushing Island (965m/1,055yd)R2: Cushing Island (2.3mi)S2: Cushing Island to House Island (645m/705yd)R3: House Island (.4mi)S3: House Island to Little Diamond Island (965m/1,055yd)R4: Little Diamond Island (.8mi)S4: Little Diamond Island to Great Diamond Island (325m/355yd)R5: Great Diamond Island (1.3mi)S5: Great Diamond Island to Cow Island (200m/219yd)R6: Cow Island (.5mi)S6: Cow Island to Long Island (965m/1,055yd)R7: Long Island Part 1 (1.6mi) S7: Long Island to Vail Island (270m/295yd)R8: Vail Island (.5mi)S8: Vail Island back to Long Island (880m/962yd)R9: Long Island Part 2 (1.6mi)S9: Long Island to Little Chebeague Island (640m/700yd)R10: Little Chebeague Island (.4mi)S10: Little Chebeague Island to (Big) Chebeague Island (560m/612yd)R11: Chebeague Island (Run 1) (4.25mi)S11: Chebeague Island (Swim 1) (650m/711yd)R12: Chebeague Island (Run 2) (.8mi)S12: Chebeague Island (Swim 2) (400m/437yd)R13: Chebeague Island (Run 3) (.55mi)The long course ended up being a bit longer than advertised with most teams saying that the overall distance was around 25 miles. But hey, that’s Swimrun! We finished the race in 5:10 which was good enough for 10th Place Men’s Team and 11th Overall.Post RaceThe finish line was a lot of fun with everyone cheering the finishers as they crossed the arch.We ended up tagging along with the Cali Swimrun Crew and got a water taxi back to Portland which was the best $40 that we ever spent..and saved about 2 hours of ferry boat riding to get back to the mainland.Our inaugural race after party at Lone Pine Brewery was a lot of fun. People showed up which was not a guarantee and it was great to have a venue for everyone to share their war

Welcome to episode eighty-three of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!In this episode, we sit down with Jonathan Story and Tim Ferguson of Team It Be Me Me Me and Timothy. They are a Swimrun team out of Charlotte, North Carolina and they are one of only four U.S. teams to qualify for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship this year. This is a fun one!But first... Training UpdateIt’s race week...finally! We know we say this a lot, but we’re super stoked to be heading to Portland to race Ödyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay race for a second time. Stay tuned for our race report on next week’s show.ShoutoutThis week we’re shouting out Sarah and Miriam from Team PB and Bananas. They are a new team out of Petaluma, CA and happen to train at our pool. We love their enthusiasm (they definitely remind us of all the fun we had when we first got into the sport) and it’s safe to say that they are super stoked on Swimrun. Follow their adventures on Instagram as they train for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Ludington race in October.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s award goes to Jett Rosner. He posted a treadmill workout that had one of the best titles that we’ve seen in the Strava Club. His 5 mile run was called “Decent treadmill run (listened to the Low Tide Boyz Casco Bay Race Briefing!! Got hyped at the end and dropped a 6:10 last mile so the average pace was skewed).” Jett got us hyped!Check out our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.This Week in SwimrunWe’ve missed a few weeks of updates so instead of looking back, in this edition we’re looking forward in time to chat about upcoming news and events.The Ödyssey Swimrun race season starts this weekend with Casco Bay. We can’t wait to participate in the long course distance and see everyone!In other Swimrun news from the U.S., Swimrun Georgia is back! This year’s race is scheduled for October 10. The course looks awesome and it’s a great first race for anyone who is curious about Swimrun.On the other side of the Atlantic...ÖTILLÖ is hosting its second race of the year this weekend in Gothenburg. The start list is stacked with a ton of talented teams for the 35km World Series distance race as teams try one last time to qualify for this year’s ÖTILLÖ World Championship on September 6. The Västeras Swimrun recently confirmed that their race on September 4th is happening and the race is filling up fast so make sure to register if you are in Sweden or want to go to Sweden for this event.Our friends at EX Swimrun are introducing a new Swimrun term that they hope will catch on: SWIFA (Swim Factor). Basically it’s a measure of how much swimming in relation to running a Swimrun course has. The higher the SWIFA, the more swimming a course has. They adapted the term from running and cross country skiing which uses the term STIFA to take into account elevation on a course. We think that it could be a helpful way to help people select and prepare for events.Speaking of EX Swimrun, their EX21 Fall Edition is taking place on September 19. With a SWIFA score of 21.7%, this race is not for the faint of heart with long swims and tough trails. Also the race starts with a 6 meter cliff jump. Sounds like a ton of fun!That’s it for this week. Reach out to us with any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesMake sure to check out our latest episode of Gear Talk where the gang talks about gear considerations for this weekend’s Casco Bay race.This is the final reminder about our Casco Bay race after-party taking place at Lone Pine Brewery starting at 5:30ish. Look for the blue LTBz flag when you get there. Hope to see you all there!Team It Be Me Me Me and TimothyIt was great to chat with Jonathan and Tim about their Swimrun journey and their quest to qualify and race the ÖTILLÖ World Championship. It was inspiring to hear how they just put that goal out there and went and achieved it. As one of only four teams heading over from the U.S. to race the original Swimrun, they are representing the growing Swimrun scene in the U.S. In this interview, we chatted with them about how they discovered Swimrun and became partners, why they decided to try to qualify for worlds, how they are training for the big dance, and a lot more. These guys are great ambassadors for the sport and we will definitely be rooting for them next month.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Swimrun Odyssey Casco Bay Gear ConsiderationsWelcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, the gang talks through the various gear considerations for the upcoming Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay race in Portland, Maine. They take into account their previous experience at the event, the weather forecast, their training, and everything else to help Chipper and Chris dial in their kit for their first race of the year.That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode eighty-two of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!In this episode, we’re joined by Lars Finanger, Brent Molsberry, and Brooke Lindsley (of the Swimrun Labs) for our detailed course preview of Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island event. We’re super stoked for this event and think that you will also be super stoked about it after hearing this episode.Programming note: We are tying a bit of a new format for this course preview. I.e., we are going to try to be a bit more concise. As ever, we would love to hear your feedback on this episode to let us know if it’s a thumbs up or thumbs down.KILLER WHALE ISLAND DOESN’T SOUND AS NICE Taking place on Orcas Island, Washington, Ödyssey Swimrun sets up an amazing course in the Pacific Northwest that has been on our bucket list since the race was first announced a few year’s back. The Ödyssey website describes the race as follows: “Crisp inland lake swims, hauntingly beautiful forest trail runs, big mountain climbs, and stunning scenery around every turn makes this an instant fall classic.” Uhm, they had us at “crisp.”Course designer and race director Brent Molsberry was cool enough to share his thoughts on the course and the Orcas Island region.Traveling to Orcas Island is pretty tricky so we asked Brent to share with us all the logistics that participants will want to have lined up well before race day.The moral of the story here is book your travel to either Seattle or Bellingham, your lodging on Orcas Island, and definitely plan to book your ferry ticket when they become available.MT. CONSTITUTION SOUNDS FUN (Leg By Leg Course Breakdown)As with our previous course preview episodes, we recommend having a copy of the course map handy so you can follow along and start visualizing what you can expect on race day. That being said, as with a lot of Swimrun events, the distances are approximate and might change on race day so be prepared for that.Here are the main stats for Orcas Island: the long course is a total of 24.25 miles with 3.5 miles of swimming and around 6,110ft of elevation gain. The short course is a total of 12.30 miles with 2 miles of swimming and around 2,152ft of gain.To tee up the leg by leg Breakdown, Lars Finanger shares with us an overview of both the long and short courses.Lars also shared some extra details about the start and finish location of this year’s race, signage on the course, and aid station fixin’.Annotated Long Course Leg Breakdown:R1: Rosario Resort Race Start (1.05 miles)Prepare for hills from the get go and hills along the entire courseThe section is very technical so take it easyS1: Cascade Bay Swim (275m/300yds)This will be the only ocean swim on the course and it will be super coldMake sure you are warmed up going into the swimConsider wearing ear plugs and an extra swim cap that you can stash afterwards or dispose at the next aid stationR2: Rosario to Cascade Lake (.9 miles)“Chill” runIt’s a big uphill when you get out of the water at the startS2: Cascade Lake Swim #1 (290m/317yds)R3: Cascade Lake Perimeter (.75 miles)S3: Cascade Lake Swim #2 (850m/930yds)Second longest swim of the dayR4: Cascade Lake Perimeter (.35 miles)10ish foot cliff jump into S4S4: Cascade Lake Swim #3 (515m/563yds)R5: Cascade Lake to Mountain Lake (2.5 miles)S5: Mountain Lake Swim #1 (885m/968yds)Longest swim of the dayMight be hard to see the swim exit from the swim startR6: Mountain Lake Mini Island Hop (130 feet)Keep your goggles on since the run is super shortS6: Mountain Lake Mini Swim (50m/55yds)R7: Mt. Constitution (4.5 miles)Have a plan for this run and make sure you have nutrition and hydration for this sectionConsider cabbing downIt’s straight uphill. There’s not much relief. Power hiking is your friend.There are pretty steep downhills on the way to Twin Lakes.S7: Twin Lakes Swim #1 (275m/301yds)Look for the large pink teardrop flags for the swim exitThis lake might be colder than the other lakesR8: Short Twin Lakes Run (.15 miles)S8: Twin Lakes Swim #2 (100m/110yds)R9: Mt. Pickett (4.5 miles)Not as steep as Mt. Constitution but it’s a long gradual climbThis is the most remote part of the courseYou might get a little chilly in this sectionTake nutrition and hydration here to get you to Mountain Lake.S9: Mountain Lake Swim #2 (565m/618yds)The start of this swim is the end of a short course swimAid station at the end of this swim and it’s the last aid station before the finish so make sure that you fuel up hereR10: Mountain Lake Perimeter Run (.75 miles)S10: Mountain Lake Swim #3 (355m/388yds)There’s a rope swing at the start of this swimR11: Mountain Lake Perimeter Run (.5 miles)S11: Mountain Lake Swim #4 (385m/421yds)R12: Mountain Lake Island Hop (225 feet)A pretty little island according to BrentS12: Mountain Lake Swim #5 (325m/355yds)R13: Run back to Cascade Lake (3.75 miles)You may see some racers going in the other directionPretty much all downhillS13: Cascade Lake Swim #4 (725m/793yds)Final swim of the day!R14: Run to Rosario R

Welcome to episode eighty-one of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!In this episode, we chat about the Trans Tahoe Relay Swim that Chris participated in over the weekend. It was a really, really, really fun event and we will share the complete race report with everyone.But First…Training UpdateThe Böyz split up over the weekend (shocking!) and Chipper did a solo 3-hour Swimrun practice while Chris was having fun in Tahoe. ShoutoutsWe’ve got two shoutouts this week!First, a tip of the hat to Rob Golden. He reached out to us recently and he’s racing his first Swimrun in a few weeks at Casco Bay. We’re super stoked for Rob and hope to see him at our race after-party at Lone Pine Brewery.We’re also shouting yet another new Patron on Patreon: John a.k.a. HAYATZ a.k.a. HYZ. He’s been a friend since even before LTBz was a thing and we really appreciate his support. HYZ is also on a new Swimrun journey as he trains up for his first race at Orcas Island and second event at ÖTILLÖ Catalina. HYZ is also responsible for inspiring us to create the Feats of Endurance segment after he ran around his block covering 50 miles to raise funds for the non-profit KEEN USA.Feats of EnduranceWe have two winners this week. The Swimrun team of Mel Bartow and Andy Hewitt swam around Coronado in San Diego in a cool 4h 53m covering some 21,000yds. Why? We don’t know but it was an impressive feat for sure!Make sure to check out our Strava Club and follow fellow Swimrunners from around the world as they train for races and life.This Week In Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)It’s been another good week for Swimrun news!The Illmensee Swimrun took place in Germany over the weekend. Given all the bad news coming out of Germany lately regarding bad weather and flooding, it was great to see this event go off without a hitch. Special shoutout to Christian Götz (and his partner Martina) from our Strava Club who finished first place overall and first place mixed team. Strong work!The Kalmar Swimrun also took place over the weekend. This 23k race looked super well organized and had a ton of participants. It’s great to see events coming back in Sweden!Over in Italy, Aquaticrunner has announced the date of Sept. 12th (the best date in the world) for what they are calling the 2021 Individual Swimrun World Championship. Not entirely sure why it’s a “World Championship” but it’s cool that new formats for racing are popping up in Europe.In the bummer section of the news, Quest Racing recently announced that they had to cancel their Seattle Swimrun.Breca Swimrun confirmed that their Gower Swimrun has a full go ahead to take place on July 31st. Registration is closing soon, so make sure to sign up if you want to race in the Gower Peninsula in Wales.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesAre you tether-curious? Make sure to check out our two new videos on YouTube about the Swimrun Tether. Sarah and Miriam from Team PB and Bananas (who swim at our pool) recently DIY’d their own tether for their first Swimrun practice and it looked like they survived so we must be doing something right in the advice department. At long last our LTBz Swimrun practice bibs have arrived! Want to represent for LTBz or just want some extra visibility out there for safety and stuff? Then these bibs are for you. We only made a limited run of these so head on over to our store to check them out.Chris’s Trans-Tahoe Relay Race ReportIn this episode, we are letting people into a tradition that Chipper and Chris have had for years, namely, sharing their race report on either a run, a ride, or over a dinner with the training crew. In short, Chris’s experience at the Trans Tahoe Relay was so much fun. In this race report, Chris breaks down everything that you need to know about the event, how it went, and why he is planning on participating in it again for every year that he can!You can learn more about the Trans Tahoe Relay on their website. (Warning: the website is overdo for a facelift, to put it mildly.)That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thanks for listening and see you out there!- Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week’s show will hopefully leave you saying Snyggt! (“Nice!” in Swedish)In this show we are demystifying one of the most mystifying aspects of Swimrun to non-Swimrunners and Swimrunners alike: The Tether! We are going to break it all down for you and by the end, hopefully convince you why you will want to race with a tether at your next Swimrun event. Welcome to Swimrun 101: The Tether!But First…Training UpdateWe had a good Casco Bay race simulation practice over the weekend and we’re definitely starting to feel the itch to race in a few weeks. In the meantime, we’ll keep swimming and running and swimming and running and so on.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon: Hugh B. As ever, we really appreciate folks supporting the show and helping us keep the lights on at Studio G. You’re awesome Hugh!Feats of EnduranceIt was really tough to pick a winner this week but we had to give the award to Tom Avontour from The Netherlands. Tom raced the Trail des 6 cols 45k race in France over the weekend and given that he lives in a practically pancake flat country, a race that had over 11,000ft of climbing is no easy feat. Major kudos Tom!Make sure to check out our Strava Club and follow fellow Swimrunners from around the world as they train for races and life.This Week In Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)It’s been a good week for Swimrun news!ÖTILLÖ Engadin took place over the weekend and it looked as epic as ever. Congrats to everyone that raced and a special shoutout to Desirée Andersson and her partner Victor Dahl for winning the World Series event Mixed Division AND finishing 3rd overall! A bonus shoutout to Oscar Olsson and his partner for Adriel Young for finishing 2nd overall and then doing a bunch of interviews with livesporttv.se after the race! This race is second on our bucket list (just being ÖTILLÖ Utö) and we were experiencing major FOMO. Hopefully next year.... Swimrun Madrid by HEAD happened over the weekend in Peyalos de la Presa Spain. They had over 300 Swimrunners in attendance (according to their website) racing either their Sprint (10km) or Half (19km) distances. Both courses looked like a lot of fun!Over in the UK, Breca Coniston and Mad Hatter Sports’s Hokey Cokey Roseland Swimrun took place and both events looked like a success! Shoutouts to friends of the podcast Iain Shaw and Sarah King who raced Coniston and Bill and Christina Lankford who won the mixed division at Roseland. Strong work all around.In more UK news, our friends at As Keen As Mustard Events are back at their back to back event hosting escapades with the Manvers Lake Swimrun that happened last weekend and the Long Eaton Swimrun coming up this weekend in Nottingham. We expect to see some clever Robin Hood-themed team names for that one!Here in the U.S., Swimrun season is about to get kicked into overdrive with five Ödyssey Swimrun events starting with Casco Bay on August 8th (use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on registration for any 2021 Ödyssey event), Swimrun NC on November 7th, and fittingly closing out the year with ÖTILLÖ Catalina on November 20th.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesIf you’re going to be in Portland, Maine on Aug. 8th, make sure to come join us at our inaugural LTBz post-race after-party, co-hosted by Ödyssey Swimrun at Lone Pine Brewery. We’ll be there from 5:30ish until they close at 8 pm. Mark it on your calendars!SWIMRUN 101: THE TETHERWe’ve been getting a lot of feedback asking us for a Tether episode so for this edition of Swimrun 101 series we are going to break down the What? Why? And How? of the Swimrun Tether and make our case as to why you should be going to your local paracord/shock cord and carabiner supplier and DIY’ing one of these for your next Swimrun.You can also check out our article in Triathlete Magazine about the tether and our video on Youtube.What is it?The tether, or tow line, is essentially a 3m (or roughly 10ft) cord that Swimrun teams use to stay in contact with each other in the water and on land during a Swimrun. Swimrun event rules typically state that teams must stay within 10 ft of each other at all times for safety. The genesis for the tether, according to previous guest of the show and legendary swimrunner Jonas Colting, was to keep teams safe and in contact during the original ÖTILLÖ race, which in the early years took teams 18+ hours to finish. While they aren’t mandatory at every race, as you will hear later, it’s a definite advantage to use one.Why is it a thing?There are some tactical advantages for using a tether. Mainly, it allows teams to stay in contact during swim legs and stay in each other’s draft. The advantages of drafting in the water are pretty well understood. In longer swimrun events, recovering behind the lead swimmer can keep everyone fresh, which can pay

