Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast

Welcome to episode fifty-four of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We have a great show for you this week that seems really timely given everything that’s been going on in the world lately. We have Sociologist, Sports Psychologist, and elite Swimrunner Susie Moonan of Push On Coaching. This interview is all about the mental side of training and racing and worth every second.More on this important conversation later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out our friend Sarah for finishing the TogetheRelay Challenge. What is this thing you might ask? Well, it's a self-guided race around the entire Bay Ridge Trail totalling over 400 miles in 70 segments with a total of 72,000’ of climbing. Chris ran a couple of the segments with Sarah a few weeks ago and has no desire to do the entire challenge by himself like Sarah did. Tip of the hat to you Sarah!Adventure Time/Training UpdatesWe went out to Lake Sonoma over the weekend and surveyed a potential Swimrun course that looks like it will be pretty cool. Now that we’ve sighted all the potential swim entrances and exits the next step is to suit up and see what happens. We’ll have more reporting on this soon.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We are solidly in the Swimrun off-season so no race updates to share.Ödyssey Swimrun has opened registration for Orcas Island, Casco Bay, and Austin. They also have a new race on the calendar for 2021: Swimrun Ludington in Michigan. There’s a cool hype YouTube video out for that race with a previous guest of the show John Stevens that everyone should check out.The registration window for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship is closing on January 20th. Go to their press release to get all the details on how to enter. 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 InterviewAs mentioned at the beginning of the show, our conversation with this week’s guest is really timely. Susie Moonan joins us to talk about the mental side of sports and swimrun. We first learned about Susie during the Champions Christmas Challenge Gala where she shared a message to all the participants that immediately got us thinking that we wanted her on the show. She’s an elite Swimrunner, Coach, Sociologist, and Sports Psychologist with her own coaching platform, Push-On Coaching. In this interview, we discussed her elite swimming background, her goals of qualifying for the Swedish Olympic team at age 16, and how she wasn’t mentally prepared for the intense pressure of those goals. These experiences set her on the path to study sociology and psychology and ultimately find her passion for helping others mentally prepare for athletic achievement. We also discussed how she found Swimrun and ultimately qualifying for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship in 2018. She finished in 4th place that year and finished 2nd place (Women’s Division with her partner Anna Hellström) in her second World Championship in 2019.The bulk of the conversation was about being mentally prepared for training and racing. There’s too much knowledge to summarize properly here but learning how an individual identifies and reacts to stress and then learning how to cope with these situations with positive thoughts and mental cues. Susie also mentioned the importance of thinking through potentially stressful situations before a race to have a “crisis plan” to deal with setbacks, should they occur. Visualizing the race in as much detail as possible before the event to help your mind be prepared for what’s to come since the mind can’t tell the difference between what we imagine from what actually happens. (Insert many minds blown emojis here)Susie Moonan is a coaching treasure and we will be sure to have her on the podcast in the future. You can learn more about Push-On Coaching on her website and follow Push on Coaching 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 fifty-three of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This is officially year two of the show and we have something really special this week. So special in fact that we’re afraid that we may have set the bar too high for ourselves with this one. On this show we have Co-founder and chief designer of Ark Sports, Daniel Sand. This is the guy that literally came up with the concept of a Swimrun wetsuit and revolutionized the sport when he was with Head Sports and then took it to the next level when he started Ark Sports and revolutionized the sport again with the introduction of the next generation of Swimrun suits.More on this cool conversation later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we are shouting out our wives, Kristen and Susan, for their seemingly limitless (although there is a limit) support of us and our labor of love for the sport of Swimrun. As we embark on the second year of the show, there is literally no way that this show would be possible without them.Adventure Time/Training UpdatesWith the holidays past us, we are ready to buckle down and start making some progress on our plans for charting a cool Swimrun course at Lake Sonoma. We have maps, gels, hall passes, and other stuff lined up to make this happen. We’re also starting to plan a road trip to San Diego in March to spend a weekend training with SoCal crew of Andy, Mel, Kelsie, Sean, Phillip, and the rest. We hope that this will be first of many road trips taking the show (and the training) on the road.In other news, Chris joined Tower26 and is committed to making more gains in the pool to be able to keep up with Chipper. If you want to know why, check out Episode 32 with Tower26 Founder, Gerry Rodrigues and Episode 42 with Tower26 coaches Megan Melgaard and Jim Lubinsky.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We’ve got