Welcome to episode seventy-nine of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week’s show is all about swimming. We were super lucky to be able to chat with Gemma Hollis of PushGlideKick. She’s a swim stroke and mechanics expert and we pick her brain on all things swimming for Swimrun. Get your notepads out for this one.More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe’re stuffing as much hay into the barn as we can the next few weeks during our last training block for Casco Bay. (Friendly reminder: use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration to any Ödyssey Swimrun 2021 event.) Long Swimruns, long pool sets, and long-ish runs are all on deck the next few weeks so that should be fun. #LFGShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out the Country of Switzerland. In the last few weeks, they have cracked the top ten (in terms of show downloads by country) and we’re super stoked on that. It’s also fitting since ÖTILLÖ Engadin is happening this weekend and it’s a race that is 100% on our bucket list.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Oskar Boberg who participated in the Slottsrundan Swimrun and raced the 29k long course over the weekend. We looked up that race after seeing his post on Strava and it didn’t look easy! Strong work Oskar!Need some inspiration in your training life? Then join the LTBz Strava Club and connect with fellow Swimrunners as they train and race all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)Here’s all the Swimrun news that’s either fit to print or that we were able to glean from Instagram.As we mentioned above, the Slottsrundan Swimrun took place over the weekend and it looked like a dope event. The event takes place on the coast of Lake Mälaren and the course stretches along Rosersbergs, Steninge Castle, and Sigtuna. Fun factoid: Lake Mälaren has 594 reviews on Google with an average rating of 4.5 stars. Who knew that you could review a lake?It’s race week for Breca Swimrun’s Coniston event. This will be their first race in the UK in 20 months and we’re stoked for them to be back hosting events! Check out their hype video on Youtube to see why this race looks amazing!In ÖTILLÖ world, all eyes are on Switzerland this week with Engadin taking place this weekend. This was the first ÖTILLÖ race outside of Sweden and helped launch the international Swimrun movement. Want to know more about this event? Check out our Engadin Course Preview episode and learn why we are already trying to convince our wives that we need to go to Switzerland.In the bummer portion of the news, ÖTILLÖ 1000 Lakes has been cancelled for 2021. Registered participants should be getting info from ÖTILLÖ regarding their options. Germany has general elections on that weekend and the City of Rheinsberg informed ÖTILLÖ that they were unable to get enough volunteers to support the races. Registered participants will either receive a refund of 95% of the entry fee or they can move their registration to another ÖTILLÖ event. In other news, We Swimrun has a couple of events on deck that look pretty cool. First, on September 18 they are hosting the Tal Y Llyn Swimrun in Snowdonia National Park in Wales. This race has a cool format where Swimrunners will run on a loop course consisting of two swims and two runs and they have 6 hours to see how many laps they can complete. Less than a month later, We Swimrun is hosting the Dyfi Swimrun (pronounced Dovey) on October 2. Registration for both events is open now so if you’re in Wales or want to go to Wales, check these events out!That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesIf you’re looking to show your Low Tide pride, head over to our website to get yourself some LTBz apparel and other stuff. We’ve also got something totally new in the store that we recently soft launched that we’re super stoked on but we’ll just leave it at that.Are you racing Casco Bay in August? If so, come join us at our inaugural LTBz post-race after party, co-hosted by Ödyssey Swimrun at Lone Pine Brewery. We’ll be there from 5:30ish until they close at 8pm. We’ll be sharing more details about that as we get closer to the race but mark it on your calendars!Our Conversation with Gemma HollisWe first heard about Gemma from Lars at Ödyssey Swimrun and figured since he went to her for swim analysis then we should definitely be chatting with her. She was great to chat with and her passion for swimming was definitely on display. We spoke with her about her journey to becoming a swim coach, her thoughts on teaching swimming to adults, her opinions on optimal stroke rates and form for swimming for Swimrun, and finally, the amazing pool in her backyard. This interview is action packed and Gemma was awesome. Enjoy!Make sure to check out the PushGlideKick website for more info on getting Gemma’s expert advice.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscrib

Welcome to episode seventy-eight of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast! (It’s also episode 101 of total podcast content!)So it is fitting that we have what we think is one of our best shows ever, maybe even the best show. This week we have Bonnie Tsui on the show. She is the author of Why We Swim (an amazing book about swimming, water, and life that we’ll talk more about later), a New York Times contributor, a surfer, and a Bay Area local. We were totally honored and humbled that she agreed to come on to our super niche podcast to talk with a couple of random dudes about her book. She was awesome to chat with and we can’t wait to share our conversation with you!More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe’re continuing to ratchet up our training for Casco Bay and we’re feeling pretty good about where our run is at. Swimming is the type of thing that we will never totally be happy with so we’re putting in the time and following the process. All in all, we had another good week of training this past week with a long Swimrun practice over the weekend focusing on some longer swims with fast running mixed in. #LFGShoutouts/Feats of EnduranceThis week we’re shouting out and giving the Feats of Endurance award to our friend Tobias Rop. Toby crushed the Austria Extreme Triathlon over the weekend finishing in the top 15! Strong work!Need some inspiration in your training life? Then be like Toby and join the LTBz Strava Club and connect with fellow Swimrunners as they train and race all over the world. This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)Lots of Swimrun news to share this week.Envol Coaching’s Big “Battle” is done! Congrats to all the Swimrunners around the world that participated and bonus congrats to the Dutch Swimrunners team for winning the battle. Pretty sure that they Swimran more in a month than most people have in their entire lives.The ÖTILLÖ Utö hype video is out and Rasmus Lodenius, our friend and former guest of the show, produced yet another awesome film. Make sure to check out our Utö race recap episode with Helena and Åsa if you haven’t listened to that yet. Up next for ÖTILLÖ is their Engadin event happening on July 10-11. Listen to our course preview episode to get all the details on that amazing location and course.Speaking of ÖTILLÖ, they announced this week that they will introduce a SOLO division for their World Series distance events. Their purpose for the move is to open up the races to more people and to grow the sport of Swimrun. The SOLO racers will not get ranking points and they will not get points in the World Series standings. No change to the World Championship format where only teams may qualify.Love Swimrun recently announced that all their events for 2021 are open for registration. If we’re ever in North Wales we will definitely be checking out their events. The Holy Island Swimrun on Sept. 11th looks particularly magical.In the category of random events that we learned about from Instagram, NZ Swimrun is hosting a 3-day Swimrun camp in Whangamata, New Zealand on August 20-22. This is an all-inclusive camping experience and it looks awesome. We don’t know anything about it other than that but if you’re in the area, it might be worth checking out.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur latest episode of Gear Talk with the Swimrun Labs is out. We did our full review of the ARK Sports’ latest opus, their new ORNÖ X Swimrun Wetsuit. This suit is worth the hype in our collective opinion so check out that show, if you haven’t already.We know that we’ve been mentioning our Ödyssey Swimrun discount code a lot since we got it but that is only because we love their events and think that you will too! Use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration. By the way, Casco Bay is 80% sold out so if you’re the type of person to wait until the last minute then now is your time to shine...and join us at the start line.Our Conversation with Bonnie TsuiWhat can we say about this interview? It might be our best work but not because of anything that we did. Bonnie was a great guest and we loved chatting with her about her book, Why We Swim. We covered a lot of ground in this interview where she discussed what inspired the book, what blew her mind the most in her research for the book, and so much more. Make sure to check out her book Why We Swim. The new paperback edition is out now.Learn more about Bonnie Tsui on her website.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.Thank you for lis

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, we have another wetsuit review. This week we do a deep dive on the brand new Ark Sports ORNÖ X Swimrun Wetsuit. This suit was just released a few weeks back and we were lucky enough to get 4 suits sent to us to test by our friends at Ark Sports.Our complete review is coming later in the show.Gear UpdatesBrooke finally realized that she is small and not a medium as she previously thought after using Trista’s Ark Sports KORP suit. That small fit much better and resolved her issues of water entering the suit.Chipper just picked up 3 pairs of the Magic5 swim goggles. These are allegedly custom-made and are sized to fit your face by using a facial recognition-type app to get the sizing right. Chipper also is trying out the Hoka One One Torrent 2 as his new Swimrun shoe. More updates on how that goes in the coming weeks.Annie also got a set of the Torrent 2’s and will report back as well.Chris recently updated his “team” race kit by replacing his trustworthy compression bandage with a new slimmer H&H Mini Compression bandage. It’s a lot slimmer than the old one and capable of being worn in a kangaroo top due to its design.Untethered ThoughtsThis week’s untethered thought comes courtesy of Greg Dierksen of the Boston Wet Sox. He DM’d us with the observation that there is very little information about “the tether” out there and recommended that we do a Gear Talk show on the tether. Great observation and suggestion and we will be releasing that show soon! Thanks Greg!ARK SPORTS ORNÖ X Wetsuit ReviewCheck out our first impressions video here to get our first look at the ORNÖ X wetsuit.Here’s how ARK describes the ORNÖ X:ARK Sports ORNÖ X is an evolution of our flagship model ORNÖ which has been tested and trusted by the Worlds best swimrun athletes since its launch in 2017. A pioneering suit positioned as the most thermal and buoyant suit in the ARK Sports line without compromising of keeping the lowest weight. What came to be the world's fastest swimrun suit, has now been developed, optimized, and revolutionized for the start of the 2021 swimrun season.The suit retails for $710 and features premium Yamamoto Limestone neoprene, running+ bottom, thermal+ foam waist belt, and comes with arm sleeves. A men’s medium weighs just 510grams and a women’s medium weighs 500grams.Out of the box, this suit looks and feels premium. But how does it perform?Swimming ImpressionsChris and Chipper tested the ORNÖ X during two long Swimrun practices where the water temps were around 55 degrees. The suits worked amazingly. The suits felt properly warm and the thermal+ belt really helped to keep the core warm. The shoulder mobility was excellent. The anti-leak neckline worked as advertised. The running+ bottom felt like it was providing some warmth which might be due to the neoprene material lining of the running+.Annie tested the suit with both a pull buoy and without. She felt that the ORNÖ X provided some buoyancy even without a pull buoy. She was surprised by how great the shoulder material felt during the swim. The shoulder material also feels more flexible and stretchy compared to the ORNÖ 02 which might mean that it will have better durability (read: fewer armpit holes requiring repair).Brooke got her mind blown by the suit. She felt like she was swimming in a second skin and a perfect suit for the Pacific Northwest. She thought that just how it performs in the swim makes it well worth the money. Transition ImpressionsBasically a non-issue. Everyone thought that the suit performed great coming in and out of the water. The zipper size felt sturdy. Cabbing down and up was a little challenging, partly because of fear of tearing the suit.Everyone loved the new design of the rear pocket on the suit. It was really well thought out and worked as advertised. Similar feedback for the zipper size of the suit.The .5mm arm cuffs were another innovation in the suit that everyone thought was great. They help the suit stay in place and keep the arm sleeves well-positioned to create a good seal to keep water out.Running ImpressionsEveryone thought that running in the ORNÖ X Suit was great. The running+ material that ARK uses allows for complete running freedom and no one had any major complaints about the run performance of the suit. Chris runs hot and felt like he had to cab down/lower the zipper on most runs. Chris also experienced a tiny amount of chafing with one of the seams on the inside by the leg opening but it was barely noticeable and nothing a little bit of body glide wouldn’t fix.Brooke continued to get her mind blown running in the suit.Pull Buoy Rankings RankingsBrooke 5 Pull BuoysShe was smitten by the ORNÖ X Suit. A joy to run in, a joy to swim in, and she can’t wait to race in it.Chris 5 Pull BuoysHe thought that this suit is the pinnacle of technology for the sport and ARK Sports once again raised their own high bar. Next to the VIGG, it wa

Welcome to episode seventy-seven of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!ÖTILLÖ made its return to hosting events this past weekend on the Island of Utö...and what a triumphant return it was. The races looked super fun and the fields were stacked with a lot of the heavy hitters in the sport in attendance. We are super stoked to share our race recap with you and share a special guest race report with Helena Bjälkemo and Åsa Ehrnholm of Team Helena and Åsa. They were just the coolest and it was super fun to chat with them.But first... Training UpdateOur training for our Fall race schedule is going well. The intensity is picking up a bit with several rounds of fast intervals at our latest Swimrun practice and we didn’t die so that’s good. A lot of work still to do before Casco Bay but we’re having fun...so is it really work? Want to join us at Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay? Use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration. Shoutouts/Feats of EnduranceBlanket shoutout and Feats of Endurance awards to everyone who raced ÖTILLÖ Utö this past weekend. Special bonus shoutout to our friend Oscar Olsson (and previous guest of the show) for his great interviews and commentary all weekend long as part of the livesporttv.se crew.The FOMO was real for us but it was great to see so many members of our Strava club racing.Speaking of which, make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and connect with fellow Swimrunners as they train and race all over the world.ÖTILLÖ Utö 2021 RecapSwimrun season finally feels like it’s officially open with ÖTILLÖ’s first race of the year on the island of Utö. Not only was the sport of Swimrun essentially born on this island in the Stockholm Archipelago but it’s also just an amazing location for Swimrunning. Due to COVID restrictions the race was split up over two days with the Experience and Sprint races taking place on Saturday and the Sunday World Series distance race being broken up into three races with the Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed team races being split up over the course of the day to be in line with local rules. (We’re going to focus on the World Series distance but you can see the results for all the races over the weekend on the ÖTILLÖ website.)The World Series distance race was 26,2k (16.3 miles) of total distance with 22,05k (13.7 miles) of mostly technical trail running and 4,150k (4,538yds) of swimming. The longest run was around 6k and the longest swim was 400m.As we mentioned at the beginning, all three World Series races were stacked with some of the best athletes in the sport and the podiums definitely reflected that.Women’s Team Podium:1st Place: Team Envol Anna & Desirée (Anna Hellström and Desirée Andersson) 2nd Place: Wild Swimrun West Coast (Therese Bergling and Evelina Järvinen)3rd Place: ARKswimrun. (Helena Sivertsson and Kristin Larsson)Mixed Team Podium:1st Place: ARKswimrun (Ulrika Eriksson and Peter Oom)2nd Place: ARK Swimrun (Marika Wagner and Alexander Koller)3rd Place: Team Envol Switzerland (Sabina Rapelli and Alexis Charrier)Men’s Team Podium:1st Place: Öckerö Rörläggeri (Adriel Young and Max Andersson) 2nd Place: Kraken Swimrun (Pontus Lindberg and George Bjälkemo)3rd Place: ARKswimrun 1 (Lars Ekman and Fredrik Axegård)Overall, the weather was perfect for race weekend and the vibe of the entire event was one of celebration. This event has been a long time coming for Michael, Mats, and the rest of the ÖTILLÖ team and we’re super stoked that they are back to hosting events! Congrats to everyone that raced over the weekend and we can’t wait to be at the starting line of this race at some point in the (hopefully) near future.Special Race Report with Team Helena & ÅsaIt was really fun to sit down with Helena Bjälkemo and Åsa Ehrnholm the day after they raced the World Series distance race to get their take on how it all went down. (If anyone thinks that Helena’s last name sounds familiar it is because the reigning men’s world champion and two-time guest of the show, George, is her husband.) We’ve been fans of Helena and Åsa since we started following a bunch of Swedish Swimrunners on IG and their attitude towards training, racing, and the sport is a great representation of why the Swimrun community is the best!We spoke with Helena and Åsa about their athletic backgrounds, how they became Swimrun partners, and how they trained (or didn’t train) for Utö during the pandemic. We also chatted with them about how their Utö race went, got the lowdown on the whole vibe of the race, and what is up next for them. We loved having them on the show and think that you’ll really enjoy this interview.You can follow Helena and Åsa on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedba

Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay Course PreviewWelcome to episode seventy-six of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have a super comprehensive course preview for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay race. We raced Casco Bay in 2018 and we’re super stoked to be going back this year to race the long course again. We will be focusing on the long course in this show but the short course follows most of the same course so we will make sure to cover everything the short course Swimrunners will want to know. Putting together a course preview for Casco Bay is a challenge because the course has changed every year since it started in 2016 but that’s part of the allure. Casco Bay was the first European-style Swimrun (i.e., Island to island and point to point) in the United States and the brainchild of legendary race director Jeff Cole. Jeff and Lars Finanger partnered up to put on the first race 5 years ago and the rest is Swimrun history. When Jeff passed away in 2018, Casco Bay was renamed “The Cole Classic'' in his honor. It’s safe to say that Jeff would be super stoked with how the sport of Swimrun has grown in the U.S. With that as a prelude, let’s get into our course preview for Casco Bay. THE GREAT ATLANTIC NORTHEAST (IS THAT TERM A THING?) The Casco Bay islands are situated off of the coast of Portland, Maine. The islands are relatively easy to get to via ferry or water taxi service and there are plenty of activities to do for the whole family. Most Swimrunners will be staying on the mainland in the City of Portland which is a great spot with lots of really good restaurants, lobster shacks, donut shops, and tourist destinations. We definitely ate our way through town before and after our race! Getting to Portland is pretty straight forward. Folks can either fly into Portland directly or fly to Manchester, New Hampshire or Boston, Massachusetts and then drive up to Maine. NOW FOR THE “MAINE” EVENT (COURSE OVERVIEW) For a general overview of the Casco Bay course, we asked Lars to share his take on the course and what athletes can expect out there. Let’s break down the Casco Bay course for 2021. As we mentioned at the start of the show, the course changes every year so we will try to be as general as possible about the specific islands that Swimrunners will be crossing so they can be referenced in the future in case they are used again in following years in a different order. As we talk about the course you will notice that we will emphasize that all the distances are approximate because, well, that’s how it goes with Swimrun. The Casco Bay Long Course clocks in at 21.65ish total miles with 17ish miles of running and 4.65ish miles (7,465m/8,164ish yards) of swimming. The Short Course is 12.1ish total miles with 10ish miles of running and 2.1ish miles (3,400m/3,718ish yards) of swimming. The Short Course starts at Long Island (Run 7 on the Long Course) so athletes racing that course can skip the first bit and get a snack and jump back in when we start chatting about Long Island and onward. We recommend pulling up the course map on the Ödyssey Swimrun website and follow along the legs as we break them down. We are lucky to have a couple of course experts to walk you through the course instead of us. Joining us for this portion of the show are John Stevens: Multisport coach with PurplePatch Fitness and Casco Bay race director/course designer and Matt Hurley: Multisport coach and Co-Founder of Black Sheep Endurance Project. They have raced and won all four editions of Swimrun Casco Bay so we can’t think of a better duo to walk us through the course. Annotated Long Course Leg by Leg Breakdown with key features of each leg: R1: Peaks Island (2.0mi)Neutral start for everyone for the first .5 mileRace starts on low tideRocky entrance to first swimS1: Peaks Island to Cushing Island (965m/1,055yd)First swim will at low tide R2: Cushing Island (2.3mi)It’s a private island that we get to run through Only run that has any significant elevationS2: Cushing Island to House Island (645m/705yd)This swim might be longer than 700ydsVery rocky and slippery swim exit so take extra precaution to make sure that you have good footing and maybe be on all 4s if needed R3: House Island (.4mi)Another private island you run through an old war fort so don’t freak out by that S3: House Island to Little Diamond Island (965m/1,055yd)First “long” swim of the dayJohn Stevens thinks that this swim will be closer to 1,300ydMight be a longer or shorter swim depending on where the swim entrance is locatedSwim exit is on a beach by a dock R4: Little Diamond Island (.8mi)Swim exit has a short and steep hillFun factoid: John Stevens lives on this island S4: Little Diamond Island to Great Diamond Island (325m/355yd)This might be a sandbar run for fast and mid-packer racers R5: Great Diamond Island (1.3mi)A fun run S5: Great Diamond Island to Cow Island (200m/219yd)Nice and short swim R6: Cow Island (.5mi)There is a rope that athletes will need to

Welcome to episode seventy-five of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we head to “The Shire” (New Hampshire, not Tolkein’s Middle Earth) to chat with Keith Lundquist and Kanoa King of Team Keith and the Unicorn. These guys are one of the up-and-coming American teams and we’re super stoked to introduce them to our listeners.More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateThe training continues and we put in a 2 hour-plus Swimrun practice over the weekend and we’re definitely feeling like we are making progress. Our transitions are pretty much dialed in and our overall pace is feeling good. It’s almost as if all the swimming and running that we are doing is paying off! Weird! Casco Bay, here we come! #LFGShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out the ten folks from the swim club Pool2Lake who all completed their first Swimrun this past weekend at The Box End Bedford Swimrun put on by our friends at As Keen As Mustard events. We have no idea if they listen to the show or not, but either way we are stoked that they all came out to race their first event. Feats of EnduranceWe are going back to the Netherlands for this week’s FoE winner: Elly Dijk. She’s taking part in the Envol Coaching’s “Big Battle” and literally did eight Swimruns last week. Eight!Need some inspiration in your training life? Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and connect with fellow Swimrunners as they train and race all over the world. This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)Lots of Swimrun news to share this week.First off, we’ve got something special to share with everyone. We are debuting our “Notes from the Field” with guest correspondent Shane Chaplin. Former guest of the show (Episode 43) and our favorite Aussie living in Sweden was present at the ARK SUPERSPRINT put on by EX Swimrun a few weeks back and he shares his expert analysis of how the race went from his perch atop a stand-up paddle board on the swim leg for the event. Thanks Shane for your special report!Ödyssey Swimrun released their latest course overview zoom recording for Luddington last week. Check it out on YouTube to get all the info you need to convince you to sign up.It’s race week for Swimrun Knox! If you’re in the general vicinity of Tennessee or are willing to travel, registration is open for either the short or long course distance taking place on June 13th.Week one of Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” is officially in the books! Make sure you follow @envolswimrun on Instagram to see how all the teams are progressing. They also have a leaderboard with all the standing at envolcoaching.net for folks that want to check that out. (In case you’re curious about how Team Löw Tide Böyz is doing but are too lazy to go to Envol’s website, our team is not in last place.)Our friends at As Keen As Mustard events had their first race of the year over the weekend and the Box End Bedford Swimrun did not disappoint. (Fun fact: Google Maps describes Box End Park as a leisure park.) Good times were had by all at their first event of the year. Their next event, Nene Park Peterborough Swimrun is coming up on June 20th, so if you’re in the U.K. and are keen to try Swimrun, we can’t recommend a more welcoming event series. If you want to learn more about As Keen As Mustard events, check out our interview with the mother and daughter race directing duo, Nicky & Chelsea Bailey, on Episode 56 of the show.The Stockholm Swimrun took place over the weekend. The field was limited to 150 participants for this ÖTILLÖ Merit Race but it looked like a lot of fun. In other news, their winner’s trophy was humongous!The race (and city) whose name I’ve been butchering for weeks, the Jönköping Swimrun powered by Speedo, took place over the weekend. This race had some heavy hitters in the field and the competition for this ÖTILLÖ Merit Race looked fierce. Shoutout to Marie Anderzén, Annika Westin, and Anders Nyberg from our Strava Club who all raced on Sunday.In a little bit of a bummer, ATOBE events recently announced that they need five more teams to sign up for the epic ATOBE Ultra at their Immeln Swimrun for it to happen on August 21st. We haven’t chatted with them about this but we’re taking it on as a personal mission to try to get five teams to sign up for this 108km (97km running, 11km swimming) ultra by June 15th so that we can experience the FOMO from the U.S. Registration is open on raceid.com. (if you sign up after listening to this, send us a DM!)That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe know that we’ve been mentioning our Ödyssey Swimrun discount code a lot but that only because we love their events and think that you will too! Use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration. Looking to waste some time on YouTube? Check out the LTBz channel and check out our new How to Practice Smooth Transitions and our Pull Buoy Mounting Options Overview videos. Let us k

Welcome to episode seventy-four of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have the Founder of Synergy Wetsuits, Stefan Laursen. Get ready to learn about Stefan’s fascinating background, his ambitious Swimrun program, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the research and development process for making their new Swimrun wetsuits.More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe’re feeling like a couple of Swimrunners lately. Our pool was closed so last week was open water swimming week for us and we managed to get in three Swimrun practices since our last show. With Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay just two months away, it’s time to do some work!ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out Adrian Cameron. He rocked a 3rd place finish at the CapTex triathlon in Austin over the weekend and was rocking his Löw Tide Böyz shirt on the podium. Strong work out there dude!For folks who don’t know who Adrian is, check out the addendum to Episode 38 of our Ödyssey Swimrun Austin course preview show where Adrian scoped out the course at Pace Bend Park and then shared all his intel with us and our listeners.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Piet Wisse from the Netherlands. This guy just casually cycled 193.44 miles in just over 10 hours. Double centuries are something that we are familiar with and they are never a piece of cake but Piet made it look easy!Need some inspiration in your training life? Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and connect with fellow Swimrunners as they train and race all over the world. This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)Lots of Swimrun news to share this week.The Bellingham Swimrun, hosted by Quest Races and friend of the pod Brent Molsberry, is happening this coming Sunday, June 6th. You can get all the details on their website.Ödyssey Swimrun recently released their latest course overview video on Casco Bay. Anyone that registered or interested in registering for the original Ödyssey event should definitely check it out on YouTube.In international news, Swimrun Sumin took place over the weekend in Sumin, Poland. It’s great to see races coming back and this one looked like a lot of fun with a mix of terrains. On a side note, the course description infographics on their site are really cool.Swimrun Edmonton, where your’s truly won a prize at their virtual edition last year, announced that this year’s (non-virtual) edition is taking place on July 25 at Terwillegar Park. Registration is open now!In the category of “They did what now?,” a bunch of Swimrunners from Swimrun Côte D'azur completed the 6th edition of their Ultraswimrun of the Maritime Alps. This was a 78k (67k of running and 11k of swimming) coastline Swimrun from Le Trayas to Beaulieu-sur-Mer or basically from west of Cannes to East of Nice in Southern France. Amazing!Speaking of Swimrun Côte D'azur, their main event is now scheduled for October 24th in Beaulieu-sur-Mer and registration is open now! They offer 8k, 17k and 30k distance options and they have a really cool refund policy in place where all participants will get 100% of their registration fee refunded in the case of a COVID lockdown. If you want to learn more about the Swimrun scene in the South of France, check out Episode 48 with Laurene William and Irina Kondratieva of Team Swimrun Mermaids.Finally, Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” has officially begun! Make sure you follow @envolswimrun on Instagram to see how all the teams are progressing. Swimrunners can still sign up and join a team so don’t let the FOMO take hold and sign up at envolcoaching.net.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesSo last week was a big week for LTBz. We took over Ödyssey Swimrun’s Instagram stories and put out all sorts of content including the release of the short film, Swimrun Confessions, featuring the acting debut of Chris’s wife, Susan. If that wasn’t enough, friend of the show (and our guest on Episode 28 of the show) Adam Skolnick rocked his LTBz hat on the bi-weekly podcast Roll On that he co-hosts with Rich Roll. We’re big fans of Rich and Adam and it was a major thrill for us to see our tiny show get mentioned and it was an even bigger thrill to see all our fans be as super stoked about the mention as we were.Looking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration. We will be at Casco Bay, Orcas, and Austin this year so come join us! Mark your calendars if you’re in the Bay Area because we are going to be holding an “Intro to Swimrun” session and practice at Aquatic Park in San Francisco this Saturday, June 5th at 7:30am. Precision Hydration will be providing free hydration packets for everything to check out and we have some bonus swag that we’ll be giving away as well. So if you’re new to Swimrun or just want to practice with some other people, then join us on June 5th!InterviewStefan Laursen was an awesome

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, we break down the new Synergy Swimrun Wetsuit. At $200 this suit is an intriguing entry-level suit that looks and, more importantly, performs great. We would like to thank Synergy for sending us four of their new suits for us to test out.Our complete review is coming later in the show.Gear UpdatesAnnie swam in the Ark Sports KORP Wetsuit for the first time and only had good things to say about the suit. She tested it in pretty chilly water and didn’t experience any water pooling in the suit that others have experienced.Brooke tried to go full commando under her wetsuit for the first time...and she wasn’t a fan.Chris and Chipper got to try out the new Summer Smoc from Smoc Smoc. These bamboo fiber smocs are great for the summer months and make it really easy to change into and out of your Swimrun gear. Untethered ThoughtsThis week’s untethered thought comes courtesy of Amy Bush. She asked us why our Gear Talk show isn’t called the “Löw Tide Töyz” show. We discussed this at length and will consider the suggestion and try to incorporate “labs” in there somewhere.Synergy Swimrun Wetsuit ReviewWe all got to use the suits and have some well-formed opinions about the Synergy Swimrun Wetsuit. You can watch our first impressions video here to get a general overview of the suit.The suit costs $200. It comes with three pockets (two internal pockets in the front and one large zippered pocket in the back), a whistle on the zipper, and male and female-specific sizing. The Synergy website describes the suit as follows: The Synergy Swimrun is a high-quality suit with the essential features; long front zip, total of 3 accessible pockets, and graded/variable neoprene thickness to allow best flexibility while retaining buoyancy for swimming and enough insulation to keep you warm.Given that this is an entry-level suit, we thought that it would be important to calibrate our review with other similar entry-level suits with a similar price point such as the ORCA Core and the BlueSeventy Alliance Swimrun Wetsuit. It’s worth noting that this suit does not come with arm sleeves.Swimming ImpressionsChipper was worried about chafing with the collar of this suit but those concerns didn’t come to pass. The suit fit great and he thought that it kept water out well and kept him warm. He did feel that the velcro portion to secure the collar was a bit small and would have liked it to be a bit larger since it came undone during a swim and he had to adjust it.Brooke was also worried about the suit collar. She tried the suit on when it arrived and thought that the neckline felt a little “chokey” because it came up pretty high. She didn’t experience any chafing. She did experience some water entering the suit from the arms and flushing through the suit. (We all think that this was a fit issue.)Annie did not have any water entering into the suit and thought that the fit was spot on. She did experience some chafing. There is a seam on the collar that had some extra reinforcement but it did lead to some chafing. Chris’s expectations for the suit were low when he took it out of the box because at first glance it appeared that it was using a Gen 1-style design with thick neoprene on the legs instead of a more Gen 2 approach that is more run-forward. The suit definitely exceeded his expectations. The suit was great in the water and easy to swim in with good seals to keep water out and shoulder mobility wasn’t a problem. Transition ImpressionsChipper and Chris didn’t have any issues with transitions. The zipper was good for cabbing down and zipped smoothly.Brooke and Annie thought that transitions went fine. Annie was able to cab down no problem in the suit. Brooke felt like she was carrying some water with her but that could be because of the sizing issues that she was having.Running ImpressionsAnnie and Chris were pleasantly surprised with the run performance. Out of the box the suit felt stiff and had neoprene running down the entire front. They didn’t feel restricted at all during the run.Brooke felt very comfortable on the run and didn’t feel like she would overheat in the suit. Sizing down may have resolved some of the bunching issues that she was having.Chipper was very worried that he was going to cook in the suit because it seemed pretty thick. Just like everyone else, he was pleasantly surprised with how the suit performed on the run. He felt that the legs did ride up a bit but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. He did have some concerns about the front pockets not being super useful when cabbed down.Pull Buoy Rankings RankingsChipper 4.5 Pull BuoysChipper thought that for the price point, this suit was good enough for him to race in the suit. He said that he would be fine racing in the suit. This was the top of the heap in terms of entry-level wetsuits and it was a great suit for most Swimrun conditions.Chris 4 Pull BuoysChris thought that for an entry-level su

Welcome to episode seventy-three of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have Jennifer Devers and Bridgit Phillips on the show. They are a Swimrun team out of North Carolina with one of the best team names that we’ve seen in a while: Team Phyllis Hold My Shower Beer. More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe got redemption on last week’s irony fest and got in our two-hour Swimrun this past Friday. We busted out the tether for the first time of the year and ended our training with a 15’ pier jump before our last swim. We even did a bonus Swimrun practice on Tuesday! Fun times!ShoutoutsWe have two shout outs this week. First shoutout is to our buddy Alex Sigal. He’s not a Swimrunner yet but he shared a ton of intel with us for a potential Swimrun adventure while on a trail run on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay this past weekend. It looks pretty promising and we’ll be going out there in a few weeks to do some more recon. Good looking out Alex!Our second shoutout goes out to Oskar. His instagram handle is @enidiottvaklassiker (One idiot doing two Swedish Classics) and he sent us a DM thanking us for our ear plug recommendations. It worked out great for him and solved a major problem for him and his partner. So happy we could help!Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Will Ramsey. We know that we make fun of triathlon a fair bit in our memes but races are happening and it’s great to see our Strava Club members out there doing stuff. Will raced Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga over the weekend and his swim split was very spicy! Strong work buddy!Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)Lots of Swimrun news to share this week.The Bali Swim Trail Challenge took place over the weekend and it looked like a fantastic event. Friend of the show and YouTube sensation, Patrick Delorenzi, tipped us off about this event (and it was his first official Swimrun race) and he said that the course was great and he’s definitely keen to do more races.There are a lot of Swimrun events being confirmed in Europe now that COVID restrictions are being lifted in many countries. Swimrun Côte Sud Landes is taking place from June 18-20 in Southwestern France. Swimrun Gran Canaria is taking place on June 12th. Swimrun Victoria in, wait for it, Victoria, British Columbia is on! The race is set for August 15th and registration is open now.In ÖTILLÖ news, Swimrun Utö is confirmed for June 19-20th with some modifications since the authorities are limiting the fields to 150 participants at a time. Check out their website for all the details there. Make sure to check out ÖTILLÖ facebook channel as well for a live/recorded presentation regarding Utö and the rest of their race series.Speaking of Utö, we just learned that they have created a permanent Swimrun trail on the island similar to what Erika Rosenbaum did at Hellas. (Make sure to check out Episode 22 of the show to learn more about Erika and why she’s one of our favorite humans.)For anyone interested in joining us at Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island in late September, Lars, Aaron, John and the rest of the team over there held a super comprehensive Zoom chat all about the race this week. You can check it out on YouTube.Finally, Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” is starting on June 1st. Individuals can join teams from all over the world to do as many Swimruns as possible during the month and “battle” for top honors and prizes. In case you missed our video, we have a team in the “battle” and everyone is welcomed to join if they can pass the vibe check (being super stoked on Swimrun.) We only have a few slots left so make sure that you sign up soon to be part of the fun.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe have a couple of discounts to share with folks. Looking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration. We anticipate all the races selling out so don’t wait! Our friends at Precision Hydration set up the discount code LOWTIDE21 for 15% off of your order. That code is good through the end of May so don’t wait if you want to stock up for the Summer.Mark your calendars if you’re in the Bay Area because we are going to be holding an “Intro to Swimrun” session and practice at Aquatic Park in San Francisco on Saturday June 5th at 7:30am. Precision Hydration will be providing free hydration packets for everything to check out and we have some bonus swag that we’ll be giving away as well. So if you’re new to Swimrun or just want to practice with some other people, then join us on June 5th!Our latest video on the NU Orza Pull Buoy is up on YouTube. Check it out and let us know what you think.InterviewJennifer and Bridget were just delightful to talk to. We loved their attitude to training and racing and

Welcome to episode seventy-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We got something pretty awesome for you in this show. Unless you were living under a rock that didn’t have wifi access this past weekend, then you probably heard about the EX Swimrun’s Ark Supersprint event. This was a first of its kind event in the sport and we have the race director mastermind behind this event, Nicholas Roman, on the show to chat all about it!We’re super stoked for this one! More on that interview later in the show.Training UpdateThe irony was crushing this past weekend as we decided to go for a 2-hour Swimrun practice at a beach with notoriously low tide muck a couple of hours before low tide. Anyway, the tide was too low! On the brightside we didn’t lose any shoes in the muck. Onward and upward though.ShoutoutsThis week we are shouting out Justin Searcy. He’s been through our old catalog of shows and he slid into our DM’s with some great ear plug recommendations for Chris. Super cool of you for reaching out Justin. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Marie Anderzen. We think that it’s only fitting that this week’s winner be somebody from our Strava Club that competed in the EX Ark Supersprint event over the weekend. Great job out there Marie!Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a lot of Swimrun news to share this week.As we already mentioned, the sport of Swimrun saw something novel happen over the weekend. EX Swimrun hosted the ARK Supersprint Invitational. This was the world’s first Swimrun Supersprint. The course was super short: 1.2km in total distance, and consisted of two running legs of 1000m total with a 200m swim leg in the middle. Probably as a surprise to no one, Desirée Andersson, won for the Women’s side. On the Men’s side Max Andersson took first place.Our friends at Swimrun Portugal recently announced that a new race, the Lagoa Swimrun, will be taking place on October 31st. This race looks like it hugs the southern coastline of the city of Lagoa in the Algarve region and our super extensive internet research (30 seconds on Google) showed us that this location looks to be an incredible location for a Swimrun. Registration isn’t open yet so make sure you are following them on Instagram to get details on that.In local news, the next two Swimrun events in the U.S. look like they will definitely be happening. The Bellingham Swimrun, hosted by Quest Races and friend of the pod Brent Molsberry, is scheduled to happen on Sunday, June 6th. Get all the details on their website.A week later, the PBR Swimrun Knox event is happening on Sunday, June 13th in Knoxville, Tennessee (in case that wasn’t obvious.) This race has long (17.2 total miles) and short course (8.2 total miles) options so something for everyone. Registration is open now so head on over to their website to learn more.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur latest episode of Gear Talk with the Swimrun Labs is out. We reviewed the NU Orzo Swimrun Pull Buoy and we all thought it was great...or did we? Only way to find out is to check it out!We have a couple of discounts to share with folks. Looking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration. We anticipate all the races selling out so don’t wait! Looking to dial in your hydration strategy? Our friends at Precision Hydration set up the discount code LOWTIDE21 for 15% off of your order. That code is good through the end of May so don’t wait if you want to stock up for the Summer. We did!As a programing alert, we will be taking over Ödyssey Swimrun’s Instagram feed next week and frankly we’re impressed that they let us do it again! Anyway, we are going to be doing a bunch of cool stuff on there all week long (including giving away prizes) so stay tuned for that.InterviewIt was great to get to chat with Nicholas Roman, Co-Founder or EX Swimrun, about ARK Supersprint that happened over the weekend. Not only was it a cool event, it was obvious from listening to Nicholas just how super stoked he was with how it turned out. In this interview we discuss everything about this new race from how they came up with the idea, to location, to format, and ultimately, to race day. We also chatted with Nicholas about the other events that EX Swimrun has for the rest of the year. All in all, this interview was jam packed with enthusiasm for the future of Swimrun while we celebrated the birth of a new iteration of the sport.Make sure to check out EX Swimrun’s website for photos of the Supersprint event and learn about everything else that they are cooking up. You can also follow them on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player an

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this installment we talk about one of our favorite topics: pull buoys! And not just any pull buoys, but the NU Orza Swimrun Pull Buoy. He had a lot of thoughts on this one and can’t wait to share them below.Gear UpdatesChris and Chipper tested out the Ark Sports KORP wetsuits in open water at their first Swimrun practice of the year. They both stand by their ratings in the review but they both experienced air/water pockets in the back of the suit. They also tested out the Frank Paddle carbon fiber paddles in open water and they remained as awesome as they were in the pool. They guys switched paddles (medium-sized Ark Sports Blades) halfway through the practice and the difference was night and day. The Ark Blades felt super bendy by comparison to the Frank Paddles. This got Chris thinking that perhaps using a small Frank Paddle might be equivalent to using a larger regular paddle which could help keep the stroke rate up and keep the shoulder fatigue low. For a full discussion on all things swim paddles, check out our Gear Talk episode “Paddles for Swimrun” with special guest John Stevens. New Gear First ImpressionsThe awesome folks at Synergy Wetsuits recently sent the crew four of their new Swimrun Wetsuit to test out. This is an entry-level suit coming in at $200 with male and female specific options. It’s great to see another entry-level/affordable option for folks new to the sport. There will be a full review of this suit coming soon so stay tuned for that.You can see the first impressions video here to get a complete overview of the suit.Tethered ThoughtsChris used his old faithful Ark Sports Keel pull buoy at their Swimrun practice and he noticed after the starting that the paracord for his simple pull buoy mount had stretched. So much so that he had to wear the paracord as a sling over his shoulder to keep it from falling down below his waist. So a general reminder for everyone out there to check your gear before going out there to make sure that everything is tuned up and you won’t have to resort to random stuff to keep your Swimrun practice/adventure/race from going sideways on you.NU ORZA Pull Buoy Gear ReviewThe Orza is a Swimrun-specific wetsuit that costs $50. It weighs in at 150 grams and the dimensions are 24x27x10cm. It has a unique pontoon-style shape designed for optimal positioning and comes with a thin paracord already attached for those interested in using a simple waist mount attachment. Swimming ImpressionsChris used the Orza in both the pool and open water and used the Ark Sports Keel for comparison. The Orza was super comfortable to use. It does have less buoyancy compared to the Keel and he was about two seconds slower using the Orza versus the Keel.Brooke thought that the Orza was the most comfortable pull buoy that she’s used. She thought that it was a little bendy where the two pontoons connect but hasn’t experienced anything breaking off or anything like that. Overall, she thought that this pull buoy fits in between the Swimrunners Piraya and the Ark Keel. She was a little bit faster in the Piraya and Keel by about one second per hundred. (Listeners can check out the full pull buoy comparison chart on the Swimrun Labs website.)Annie loves the Orza pull buoy. For her size, she thought that this was the perfect pull buoy for her. In pool testing, she was over a second faster per 100 compared to the Keel.Chipper experienced similar floatation issues to Chris and wished it was a bit bigger. He was a bit worried about how low-profile it was and thought that he was going to lose it on a run. He would switch out the paracord to something a bit thicker than the one that’s included.Transition/Running ImpressionsOverall, the Orza was super easy to run with and it would stay in place nicely. Transitioning from run to swim, the Orza was pretty easy to wrangle between the legs.Pull Buoy Rankings RankingsChipper: 4 Pull BuoysChipper thought that the Orza was a pretty safe pull buoy for folks looking to just have one pull buoy in their stable. He also thought that if a Swimrunner is more on the larger side of things (height/weight) that this pull buoy might not provide enough flotation. He liked that it included the paracord attachment and took away some of the DIY anxiety that folks might feel about cutting holes in their gear. Brooke: 4 Pull BuoysBrooke thought that the shape was awesome and was super comfortable. She liked how she doesn’t feel it when she’s running. For training, she would give it 5 pull buoys. She might rate it higher overall but she hasn’t tested it in a full kit.Chris: 4.5 Pull BuoysChris gave it a bunch of rankings: 5 for comfort and 5 for running and transitions. While he wouldn’t use it for racing because he would like more buoyancy he still thinks that if it provides the right amount of buoyancy for the user, then this is an excellent pull buoy and only took off .5 pull buoys because it didn’

Welcome to episode seventy-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This episode is the latest installment in our ad hoc series: Swimrun 201-Advanced Topics in Swimrun. On this show we discuss in detail the concept of “Heads Up Racing.” Prepare for some knowledge bombs, but first....Training UpdateChris was out of town for work this past weekend so we didn’t get a Swimrun practice in but our training for Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay has officially begun. We will be ramping up our joint training sessions and look forward to sharing our progress (such as it is) with you. Now that we are training, we are going to start working on dialing in all of the key phases of racing to make sure that we’re as ready as we can be. On that note, it’s time for our first knowledge bomb of the show! We reached out to our friends at Precision Hydration to share their insight on the unique aspects of hydration for Swimrun and Andy Blow, the Co-Founder of Precision Hydration and previous guest of the show back in Episode 25 offered to share his wisdom as a hydration expert and experienced Swimrunner regarding the unique hydration demands that Swimrun events present to athletes. If that knowledge bomb wasn’t enough, Precision Hydration set up the discount code LOWTIDE21 for 15% off of your first order. That code is good through the end of May so make sure that you place an order and help make us look good.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out a couple of our listeners that reached out to us over the past week. First, big shoutout to Alex Linas and his partner Cam Holman for rocking the short course with a first place finish at Swimrun Lake James and then doing it again at Swimrun Maryland this past weeked. These guys are new to the sport but you wouldn’t be able to tell by these performances! Strong work guys.Our second shoutout this week goes to Scott Turner. He’s been a fan of the show for a while and just raced his first event at Swimrun Maryland. He got second place in the Solo Long Course Category and handled all the weather that got thrown at him (including thunderstorms and hail!) with aplomb. Super proud of you and hope to see you at Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay in a few months. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is NorCal local Jonathan Pascual who recently completed a big 30km trail run in our backyard trails of Mt. Burdell and didn’t invite us! We’ll forgive him this time...Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a lot of Swimrun news to share this week.First, congratulations to everyone that raced Swimrun Maryland this past weekend. As far as Swimrun events go, this one checked off a lot of boxes: it was cold, there was a thunderstorm and hail at one point, and there were a lot of smiling faces at the finish line. There were also a lot of first-time Swimrunners at the race which was awesome to see.If anyone is still on the fence about signing up for Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island we have two pieces of information for you. First, get off the fence and sign up! Second, Aaron and the rest of the Ödyssey recently hosted an info session about the race that you can check out on Youtube to help get you to comply with our first point to sign up! Atea Jönköping Swimrun, Presented by Speedo is set to take place on June 6th! This might be one of the first large Swimrun events to be taking place in Sweden this year and we couldn’t be happier. The event takes place in the town of Jönköping in southern Sweden has a 15km distance and a 35km distance that is also an ÖTILLÖ Merit Race. Registration is open now on Raceid.com. Speaking of ÖTILLÖ, they recently announced that they will begin hosting live interviews on Facebook on May 19th. The first interview will be with Co-Founder, Michael Lemmel about how the 2021 race season is developing and what participants can expect at the races. They will also be doing interviews the week before their races so that participants can ask questions and get a better understanding of what the race courses will look like and other relevant information. Finally, we wanted to give a huge congratulations to a long-time friend of the show and two and a half-time guest, Helen Wilkmar, on being named the CEO of Ark Sports. We are super stoked for her and super stoked for Ark. We have a special place in our heart for Ark since they were the first company to really give us the time of day and not only reply to our DM’s but agree to be interviewed way back on Episode Seven when Co-Founder (and the most interesting man in Swimrun) Christofer Sundberg came on the show. Onward and upward for Ark!That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesLooking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration. We anticipate all the races selling out so don’t

Welcome to episode seventy of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re headed back to the U.K. this week (North Wales to be exact) to chat with Anna Naylor, founder of Smoc Smoc. Don’t know what Smoc Smoc is, well you’re about to get an education!More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe did our first Swimrun practice of the year on Saturday! Went to our usual stomping grounds of Aquatic Park in San Francisco and had fun testing out the NU Orza pull buoy, Ark Sports KORP wetsuit, and Frank Paddles swim paddles in open water. (We will save our impressions for our Gear Talk show so stay tuned for that.) We did 6 runs and 4 swims with the runs increasing from 1 mile 3 and then back down with the swims staying static at around 400yds. The water was 56F (13C) so the shorter swims were just fine for our delicate bodies.We were stoked to be back out there and it will start being a regular thing now that we are about three months away from Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay. ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out everyone that’s headed to Boonsboro for Swimrun Maryland happening this weekend. The start list had some pretty funny team names so bonus shoutouts to: The Her-ricanes, Team Amphibilicous, Big Otter Energy, Please Bring Me My Whine, Grumpy Squared, This Tether’s For Strangling, Buoy oh Buoy, Doing This Again!, and We Put the F in Swimrfun.Yet another race that we would love to race but alas, we’re trying to keep our happy marriages happy and Chris will be in Texas for work. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Ben Kennedy from the U.K. Not only did he post a cool looking Swimrun workout this past week, the location was extremely British sounding. Ben ran in Druridge Bay County Park and swam in Ladyburn Lake that is located in Northumberland.Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.The race reports are flying in from Swimrun Lake James. Check out a really great one by Team Adorkable on their website.Our friends at Swimrun Portugal recently announced that it looks like everything will be a go for Swimrun Tamega Powered by HEAD Swimming due to a turn for the better in terms of the COVID situation in the Country. The race will be happening on June 6th so head out there if you’re able to. We know we would!Finally, we heard about a cool Swimrun event happening in Ocean City, NJ in late July to honor fallen soldiers called The Ocean City Iron Soldiers Swimrun. This event is a 1.5K ocean swim followed by a 4K beach run. There is no entry fee and all donations go directly to the charity Philadelphia Treats for Troops. Make sure to check this event out if you’re in the area.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesHead over to our store if you’re looking for ways to show your Low Tide Pride with a hat or shirt or both when you’re going around town and at races.Looking new or used Swimrun gear but don’t know where to go? Check out our Swimrun Swapmeet Facebook Group to buy, sell or trade Swimrun gear.Looking for a Swimrun challenge to do in June. Then you are in luck because Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” is happening in June. Individuals can join teams from all over the world to do as many Swimruns as possible during the month and “battle” for top honors and prizes. In case you missed our video, we have a team in the “battle” and everyone is welcomed to join if they pass the vibe check (being super stoked on Swimrun.)This Week’s InterviewIt was great to connect with Anna from Smoc Smoc. She has a super interesting origin story and her commitment to sustainability and protecting the oceans is infectious. We chatted with her about how she came up with the idea for Smoc Smoc, why she chose to keep production in the U.K. rather than outsourcing it, the magical properties of bamboo, and why she thinks that people love her products. We also chatted about her connection with two of our favorite people Mia and Fanny from Wild Swimrun. (Don’t know why they are our favorite people? Check out Episode 10 of the podcast.) Finally, we talked about what the future holds for Smoc Smoc.You can learn more about Smoc Smoc on their website and on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty-nine of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We got something new for everyone. On this episode, we welcome Marcus Barton and Lee Greene of Team Swaggy Zaddys for a special guest race report from Swimrun Lake James. It was almost too much fun to chat with Marcus and Lee but somehow we managed to get through it and share a cool race report from a couple of great ambassadors for the sport. But first...Swimrun Lake James Is In The Books!Swimrun season is here with Swimrun Lake James taking place over the weekend. We were definitely experiencing major FOMO and will definitely be at the starting line next year. It was really cool (and still unbelievable) to see so many people rocking Low Tide Boyz gear in photos that we saw at the pre-race packet pickup and race briefing. We loved getting all the messages and tags from folks all weekend as well. Special shoutout to Nancy Morris (Go Team Morris!) for her really nice email to us after finishing her first Swimrun with her daughter Lydia as her teammate. ÖTILLÖ Merit Race/Long Course Podiums:Women's:1st: Behme Me Up, Wheatley (Amy Wheatley and Carrie Behme)2nd: Phylis Hold my Shower Beer (Bridget Phillips and Jennifer Devers)3rd: Team Adorkable (Trista Mennen and Amy Bush)Mixed:1st: Boston Wet Sox (Brownen Price-Dierksen and Greg Dierksen)2nd: Radkat (Juli and Matthew Davenport)3rd: Hot Mess Express (Sarah Breaux and Johnathan Lejeune)Mens:1st: Keith and The Unicorn (Kanoa King and Keith Lundquist)2nd: The Mighty Boosh (Jack McAfee and Greg Harper)3rd: Kraken/Race Like a Viking (Lars Finanger and John Stevens)We asked on IG for some mini-race reports and as usual our fans didn’t disappoint. Here are the greatest hits:@Samanthafallon_: Wet and [email protected]: Great race, great people (Kristen, Tony, etc.), great course. LTB 2022!@d_sapp17: I’m apparently a grown up and wasn’t able to swing it with work…@amybush: (she had several submissions) 1. Hilda, don’t chew your feet. 2. My parts don’t work anymore. 3. Why does the water feel warmer than the air? (Turns out it was) 4. Why is this 7 mile run 29 miles?!@this_is_trista: The Low Tide Boyz were missed, and missed out@onewarriorprincess: Absolutely perfect course and venue! Top notch event! Definitely racing again next yr!@gdierksen: Fun trails; great swims; lots of transitions; fast race. And good beer to finish it [email protected]: Who would have thought the cold temperatures and pouring rain would be perfect?@sarahdvick: They seem to need bigger podiums@blakenuttall: transition transition transition transition transition transition transition transition transition@brookesfallon: Not for wimps!Guest Race Report Time!It was really great to have Marcus and Lee on to break down every aspect of their race last weekend at Swimrun Lake James. We chatted about how they met, what their training looked like, what gear they decided to go with, and of course, how their race went. The conversation was really funny at times and super serious at others. In short, listeners will get a great feel for the race and understand why Swimrun Lake James is on our bucket list.You can follow Marcus and Lee’s adventures on Instagram and on Speedylizard.com.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to Gear Talk! As always, this show is co-hosted by our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this installment of Gear Talk, we review one of the hottest new pieces of Swimrun Tech on the market: Frank Paddle’s carbon fiber swim paddles. The founder of Frank Paddle, Fredrik Bengtsson, was cool enough to send us a medium and a large pair of paddles to check out and--spoiler alert--we’re super stoked on them. You can learn more about Fredrik and Frank Paddle on Episode 50 of the podcast.But first, we have an untethered thought submission by our friend (and previous guest on the podcast way back in Episode 18) Marcus Barton blew our collective minds.New Gear First ImpressionsWe have a couple of new items to discuss this week. Swimrun superstar Trista Mennen mailed Brooke her KORP suit that is a size small for her to check it out. We’ll report back.Chipper tried LMNT hydration after hearing that friend of the show, Adam Skolnick, had tried it during his recent feat of endurance. LMNT has some pretty cool flavors and Chipper has been digging it.Will Watt from Above Below recently sent us one of their super popular RuckRafts to test for the show. We are super stoked to check it out in open water soon. The RuckRaft is an inflatable raft that comes with a built in dry bag to tow pretty much anything across the water. This thing looks perfect for a true Swimrun adventure. Stay tuned for a full review of the RuckRaft coming soon.Untethered ThoughtsMarcus reached out to us in response to our last Gear Talk show where we reviewed the Ark Sports KORP wetsuit. He mentioned his thoughts on what the back zipper pocket was for after hearing us go on and on about how we thought the placement was weird. Essentially, the zipper is for your partner to easily access, not yourself. You carry your partner’s nutrition or what have you and they carry yours. Not only does this make a ton of sense, it’s also totally in the spirit of the partner aspect of Swimrun. We then go philosophical for a bit...We collectively loved Marcus’s reasoning so thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. You can learn more from Marcus on his website.Tethered ThoughtsWe wanted to remind everyone of the new Swimrun Swap Meet forum on FB. This is a forum for people that are looking for Swimrun gear to buy, sell or trade. So if anyone got one of the KORP suits on faith but the sizing didn’t work out, we have a place for you to try to trade it. Join the Swimrun Swap Meet today! Frank Paddle Gear ReviewThese paddles are the original carbon fiber swim paddles. Fredrik’s story is a great one and it’s hard not to root for Frank Paddle as a company. These paddles are essentially made by hand and a lot of thought and experimenting went into creating these. You can check out Episode 50 to get the whole story.We were sent the following size paddles:M: length: 21.5cm, width: 19cmL: length: 23.5cm, width: 20.5cmSince we only had one set of each, Chris sent his Large paddles to Brooke to test and Chipper sent his Medium paddles to Annie.So they look cool, they are super light and really stiff. Now, do they work?Swimming ImpressionsFrank Paddle is something completely different. They feel super light and it was a different swimming experience due to the stiffness of them and how much water was being moved. The only way to get to how they perform was to test them.Brooke tested the paddles (with the caveat that the Frank Paddles are larger than the ones that she normally uses) and was about 2 seconds faster per 100yd even though her stroke rate went down noticeably. Over a longer distance, she did two 1-mile (1,650yd) swims, one with her normal synergy paddles and one with the Frank Paddles. In that test the Frank Paddles were almost 2 minutes faster than the regular paddles. Shoulder fatigue was enhanced using the Frank Paddles. Brooke wasn’t a fan of the paracord attachment.Chris saw similar speed improvements to Brooke, albeit less scientific. The feel of the water was very different and every stroke felt very powerful due to the combination of stiffness and lack of holes.“It moves water with aplomb” was the way that Annie (and her friend Caleb) would describe it. While she wasn’t used to using paddles as large as she tested, she saw 4 seconds per 100yd improvement but less so over longer sets due to shoulder fatigue. Annie’s friend Caleb, a born and bred open water swimmer, was cool enough to try the paddles out. He thought that the paddles resulted in one of his faster swims on an open water route that he swims often. He did say that he lost the feel of the water because the paddles were so effective at moving water.Chipper felt that the paddles were super light and was wondering if he would get used to it after using them for a while. He also liked the hole pattern of the paddles and the paracord attachment. Transition/Running ImpressionsWe were all really concerned about durability but Fredrik assured us that they can take a pounding. Sharp pointy t

Welcome to episode sixty-eight of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show, we’re taking another trip across the pond to Southern England to chat with Vinicius Vecchiatti and Sarah King of Söuthsea Swimrun. It was great to hear about how they are sharing their love for Swimrun and building community in Portsmouth, England. More on this interview later in the show.It’s Race Week!Swimrun season in the U.S. is officially kicking off this weekend at Swimrun Lake James in North Carolina. Best of luck to everyone racing either the short or long courses and remember to thank all the volunteers out there.ShoutoutsThis week we are shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon, Ryan Smith. Thank you so much for the support to help us keep the “lights on” and keep pumping out good content for everyone. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is last week’s honorable mention, Mike McMillian. He’s been crushing it in the gym and everywhere else apparently with a cool “Swim the Bridge - Double Crossing” workout that looked pretty awesome.Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.As we mentioned earlier, Swimrun season officially kicks off in the U.S. with Swimrun Lake James this weekend. This event is an ÖTILLÖ Merit Race (which means that Long Course teams will earn points towards qualifying for entry into the World Championship selection lottery.) Check out our recent podcast episode with Race Director Kristen Jeno if you want to learn more about the history of this race and get a mini-course preview.Speaking of Lake James, Wild Swimrun ambassador and our friend Trista Mennen is hosting a meet-and-greet on Friday, April 23 at 4 pm at Fonta Flora during packet pickup for Lake James for anyone who wants to learn more about Wild Swimrun. If you don’t know about Wild Swimrun (then you need to listen to more of our podcast episodes) they are a group of women who support women athletes to discover the sport of Swimrun. If you are a female, support a female, or just generally interested in what we do, come to say hi. For our German listeners, Swimrun Rheinsberg recently opened registration for their June 20th event. This race looks like it has it all: a kids race and super sprint, sprint, and long course distances. Get all the details on their website. This race is also part of the Deutschland Swimrun Cup consisting of ten races across Germany taking place throughout the year. Some of their urban Swimruns look--in a word--DOPE!In other event news, Envol Coaching announced their new “The Big Battle” virtual event this week. Individuals can join teams from all over the world to do as many Swimruns as possible in the month of June and “battle” for top honors and prizes. The registration fee is $13. You can find all the rules on the Envol Website. If you want to take part, feel free to join Team LTBz when you register. Teams are capped at 30 members so join us before we hit our cap. That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe have some upcoming programming alerts for everyone. We have some cool shows coming up in the next few weeks including a special guest race report from Swimrun Lake James, our full review of Frank Paddle’s carbon fiber swim paddles, the next installment in our “Advanced Topics in Swimrun” series, and other cool stuff. Stay tuned for all of that! This Week’s InterviewIt was a blast chatting with Sarah and Vini from Söuthsea Swimrun. We always love learning about people that are super stoked on Swimrun since they are our people. We especially love when they are doing their part to build community in their locales to share their love for the sport and encourage others to try it. We chatted with Sarah and Vini about how they discovered Swimrun and their journey to start the Söuthsea Swimrun club. We talked about how they handled COVID restrictions and managed to have safe weekly Swimrun practices all year. We also chatted about what they think the future holds for their club and for Swimrun in the U.K.You can learn more about Söuthsea Swimrun on their website and follow them on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty-seven of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we have the one and only Aaron Palaian from Ödyssey Swimrun. He has a super interesting back story and we discuss everything from his roots in endurance sports to Orcas and Bears in Alaska to driving cross country flying the Swimrun flag and so much more. More on this interview later in the show.Training UpdateTraining continues as usual and we’re definitely getting the itch to start Swimrunning again. ShoutoutsWe are shouting out the Country of Taiwan this week. They recently climbed into the top ten for downloads by country and we loved seeing that! It still blows our minds the people listen to our show from all over the world and we’re full of gratitude for letting us into your ears.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is our friend Sarah Fergot. We’re pretty sure that she’s won this award before but her Marin High 5 Unsupported (solo) 50 mile FKT with 12,103ft (3,689m) of climbing over the weekend is pretty much an automatic award. She’s awesome and this feat is definitely amazing!Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.Torpedo Swimrun held their Cape race over the weekend in Cape Town, South Africa. The course looked epic as it hugged the coastline and had a beach finish. We’re working on getting the folks from Torpedo on the podcast to talk about the growing Swimrun scene in South Africa so stay tuned for that.ÖTILLÖ announced this week that they are moving the date of ÖTILLÖ SWIMRUN UTÖ to June 19-20 from the original date due to uncertainty around Swedish restrictions around hosting events. ÖTILLÖ also announced that they have opened registration for Isles of Scilly 2022 and encourage participants to book their accommodations early since there are a limited number of beds there and they are booked up to a year in advance.In the weekly bummer department, Swimrun Costa Brava by HEAD announced last Friday that they had to cancel their event that was slated to take place on April 17th due to COVID restrictions put in place by the Catalonian government. No rescheduled date has been announced.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesA huge thanks to everyone that attended our Encore Premiere of All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions with special quests Carl Eneroth, George Bjälkemo, and Pontus Lindberg over the weekend. If you missed the Premiere, the film is available for rent or purchase at alltheway.se and all the proceeds go towards The Archipelago Foundation that helps preserve the Stockholm Archipelago that birthed the sport of Swimrun.This Week’s InterviewIt was really fun to have Aaron Palaian on the show. He’s the final person for us to interview from the Ödyssey Swimrun crew. He’s the COO/jack of all trades with a ton of experience in race directing, photography, marketing, and web design. He shared his super interesting origin story and how he found Swimrun. We covered everything from him getting into endurance sports to “impress the ladies,” how he became a uber-successful triathlon race director, how he created some epic Ultra Triathlons like Alaskaman, and how Lars moved to Texas and started to win all of Aaron’s races. We also chatted about the two new races on the Ödyssey race calendar: Luddington and Mackinac Island. Finally, we went into how Ödyssey is working to make Swimrun accessible for everyone that wants to try it.There’s a lot of good stuff in this interview! You can learn more about Aaron on his website and follow him on Facebook and Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty-six of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re super stoked to have George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg back on the show this week to chat about the film All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. We think G & P are great and it was fun to connect with them.More on this interview later in the show.But before we get too far into this episode, this seems like a good time to announce that our first event of our “media company” LTBz Productions, is happening on Sunday, April 11th at 3:00PM EST. We will be hosting an Encore Premiere of All the Way for the U.S. audience that missed the Premiere a few weeks ago. Special guests G & P will be on after the film for a Q&A with the audience. Head over to lowtideboyz.com/alltheway for all the details.Training UpdateTraining continues and we’ve been seeing a lot of improvement thanks to the swim coaching we’ve been getting from Tower26. If anyone is looking to give their swim training a jolt of energy, we definitely recommend their program. Swimrun practices are on the horizon and we’ll be heading back to Lake Sonoma for the first (of hopefully many) Swimrun adventures there. If you want to hear more about Tower26 check our episodes with Gerry Rodrigues, Founder of Tower 26, and Emma-Kate Lidbury and AMA style interview with Tower 26 coaches Megan Melgaard and Jim LubinskShoutoutsWe have a shoutout-heavy episode this week so let’s get right to it. First, a big shoutout to Helene for her generous donation to our fundraiser for Wild Swimrun’s Wild Youth Initiative. If you heard last week’s episode then you know that we’ve raised enough funds for a second woman or girl to attend one of their amazing camps but we’re not satisfied with that. With Helene’s help, we’ve got a jump start on getting a third scholarship funded. You can donate to Wild Swimrun at lowtideboyz.com.Next up, we have a combo shoutout for a great training crew from North Carolina. A group of eight of them are doing their first Swimrun at Lake James in a few weeks. (They were supposed to do the race last year to celebrate Chris’s 60th birthday, but COVID.) So best of luck Chris (and Happy 61st Birthday), Bob, Al, Bobby, Ryan, Kristen, Brian, and Bernard. Thanks for listening to the show and prepare to have an awesome time at Lake James! Finally, we wanted to give an extra special shoutout to Trista Mennen. She was recently selected to be a Wild Swimrun Ambassador and we can’t think of a better person to represent the inclusive spirit of Swimrun and the mission of Wild Swimrun to get more women and girls into the sport. Her enthusiasm is infectious and she’s personally gotten a small army of people to get super stoked on Swimrun. Thank you for everything that you’ve done and will do for the sport.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is none other than Chipper’s brother, Michael. Chipper has been working on getting him super stoked on Swimrun and it’s working! Keep it up “Little Chipper!”Bonus awards this week go to Bronwen and Greg from Team Boston Wet Sox for posting workouts while on their recent vacation to Puerto Rico. They ran in Chris’s hometown and swam in the ancestral waters (Ocean Park) where he learned to swim.Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.ÖTILLÖ announced that all of their 2021 events are open for registration on raceid.com. We are already registered for Catalina so come join us. If you need more incentive than just hanging out with us in the back of the field...early bird registration is happening until April 13th so sign up early to save money.Ladies, save the dates of May 15-16 for the next Wild Swimrun camp called Wild Day at Utö. Pretty sure everyone can figure out where the camp is being held. There’s more info on that coming soon so sign up for the Wild Swimrun newsletter to be the first to hear all the details.The next registration price increases for Ödyssey Swimrun events Mackinac Island, Swimrun Ludington, and Swimrun Austin are happening on April 14th at midnight so make sure to sign up soon if you want to race AND save some money. Our sources (the Internet) tell us that Mackinac Island is already 50% sold out so let the FOMO take over and sign up soon! That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur latest episode of Gear Talk with The Swimrun Labs is out. We do a full review of the Ark Sports KORP Wetsuit so check it out wherever you’re already listening to podcasts and stuff.Speaking of gear, we were sitting in the idea lab (Chipper’s garage) and came up with something to help everyone buy, sell, or swag new and used gear. Check out our Swimrun Swapmeet Facebook Group and help find your used gear a new loving home.Finally, mark your calendars to join us on Sunday, April 11th at 3:

Ark Sports KORP Wetsuit ReviewWelcome to Gear Talk! As always, this show is co-hosted by our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode we do a deep dive into the Ark Sports KORP Wetsuit. This suit has gotten a lot of attention lately due to Ark deeply discounting the suit by 50% for a week that caused the corner of the internet that cares about Swimrun to freak out. We know that a lot of people purchased these suits so we breakdown all of our thoughts on this amazing piece of kit.But first, we are unveiling a new segment...Untethered ThoughtsWe got a great email from Jasper from Belgium with some feedback about our winter open water swimming AND our swim paddles episodes. We really appreciated him taking the time to write to us and that inspired us to create this segment.Jasper (who has a PhD in physiology) wrote to us to clear up that the reason that people tend to pee more when it’s cold is that kidneys are flushing fluid out in order to release pressure from your system to send blood to your core to keep your organs warm. Hence, you can get more dehydrated in cold water so make sure that you’re on top of your hydration all the time, but definitely during cold events.Jasper also had some feedback on some swim paddle testing that he did and had some interesting findings. He found that if he shortened the distance from the tip of the swim paddle to the tip of his fingers that this made his swim times be faster with less shoulder strain. It totally makes sense that if you shorten the lever arm (length of the arm with paddles) that this reduces the torque on the shoulder. If your paddles have extra holes for straps, try to moving them so that your fingertips are closer to the edge of the paddles and see if that works for you. Thank you again Jasper!Reach out to us if you have anything that you’d like to share with us to be part of this new segment. New Gear First ImpressionsWe have two items to discuss this week. Chipper and Chris got the NU Orza Pull Buoy courtesy of The Swimrun Labs. This pull buoy is comparable in size with the new Ark Sport Keel s and comes with a pre-drilled hole and a yellow paracord for mounting. We’re excited to check it out and do a full review on a future episode.Chipper and Chris also got a special delivery from Frank Paddle a few weeks back with two sets of carbon fiber swim paddles to test. Their first impressions are that these things are incredible! A full review will be coming out soon. If you want to learn more about these paddles in the meantime, check out episode 50 of the podcast with Frank Paddle’s founder, Fredrik Bengtsson.Finally, Annie was recently contacted by a couple of companies that are designing Swimrun-specific undergarments for women. Handful (that’s the name of the company) sent over some prototypes for the ladies to test and Innovenia reached out for some customer feedback. Here is the survey link for the Innovenia research. AnnouncementsChipper and Chris were in the garage where most of the show ideas seem to be born and they came up with the idea to create a “Swimrun Swapmeet” on FB. This is a forum for people that are looking for Swimrun gear to buy, sell or trade. So if anyone got one of the KORP suits on faith but the sizing didn’t work out, we have a place for you to try to trade it. Join the Swimru Swap Meet today! The Wetsuit Details from Ark SportsArk Sports describes the KORP as “the optimal all-round” wetsuit. Their website states that “the suit is designed to cover the whole spectra of swimrun races, from shorter sprints to longer full-day adventures. This suit is designed for the athlete who prefers a lightweight and flexible suit where comfort is key.”The KORP is Ark’s entry-level option but the suit is packed with tech. The suit has the following features:Premium Yamamoto LIMESTONE neopreneLow weightScratch-resistant surfaceRunning+Master buoyancy belt - 3 mmAnti-leak neckUltraFlex inner linerBack pocket with zipper closureSeparate arm sleeves includedA medium-size suit weighs in at a ridiculously light 550 grams (19.4 ounces).Running ImpressionsRunning in the KORP is a dream! This “Gen2” wetsuit (a wetsuit little to no neoprene below the waist) like the rest of the Ark Sports suits designed by Daniel Sand, is optimized for running. You can learn more about Daniel on episode 53 of the podcast. The bottom of the suit uses Ark’s Running + fabric that is great to run in and comparable to the Running ++ fabric that Ark uses on the UTÖ and the VIGG. The neoprene on the top of the suit is thin and comfortable to run in.Chipper and Chris took the KORP on a hilly trail run. Cabbing up and down was not a problem at all. Chris thought that the neckline wasn’t as comfortable as the VIGG suit.Swimming ImpressionsChris and Chipper tested a suit in the pool. They both thought that the suit was comfortable to swim in. There was some water that got in through the neck closure and pooled in the lower back but that might be mitigated by making

Welcome to episode sixty-five of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!In this episode, we chat with the race director of Swimrun Lake James, Kristen Jeno. This year’s race is coming up on April 24th and we have the origin story and a mini-course preview for everyone to listen to.More on this interview later in the show.ShoutoutsWe have a major shoutout this week to our friends G Flo and Tobias of Team Max Mockermann (and guest on Episode 57 of the Podcast) for sending us a custom LTBz blanket for Christmas. It took over three months for the blanket to arrive from Germany but we were super stoked to receive it and we’re full of gratitude for them making the effort. Feats of EnduranceThis week’s award(s) go to Stirling and Lolo of Team Run for Tacos. They held a fundraising event a few weekends ago on Strava and have a Swimrun in their sights for 2021. Keep up the great work guys!Don’t know what we’re talking about? Join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world and win free stickers and other cool stuff.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.It looks like Swimrunning events in Portugal are back! Swimrun Portugal (check out our interview with race director Bruno Safara on Episode 35 of the podcast) recently announced that the Tamega Swimrun powered by Head Swimming is happening. The race is scheduled for June 6th and offers two distance options. Registration is open on raceid.com.In more of a bummer, the Anjou Swimrun in Angers France announced that they are postponing their 2021 event to 2022. They will be emailing all registered participants with their defer and refund options.The premiere for the film All the Way:The Making of Swimrun Champions was a resounding success last week. Anyone interested in seeing the film has until April 5 to be able to watch it for free at alltheway.se. In related news, we are working on hosting an encore premiere for U.S. swimrunners. We’ll be sharing news about that as soon as we have the date and special guests confirmed.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe have a major update to share! With the help of some generous donations (looking at you Trista and Lori), we’ve managed to raise enough funds to sponsor a second young woman to attend a Wild Swimrun camp as part of their Wild Youth Initiative. We love everything that Wild Swimrun is about and we’re so happy to play a very small part in helping introduce the sport to more women. If you want to learn more about Wild Swimrun, check out our interview with Co-founders Mia and Fanny on Episode 10 of the podcast.The new LTBz hats are here and all the pre-orders have been mailed out! Head over to our store to order one if you’re feeling some FOMO. Use code “NEWLID” to save $10 off any order of $50 or more!This Week’s InterviewThis week’s interview checks off a lot of boxes. We got to chat with a trailblazing race director, learned about the history of Swimrun Lake James, and got a mini-course preview before the sold-out April 24th race. It was great to connect with Kristen Jeno to chat with her about all these topics before the kickoff of the 2021 U.S. Swimrun race calendar. In this interview, we discussed her athletic background and her discovery of Swimrun. (BTW, her first race was the World Championship!) We chatted about her race director background and how she developed her concept to host a Swimrun in Lake James, North Carolina. We got a bird’s eye view of this year’s racecourse from and discussed what the future holds for Swimrunning.You can learn more about Swimrun Lake James on their website.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty-four of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!Welcome to the inaugural LTBz Go To the Movies episode where we review the film All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. This film chronicles the journey of George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg as they prepare for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship. But this film is so much more than that, it’s really a window into the sport of Swimrun and why it’s awesome. It tells the story of Swimrun in a way that can appeal to everyone. The film’s director, Carl Eneroth, shares his discovery and journey in Swimrun and uses his perspective to uncover the magic of the sport and, specifically, the World Championship. The film premiered on March 24th.We were lucky enough to get access to an early version of the film and were blown away by how great it was. George and Pontus were worthy subjects for the film and their humility and commitment to each other showcases some of the best aspects of the sport of Swimrun. The other main character in the film, the Stockholm Archipelago where the sport was born 15 years ago, is both mysterious and enticing for anyone who is predisposed to Swimrun. With the help of ÖTILLÖ, Carl was able to infuse the film with amazing race footage produced by Rasmus Lodenius (learn more about Rasmus on Episode 39 of the podcast) that leaves the audience with a great sense of the magic of the sport.All in all, we both thought that the film was a great way to showcase the sport Swimrun and George and Pontus are easy heroes to care and root for. We recommend this film to everyone who might be interested in Swimrun and if you’ve already drank the kool-aid on the sport this film is sure to keep that flame burning bright. You can learn more about the film at alltheway.se and rent it through that page. All proceeds from rentals and purchases will go to Skärgårdsstiftelsen (The Archipelago Foundation) that has been working since 1959 to preserve and develop the archipelago from Arholma to Landsort. We have been lucky enough to interview many of the swimrunners in All the Way. Here are a list and corresponding episode number if you want to dive in deeper!Mats Skott, Otillo | Episode 16Erica Rosebaum | Episdoe 22Daniel Hanson (in Engadin Course Preview) | Episode 24Kraken Ultra Swimrun w/ George & Pontus | Episode 36Rasmus Lodenius | Episode 39Annika Erickson | Episode 55 Carl Eneroth, Director All the Way | Episode 62That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty-three of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!In this episode, we head to the Gold Coast of Australia to chat with Ty Dowks from Burleigh Swim Run. It was great to interview Ty about his event and celebrate the 11th edition that took place earlier this year.More on this interview later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we have not one, but two shoutouts! First, we’d like to shout out Jasper Dewit for sending us a new entry to our International Swimrun Adventure Guide all the way from Belgium. We really appreciate your help in growing our guide!We’d also like to shout out Lori Lussier for making a donation to our WILD Youth Initiative fundraiser for Wild Swimrun, our guest on episode 10. On that note, we are getting close to raising enough money to fund a second scholarship for a young woman to attend one of their amazing camps as part of the WILD Youth Initiative so head over to our website to donate.Training UpdateUnstructured training continues except for in the pool where we the great minds at Tower26 are helping us be less bad in the water. We’re still waiting for events to resume in California but until then you can find us doing random stuff.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s prestigious award goes to Rick Mann from Florida. He’s been posting up some cool workouts while on vacation in Chris’s homeland of Puerto Rico so that pretty much triggers an automatic award!Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.The 4th edition of Swimrun Uruguay happened over the weekend. The weather looked amazing and while the Instagram photos weren’t as plentiful as we would have liked, we experienced FOMO just the same.The Holy Island Swimrun put on by the good folks at Love Swimrun is happening on September 11th in North Wales. New for 2021: they’ve extended their full course to 23km and added a new 10km sprint course. Best of all, registration is open now!Registration for the 5th edition of Swimrun Cote D’Azur is open taking place on October 24th. Located near Nice France, this race has three distances and looks really fun! Make sure to listen to our episode with the Swimrun Mermaids if you want to learn more about this jewel of a location for Swimrunning.Unless you were living under a rock...where you didn’t have WIFI, you probably took advantage of the 50% off sale last week for the entry-level/yet still pretty advanced Ark Sports Korp wetsuit. We will be sharing a full review on Gear Talk soon so keep a lookout for that. (Spoiler alert: it’s a great suit!)That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur latest episode of Gear Talk with The Swimrun Labs is out now! We reviewed the new Ark Sports Keel+ so check that out if you’re in the market for a mondo pull buoy or just want to hear Chipper try to say “Lasso” correctly.The new LTBz hats are here! Head over to our store to order one or three. Use code “NEWLID” to save $10 of an order of $50 or more!The world premiere of All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions is taking place next week on March 24th at 8PM CET (11AM Pacific.) We encourage everyone to sign up on the film’s website to watch for free. Check it out and let us know what you think. On a related note, we have a programming alert for next week. We will be sharing a new show format where we will be giving our official long-form review of the All the Way film.This Week’s InterviewFull disclosure: when we reached out to Ty about being on the show, we weren’t sure what exactly we were getting into. We had heard about his Burleigh Swim Run race and checked out the Instagram page but as soon as we got on the phone with him, we were super stoked that we did. Following the long and storied tradition of the Australian Nutri-Grain IronMan and IronWoman series where athletes engage in a variety of feats of endurance, Ty created an event for the entire community to Swim and then Run. While not your typical Swimrun in the European-style, Burleigh Swim Run has all the fun and community feels that you’d find any Swimrun finish line around the world.In this interview, we chatted with Ty about how he got into the Swim Run space and how he came up with the idea for the Burleigh Swim Run. We spoke about how the event has grown over the 11 years that he’s put it on and what the future holds. The fact that we recorded this interview while he was coaching a bunch of kids at an open water swim meet pretty much tells you all you need to know about Ty’s passion.You can learn more about the Burleigh Swim Run on their website and check them out on Instagram. That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spoti

Welcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs swimrun gear review show!In this episode we discuss one of our favorite topics: Pull Buoys. We do a deep dive into the new Ark Sports Keel + and break it all down.Before we get into that, we have some gear updates.Gear UpdatesAnnie dusted the cobwebs off of her old Finis Swim Snorkel and has started using it in the pool again to mixed results. Speaking about swim snorkels...Chris ended up copying Chipper and got the Aqua Sphere/Michael Phelps Focus Swim Snorkel and thinks that it is a vast improvement from his old Finis one but is still getting used to it. Brooke is 100% sold on the NRS Maxim gloves. She used them in open water in the ocean for the first time and they were amazing. She has since ordered the NRS Booties to complete her cold open water situation.Chipper is still in love with his Red Original Dry Robe and hasn’t been stopped by the neighborhood watch yet so all’s good there.Keel + Pull Buoy ReviewThe Keel + is the largest pull buoy available from Ark Sports. With the following dimensions: Length 28 cm, Height 31 cm, and Width 12 cm. For reference, ÖTILLÖ has limit on the maximum pull buoy size of Length 30 cm, Height 32 cm, and Width 15 cm. We think that Ark Sports didn’t take it to the limit because it didn’t need to. The Keel + is super buoyant at 55 Newtons and any more might just be too much. Swimming ImpressionsAnnie and Brooke did some scientific testing in the pool comparing the Keel to the Keel +. For Brooke, the Keel + was 2 seconds per hundred faster than the regular Keel. She also thought that the pull buoy was a bit “too much” in terms of buoyancy. She also felt that the Keel + was a bit too long and she couldn’t keep it nice and snug between her legs. Annie was disappointed in her swim test. She tested the NU ORZA, Swimrunner’s Piraya, and the Keel pull buoys and was fully expecting that the Keel + would make her faster but instead she was about 2 seconds per hundred slower than with the regular Keel. She felt that the Keel + was too big and challenging to wield. It felt thick between the thighs and it went below the joint line of her knees and couldn’t get comfortable with it.Chris and Chipper also tried to do “science.” For Chris, the Keel + was definitely faster in the water than the normal Keel. He felt that the fit was a bit tough because the pull buoy felt fine in the groin but it was hard to keep between the legs towards the knees and it felt like it was popping out a bit. Chipper tested the Keel + just using the buoy with no paddles and felt that it was faster in the pool and in open water. He thought it was too big for the pool.Chipper and Chris did use the Keel + in training and raced with it in Ödyssey Swimrun Austin and it was a non-issue in the water.Transition and Running Impressions Brooke practiced transitioning with the Keel + and found that tucking it into the loop was only possible by using Chris’s method of tucking the buoy in the front and then moving it to the back. Chipper also had to use Chris’s method for the Keel +. Everyone thought that a thigh mount pull buoy method might be tough to pull off. There’s just a lot of pull buoy that will stick out while on the run. Speaking of the run, Chipper and Chris practiced with the Keel + before Swimrun Austin and felt that it was fine. The Keel + wasn’t so wide that elbows would hit the thing during a normal stride but it did take up the whole back.Pull Buoy Rankings(By way of reminder from our Ark Sports Keel review Gear Talk Episode: Annie, Chipper, and Chris gave the Keel 4.5 pull buoys each and Brooke gave it 4 pull buoys.)Chris’s Pull Buoy RankingChris gave the Keel + 4.5 pull buoys. The Keel + has a very specific application and it works really well if you’re tall enough and strong enough to wield it. He docked it .5 for the lack of universal applicability. He plans on continuing to race with the Keel +.Brooke’s Pull Buoy RankingBrooke gave it 4 pull buoys. She docked some points for it being over-designed and she didn’t feel that the Keel + gave a distinct advantage but it is a great option for people that come in different shapes and sizes.Chipper’s Pull Buoy RankingChipper gave it 4 pull buoys. He docked some points because the Keel + didn’t have universal applicability and not something that you could use for all aspects of Swimrun training and racing like one could with the Keel.Annie’s Pull Buoy RankingAnnie gave the Keel + 3 pull buoys. She felt that it was over-designed and sort of sets up an arms race of having multiple pieces of gear. She also felt that this wasn’t the only pull buoy that you have in your quiver. Overall ImpressionsWe all felt that the Keel + isn’t for everyone. It’s a great piece of tech for those who feel that they can wield it but it might pose a challenge for shorter athletes or those that don’t want to be engaging their adductor muscles for an entire Swimrun. It’s a great option to have but we would recommend that if you’

Welcome to episode sixty-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We know that we always say that we’re always super stoked about our guests but it’s just true. This week is no exception. On the show this week we have Carl Eneroth, the filmmaker behind the forthcoming documentary All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. This film chronicles the journey of George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg as they prepare for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship. But this film is so much more than that, it’s really a window into the sport of Swimrun and why it’s awesome. The free online premiere of the film is scheduled for March 24th and we highly, highly encourage anyone who loves Swimrun to check it out. We also encourage anyone who loves someone who loves Swimrun to check it out as well.More on this interview later in the show.Shoutouts/Feats of EnduranceThis week we’re doing a combo shoutout and awarding our friend, and the previous guest of the show way back on episode twenty-eight, Adam Skolnick. He completed David Goggins’s 4x4x48 over the weekend and did great! As big proponents of “unnecessary” feats of endurance, Adam really stepped out of his comfort zone, put himself out there, and got it done. Strong work brother!We had a few other folks in our Strava club take on the challenge so congrats to Ben and Tony and anyone else that we might have missed.Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world. This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.ÖTILLÖ Swimrun announced some changes to their 2021 race schedule due to the ever-changing COVID situation. ÖTILLÖ Malta has been postponed to November 2021 and unfortunately, ÖTILLÖ Isles of Scilly has been postponed to 2022. The third edition of Swimrun del Bilancino is taking place on June 13 in Barberino di Mugello in the Tuscany region of Italy. The race offers two distances (SPRINT with 4km swim and 18km run and PROMO with 1.5km swim and 10km run) and did we mention that it’s in Tuscany! Thank you to race director Paul Bernier for bringing this race to our attention. (In case the name Mugello rings a bell to fans of F1, it’s the location of the circuit by the same name and the test track for Ferrari.)In other race news, the Trans Cape Swimrun took place over the weekend in Western Australia. The race was completely sold out and photos on Instagram showed an epic day for racing with really cool terrain and, of course, a ton of smiling faces. That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.This Week’s Interview is a saying that this week’s guest Carl Eneroth mentioned to us and we think that it perfectly embodies the spirit of Swimrun. It means “Team before self” and Carl found a way to capture that spirit in his film, All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. In the film, Carl shows the magic of the sport in a way in a multi-layered way that we haven’t seen presented before. Following George and Pontus (two world-class humans, athletes, and previous guests on the show) as they train for the 2018 and 2019 ÖTILLÖ World Championship, the film interlaces interviews from previous winners and giants of the sport with race footage and successfully makes the case that Swimrun is a hero’s pursuit.In this interview, we chatted with Carl about how he got into filmmaking and how he discovered Swimrun and what was the spark that led him to want to make a documentary about the sport. We discussed some of the central themes of the film including the magnetic Swimrun community, the joy of moving through nature, the insights into what it takes to Swimrun at a high level, and, of course, collectively agree that George and Pontus are awesome.We encourage everyone to sign up on the film’s website to watch the free premiere on March 24th at 8PM CET (11AM Pacific.) If you haven’t already drank the Kool Aid on Swimrun before watching it, you’ll start drinking it during this film.You can learn more about Carl and his film company, The Stockholm Social Innovation Lab on their website. That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode sixty-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re super stoked about this week’s guest! We are headed to South America for the first time to check out the Swimrun scene in Brazil with Fabio Iskandarian. He’s the founder of Hero Swimrun and chief Swimrun Evangelist in the Rio de Janeiro area. It was great to interview him for the show and it really reaffirmed our theory that Swimrun is just a special sport that draws great people from all over the world to it. Fabio’s passion is a testament to that!More on this interview later in the show but first...Obrigado a todos do Brasil por ouvirem este podcast.ShoutoutsThis week we’ve got dual shoutouts to our two latest Patrons on Patreon: Caleb Baity from North Carolina and Jason Hodgetts from the U.K. We really appreciate your support of the show and helping us fund our outsized international sticker mailing budget.Adventure Time/Training UpdatesThe unstructured training continues...except in the pool. We are both officially being coached in the pool by Tower26 and really can’t speak highly enough about Gerry, Jim, Megan, and the rest of the crew over there. We decided that we wanted to really work on our swim fitness going into this year’s race season and well, we’re certainly doing that. Make sure to check out our two episodes with Tower26 coaches (Episode 32 with Gerry Rodrigues and Emma-Kate Lidbury and Episode 42 with Megan Meelgard and Jim Lubinski) to glean some swimming wisdom from them.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s winner is Bart Czarnecki from Poland. He’s been posting 3-minute ice bath swims and adding a photo with a smile. Not sure if the smile is frozen on or not but keep it up!Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island, located in northern Michigan, is open for registration. Sign up for either the short or long course to check out this small island on Lake Huron. The race date is Sunday, August 29, 2021, and registration is limited to 250 teams total so you know what to do if you want to experience this race.Speaking of Ödyssey Swimrun, today (March 4th, 7 pm, EST) they are hosting a Zoom call talk about their 2021 race season. We will be on the panel of speakers so we hope that Ödyssey won’t regret that decision! The link to the call can be found on the Ödyssey website.In other news, Breca Swimrun has announced that they have opened all of their 2021 U.K. races for registration. They have only opened Sprint and Solo Sprint distances at the moment and plan on opening up the long course distances once the U.K. eases their COVID restrictions. Their confirmed 2021 races are Coniston on July 10th, Gower on July 31st, Loch Lomond on August 7th, and Jersey on September 4th. Head over to their website for all the latest details.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur new “Super Stoked on Swimrun” stickers are being mailed out at a steady clip. Drop us a message on IG or send us an email with your mailing address and we’ll mail you a free sticker to anywhere in the world that accepts mail. The new Low Tide Boyz hats should arrive at HQ in the next few weeks. Now that their arrival is imminent, we’re taking pre-orders in our shop for those who want to be the first to rock one.This Week’s InterviewThis week’s interview is a special one. We were stoked to chat with Fabio Iskandarian of Hero Swimrun a few weeks ago and we were humbled about how stoked he was to chat with us! A stoke fest all around for sure.We chatted with Fabio about all kinds of stuff from his athletic background, to his role in the Rio Olympics and the ITU circuit, to his entrepreneurial spirit, and ultimately, to how he found Swimrun. Fabio also talked to us about how influential (and helpful) Michael Lemmel and Mats Skott of ÖTILLÖ were in helping him create his first race and have it be the first merit race in South America. (Side note: It was so friggin cool of them to take the time to help Fabio!) (Second side note: The Swedish Consulate in Brazil also supported Fabio’s efforts to grow the sport!) Finally, we talked about the journey of Hero Swimrun as a race and how Fabio is almost single-handedly growing a vibrant Swimrun community in Rio, and his plans to keep elevating the sport.Obviously, Hero Swimrun is on our bucket list and will definitely accept Fabrizio’s invitation to come to race his event at some point. We encourage everyone to check out Hero Swimrun on their website or on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Ema

Welcome to episode sixty of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We close out our inaugural “Partners Month” with another edition of Advanced Topics in Swimrun. In this episode, we discuss team tactics. For us, team tactics mean the things that partners can work on in practice and in races to take their team performance to the next level by being more deliberate/tactical in how partners prepare and communicate with each other.In our view, we take it as a general proposition that the more prepared that teams are for the foreseen (and unforeseen) things that happen on race day the better the experience that the team will have. In this way, partners can manage their race and deal with adversity calmly and rely on their preparation to problem solve and continue to move forward. Below we break down some key aspects for improving team tactics.Partner ManagementThe main key to a good partnership is communication. Getting to the point in Swimrun (as in life) where you can have an honest and open dialogue with your partner is the best way to help take your teamwork to the next level. In endurance sports that are typically solo affairs, it can be uncommon to think about your teammate’s performance, let alone talk to them about it. So don’t expect to have your mind read by your partner or have them read yours. Talking about how you plan to communicate during training and racing is the best way to stave off passive aggression, bad vibes, and lack of stoke. By working on your communication, both verbal and non-verbal (listen to our show on Swimrun Flow and the all-important tether) with your partner, you really unlock the possibilities for having more fun and better race experiences. This also allows teams to visualize what their races will be like and be prepared mentally for the known and unknown. This advice has been repeated by many of our previous guests including Susie Moonan, Oscar Olsson, Johan Carlsson, Andy Blow, and Team Precision Hydration UK. To sum it up, the more that a team is mentally prepared for their race, the less mental energy is required during the race to deal with adversity.Food/Trash ManagementWhen we interviewed Rhian and Ben from Team Precision Hydration UK one of the things that they talked about was how they managed their nutrition during a race as a team. One partner would carry the caffeine gels and the other would carry the non-caffeinated ones. It was really eye-opening for us how granular they were in their planning. While this seems like a simple enough thing to set up before a race, during the event you can just rely on the preparation and not have it take away your focus and flow to think about it. That same is true with your hydration strategy. Our guest Andy Blow shared his detailed plan that he used at OTILLO Catalina to make sure he was set up for success.Trash management is another thing that teams can communicate about to have a plan before the race starts. Brooke from Team Swimrun Labs (and co-host of our Gear Talk shows) has a special pocket in her Lapa Bra undergarment that is just for trash and she empties it when needed at an aid station. The moral of the story being that she doesn’t spend any mental energy thinking about worrying about what she’s doing to get disqualified for littering at a race.Heat ManagementRunning in a wetsuit can get pretty warm. Having a plan for managing heat during a race is yet another way that teams can have plans in place. Taking a swim cap off, unzipping, and cabbing down are basically the three progressive strategies to help manage heat. If there’s a long run coming up and you know that you run hot, then plan with your partner to cab down upon exiting the water.Basically, there are a lot of ways that teams can step up their performance through applying a tactical mindset to race preparation and execution with the cornerstone of good open communication with your partner. Feel free to email or DM us with tactics that you employ that have worked for you and of course, we’re happy to receive any and all feedback about the show.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode fifty-nine of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!Partner’s month continues with the return of the first team that we ever interviewed on the show: The Swimrun Monks. It was great to have our friends Sean and Phillip back on the show to talk about all kinds of stuff.More on our interview with The Monks later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out Henna Rönkönharji all the way from Finland. We know that she’s been loving the show and we really appreciate her for listening. Adventure Time/Training UpdatesSpring racing in California is not looking promising so our unstructured training continues...except for pool swimming.Feats of EnduranceWe are happy to announce that Dave Gardner is this week’s Feats of Endurance winner. We hiked the Rocky Raccoon 50k race in Huntsville Texas like it was nobody’s business. Strong work Dave.Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.Ödyssey Swimrun announced a new race this week. Mackinac Island, located in northern Michigan, is a vacation destination that looks like a dope place to host a Swimrun. There will be short and long course distances and both courses pretty much take all around and over the entire island. The race date is Sunday, August 29, 2021, and registration is open now!Looks like the results of Chipper’s forensic googling were correct and ÖTILLÖ’s new race for 2021 is in Gothenburg and the setting looks perfect for an OG Swimrun race. The race is on August 7, 2021, and you can register on Raceid.com for the Experience, Sprint, or World Series Distance. Just FYI, this will also be the last race to potentially qualify for the 2021 ÖTILLÖ World Championship.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesOur new “Super Stoked on Swimrun” stickers are in the mail for everyone that reached out who wanted one or several. Drop us a message on IG or send us an email with your mailing address and we’ll mail you a free sticker to anywhere in the world that accepts mail. Our latest episode of Gear Talk is out! We chat all things swimrun training tools with Brooke and Annie from Swimrun Labs!This Week’s InterviewIt was great to have Sean Coetzee & Phillip Saenkov back on the show. Like we mentioned at the start of the show, The Monks were the first team that we ever interviewed for the show (Episode 5) and we’re grateful to be able to consider them friends. They are great ambassadors for the sport and an easy team to root for. We brought them back for Partner’s Month to chat about how they work together and check in about their qualification for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship this August. This will be their third time racing Worlds together and we break down what they are doing differently this year in order to improve on their previous races. This interview was a lot of fun and full of tips for partner harmony and better race performances.You can follow the exploits of the Swimrun Monks on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs review show!In this episode, we break down all the different training aids that you can use to take your Swimrun training/racing to the next level.Before we get into that discussion, we have a few gear updates.GEAR UPDATESJust a few gear updates this week.Brooke finally tried some HOKA ONE ONE shoes (Speedgoats) and she’s really liking them as an alternative to her usual INOV-8 shoes that she uses.Chipper finally pulled the trigger and ordered a Red Original Pro-Change Robe for those chilly mornings on the pool deck. That leaves Chris as the only member of the group just using a towel.SWIMRUN TRAINING TOOLS DISCUSSIONSince it’s still the off-season, we thought that it would be good to talk about what people can do now to come back stronger for the (hopefully) upcoming Swimrun season.We all recommend that if you’re planning on trying to improve this off-season that you get an understanding of your fitness metrics. Whether that’s heart rate zones or RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion), understanding where you are at will help you get to where you want to go. Chris used to use songs to calibrate what zone he was in. For example, if he could sign Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart” while on the bike it meant that he was riding his bike in zone 2. If he couldn’t belt out the lyrics, it meant he was above where he wanted to be.Overall, we recommend that athletes have a plan for what they want to work on. Having a purpose for each session will help keep you focused on your progress. Along with purpose, since this is a gear show, we thought that we would list some of the types of training tools that you can use to take your performance to the next level. Strength ToolsStretch cords, therabands and/or stretch bands are a cheap and effective way to add some resistance to your routine to add more strength that will help you become more injury-proof and, uhm, stronger. Check out the Swimrun Labs page of training tips for using stretch bands.Bosu Balls or other products that create unstable or wobbly surfaces are also great for working on the smaller muscles to prevent injury.There are also swimming-specific stretch cords that have paddles built in that are perfect for warm-ups before swims.You can also check out Episode 17 of the Podcast with Strength and Running Coach, Nate Helming for more training tips.Run ToolsNot a lot of tools here, just vary your stimulus by running hills or terrain that you’re not used to. Try different shoes, maybe load up a backpack with some water bottles, or work on downhill running. Don’t have a hill in your area? Maybe there is a bridge that you can do hill repeats on. Basically, where there is a will, there’s a way. You can also check out Episode 30 of Podcast with Running Coach, Mario Fraioli for great insight on how to vary your workouts while you prepare for a particular race.Swim ToolsSwimming has the most training aids by far. Here we break down the tools that we use. As we mentioned above but especially with swimming, having a training plan or focus for each swim will help you improve.“Essentials”Pool Pull BuoyAnkle StrapSnorkelSwim FinsSwim PaddlesDepending on what you're trying to work on in the pool, these essentials can really help you work on your technique to become a better/faster swimmer. Just like strength or running, adding external resistance will help make you stronger. Note: if you’re new to ankle straps make sure that you pair it with a pull buoy because it will cause significant drag. Wearing an ankle strap can also simulate the resistance of swimming in shoes.“Nice to Have”Multiple Sizes of Swim PaddlesKick boardNeoprene SIM shortsSwim bands/stretch cordsThese Swim toys are nice to have to mix things up and create new stimuli. If you’re Brooke, you can get a kettlebell and walk the bottom of the pool while holding it. (Just remember to drop it and get to the surface to breathe.“Baller Status”Dry robe Garmin Swim 2 watch (underwater wrist-based heart rate)Garmin HRM-Swim Heart Rate Monitor (to pair with your existing GPS watch) Dry robes are pricey but they are super comfy and easy to change underneath. There are several brands out there including Red Original, Dry Robe, and Smoc Smoc. Here’s a video with a review of all the dry robe styles out there.CLOSING THOUGHTSWe hope this episode gives you some ideas on gear that you can get to help make 2021 your best Swimrun season yet. Let us know if you’re using a product that you love that we didn’t mention and think that we should. Stay safe and happy training!That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram and on Twitter. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if

Welcome to episode fifty-eight of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!Partner’s month continues with a really fun interview this week. Today we have the Swimrun duo of Trista Mennen and Amy Bush, A.K.A Team ADORKable. Trista and Amy have been big supporters of the show and we’re super stoked that our listeners will get to learn more about their love for Swimrun.More on this later in the show.ShoutoutsWe have a very special shoutout this week for our newest Patron on Patreon: Mel Jensen. We really appreciate her support to help keep the lights on (and help cover our outsized sticker postage bills). You’re literally the best!Adventure Time/Training UpdatesThe unstructured training continues. We’ve been getting the bug to go out and do a Swimrun practice so that will be on deck at some point this month. On the adventure time front, our friends at Above Below in the UK sent us one of their uber-popular Ruckrafts to test out and review and we plan on putting it through the paces when we head back to Lake Sonoma in a few weeks for our first official test run of the course that we’ve been working on.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s Feats of Endurance winner is Scot Brockbank from Ontario, Canada. He’s been winning at Stava titles this week with such gems as: “Morning run through mud, I mean snow!” and “Wet feet and the gathering of eagles.” We’re not sure what that means but we’re loving it.Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a couple of updates to share this week.Last week, ÖTILLÖ and the XTRI World Tour announced a new virtual challenge called the Ö till X Ultimate Endurance Challenge. This challenge takes participants on a global adventure to discover race tracks and sites of ÖTILLÖ and the XTRI World Tour. The global virtual event starts in February and participants will receive a new challenge to complete each month through the end of the year. In December, everyone that completed the challenge will receive a cool t-shirt and be entered in a drawing for a place in the ÖTILLÖ World Championship and the Extreme Triathlon Norseman. Sign up for this challenge on raceid.com.We have a mini-correction from last week’s edition: I had a brain fart and mentioned that Swimrun Lake James is on March 24th when it’s on April 24th. My bad on that one.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesThe people have spoken and the Low Tide Boyz trucker hats have been ordered. Now we wait 4-6 weeks.Remember to drop us a message on IG or send us an email with your address if you’d like a free“Super Stoked on Swimrun” sticker. The stickers are arriving this week from the print shop so be on the lookout for those in the mail by next week.This Week’s InterviewWhat can we say about Trista and Amy? They are literally “ADORKable” and it’s hard for us to think of another team that loves Swimrun as much as they do. We really enjoyed hearing how they met, found Swimrun, and the adventures that ensued. We covered a lot of ground in this interview from their first race experience all the way to how they set up their own Swimrun during the pandemic. You can follow Trista and Amy’s endurance adventures on their blog.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode fifty-seven of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re officially in February and this month we are kicking off a series of interviews all about partners. This month we will be featuring teams from all over the world to chat about one of the funnest aspects of Swimrun. This week we are chatting with Toby and G Flo of Team Max Mockermann from Germany. They have been supportive of the show since we started out and we were super stoked to finally get to sit down and chat with them.More with Toby and G Flo later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting Henrick Forssell. We’ve been connected with him on the internets and he regaled us with stories about Helas Frostbite Swimrun and his plans to host a fun monthly swimrun for folks in Stockholm all year. Keep up the great work!Adventure Time/Training UpdatesWe are still training at our own speeds but we’re starting to turn the screws a bit in the pool so we should have sore lats for the foreseeable future. Other than that, Chris is ramping up for some long runs and Chipper is putting in a ton of HIIT work.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s Feats of Endurance honoree is Alexis Humeau in Paris, France. He low-key threw down a 55km point-to-point run from Sarzeau to Vannes in Eastern France over the weekend. An impressive feat for sure...and the course looked Swimrunnable too!Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a few race updates to share this week.Congratulations to everyone that qualified for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship! This is no small feat with a record amount of submissions for entry for the race that started it all. We look forward to cheering you all on from afar (and maybe from near) on September 6th.Swimrun Lake James, happening on April 24th, is officially sold out for both the short and long course distances. They do have a waitlist going, so sign up for that if you’re interested in racing. On a side note, they have the teams list on their site and some of the team names are 100% solid gold. Here’s a sample of what the race directors will be dealing with: Hold My Paddles While I Poop, Phyllis Hold My Shower Beer, Still Unsure Why We’re Doing This, Traveling Dingleberries, Vodka Juniors, and While our Bikes Gently Weep. If you’re listening and part of one of these teams, send us a message and we’ll put some stickers in the mail for you.The race date of October 3, 2021 has been set for Ödyssey Swimrun Lubington and registration is officially open with super early bird pricing that’s good through February 14th. The course looks dope but don’t take our word for it. You can check out the Short and Long Course maps on their website. We have a correction from last week’s edition: we mentioned that Hero Swimrun was an ÖTILLÖ qualifier. It was a qualifier in 2020 but it’s not one this year.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe’ve narrowed down the options for our forthcoming hats and will be posting the mockups up on IG for folks to vote on what they like best.We’re super stoked to report that we’ve passed 25,000 total downloads this week. When we started the show, we always hoped that people would listen but to think that we would also get so much support and encouragement from our listeners has been amazing. To celebrate this milestone, we’ve come up with some new stickers for everyone to slap on their cars, bikes, water bottles, etc. These “Super Stoked on Swimrun” stickers are free for everyone who wants one. Just drop us a message on IG or send us an email with your address and we’ll put one in the mail for you.This Week’s InterviewTo kick-off partner’s month, we have Toby and G Flo all the way from Germany. We first learned about Team Max Mockermann when we started the show but we realized what we were dealing with when they posted a video of them running and trying to swim in the snow the day before ÖTILLÖ Engadin last year. We knew then and there that we wanted to have them on the show.In this interview, we chat about how they met and decided to team up, how they train for Swimrun when they live in different parts of Germany, and how they are doing their part to build up the Swimrun community where they are. They also have their own podcast that they record while they are training on Zwift...so there’s that! This was a really fun interview and we think that everyone will enjoy it.You can follow Team Max Mockermann’s exploits on Instagram and check out their podcast (it’s in German.)That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedba

Welcome to episode fifty-six of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We travel across the pond this week to chat with Nicola and Chelsey Bailey, the mother and daughter duo at the helm of As Keen As Mustard Events. This was a fun conversation with two amazing women trying to do their part to grow the sport of Swimrun in the UK.More on this interview later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out Amanda Gorman. If you don’t know who she is, Amanda quickly rose to international fame after reading a poem that she wrote at last week’s inauguration that stole the show. It was amazing and we think that everyone should check it out if you need some inspiration. The poem is called “The Hill We Climb” and you can watch and listen to it here.Adventure Time/Training UpdatesWe’re keeping on keeping on with training as we try to figure out what our race calendar might look like for the Spring. (Spoiler Alert: it’s TBD) We also have an atmospheric river hitting us this week so that should be interesting.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s Feats of Endurance honoree is Leticia Wirth of Porto Alegre Brazil. She’s been putting in around 37,000 yards of swimming per week while also running a ton. We’re not sure what she’s training for but keep it up!Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train for life and other stuff like races.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a few race updates to share this week.ӦTILLӦ recently announced their merit races for 2021. In the US, the merit races are: Swimrun Lake James, Ӧdyssey Swimrun Casco Bay, Ӧdyssey Swimrun Orcas Island, and Swimrun North Carolina.Registration is open for the Hero Swimrun in Brazil. The race is on April 10th and they have 3 distance options and a 1km kids race that looks like fun.Immeln Swimrun produced by AtoBe Events is open for registration on Raceid.com. The race date is set for August 21st and the event offers three distances including a new 113km ultra distance.Boras Swimrun has moved their 2021 race date from May 30th to the very special date of September 12th. Borås is a Swimrun put on by Swimrun legend and previous guest of the show Jonas Colting. This event is also a ӦTILLӦ merit race.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesIt looks like people want hats. We’ll be mocking up a few designs and will be sharing them on IG for folks to vote on their favorite.We mentioned earlier in the show that we’re not sure what our race schedule will look like in the Spring BUT we know what our schedule will be in the Fall. We’ve officially registered for Ӧdyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island, Casco Bay, and Austin events.This Week’s InterviewAs Keen as Mustard events caught our eye pretty much as soon as we started following Swimrun accounts when we started the podcast. Focusing on entry-level Swimrun distances, their events allow for a supportive environment for folks to experience the sport for the first time. In the process, Nicola and Chelsey have built an amazing community of athletes and have been a key part in the growth of Swimrun in the UK.In this conversation, we chatted with Nicola and Chelsey about the origins of As Keen as Mustard events...including how they came up with the name, their vision for creating an inclusive Swimrun community, how they are managing lockdowns due to COVID-19, and their plans for the future.We had a lot of fun with this episode and we hope that you enjoy it. You can learn more about As Keen as Mustard events on their website or on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Swimrun Adventure Gear EssentialsWelcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs review show!In this episode, we chat about all the things you should consider when planning, executing, and experiencing an epic Swimrun Adventure.Before we get into that, we have some gear updates.GEAR UPDATESJust a few gear updates this week.Chipper went nuts and bought an ARK Sports VIGG and KORP suit during their one day sale back in December. (Chris bought a KORP because #FOMO) Chipper also got a new Michael Phelps pool snorkel that was a huge improvement on his old one.In the cold Pacific Northwest, Annie and Brooke have found some new gear that makes the cold water temps slightly more bearable. Brooke got a red original Dry Robe (three-quarter sleeve) that she absolutely loves! She also got the NRS Maxim 3mm gloves that have been essential for some of the super cold swims that she’s been doing. Annie recently got some NRS Hydroskin 1.5 Wetsocks and they have been amazing in cold water.SWIMRUN ADVENTURE GENERAL CONSIDERATIONSA good place to start is with planning the route. Using existing maps from Google, Strava routes, All Trails, CalTOPO, or Foot Path. (Annie loves Foot Path)Below are some of the general things to keep in mind when planning for a Swimrun Adventure:Duration of AdventureMost Swimrun events are 80% running and 20% swimming so keep that in mind when planning the course.Location (remoteness, access to potable water, cell phone reception, the familiarity of trails/course/water currents)Time of year (water/air temperature, is it hunting or fishing season, marina/busy waterways)Don’t go aloneWhat are you going to do nutrition-wise? Static aid station (like a car), mobile aid station (friend in a car), or stashing nutrition somewhere on the course.GEAR CONSIDERATIONSGear should mirror whatever you would wear for any given Swimrun race taking into account all the things that you would for the race (water temp., terrain, nutrition/fueling demands.) We would also recommend using a brightly colored swim cap and use a Swim Buoy for visibility and some storage. Making sure that you have some waterproof protection for items like a phone or keys. Consider printing out maps in case there isn’t cell reception. Annie recommends using Rite in the Rain brand printer paper to make your maps.You may need to take on much more water and nutrition depending on the duration and remoteness of the adventure. Try to eat more real food if you’re planning a long adventure. We would also recommend some type of water filtration option in case there is good access to freshwater such as the Katadyn BeFree Water Filter.CLOSING THOUGHTSWe hope this episode gives you some insight into how to plan and execute an epic Swimrun adventure with your mates. Have fun and tag us in your photos.That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram and on Twitter. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode fifty-five of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We have one of the legends of the sport on the show this week. We are super stoked to share our interview with 5-time ÖTILLÖ World Champion Annika Ericsson. We loved having this conversation and think that you’ll enjoy listening to it.More on this important conversation later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out a newish listener, Tad Derrick. He’s been going through our back catalog of shows and we really appreciated this feedback on the show. Hope to see you at a Swimrun at some point dude!Adventure Time/Training UpdatesWe’re going back out to Lake Sonoma soon with our suits on to literally test the waters so we’ll hopefully have one Swimrun loop course mapped out before exploring other parts of the lake for maybe a longer point-to-point style course.In training news, Chipper has been loving his Peloton treadmill and has been putting in some good work on that thing. Chris is still on his bullshit and putting in a lot of volume.Feats of EnduranceThe Feats are back! That means that everyone in our Strava Club is eligible to win a very prestigious weekly award (of a bumper sticker) and our enduring adoration. This week’s winner is Christian Gotz of Munich Germany. Last week he did not one, not two, but three frigid open water swims in the Karlsfelder Lake outside of Munich. We were definitely impressed! Keep up the good work Christian and try not to lose any appendages out there. This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We have a few race updates to share this week.Breca Swimrun’s Jersey race is set for September 4, 2021. They’ve only opened up registration for the Sprint Course and plan to open the full course at a later date based on the progress of the UK vaccination programs and easing of restrictions for group events. This course looks awesome and we’re definitely going to make it out to that event at some point. Listeners can check out Breca Swimrun’s provisional 2021 race calendar for the rest of their events.Another race on our long bucket list, Swimrun Costa Brava, has announced its 2021 race date for April 24, 2021. If you’re in Spain or can travel to Spain we would definitely recommend this race just from the photos alone.That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.UpdatesWe urge everyone to check out Adam Skolnick’s new story in the New York Times about how a group of Nepalese Sherpas climbed K2, one of the most treacherous climbs in the world. Adam was our guest on Episode 28 of the show and an all-around awesome dude.We’ve been thinking about making some hats for our swag shop. Let us know if that’s something that you might be interested in since our wives are already flush with LTBz gear and we don’t think that they want 10 hats to wear. Send us a DM with a thumbs up or down vote. This Week’s InterviewAs we mentioned at the beginning of the show, we were super stoked to be able to chat with Annika Ericsson and share her story with our listeners. It’s safe to say that she’s in the pantheon of Swimrun legends and we really enjoyed getting to know her a bit in this interview. In this conversation, we chatted about her elite athletic background, how she competed in the Swedish Classics events, and ultimately found Swimrun. We discussed her first experience racing the ÖTILLÖ World Championship and how she fell in love with the race, and what it’s like to not only have won ÖTILLÖ 5 times in both the mixed and women’s category but also owns the record for the fastest Women’s finishing time with her partner Kristin Larsson set in 2016. Finally, we chatted about the importance of having a good race partner and how to train for something like the World Championship while balancing family, work, and life in general.We covered a lot of ground in this interview and really appreciate Annika taking the time to speak with us. You can follow Annika on Instagram here.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.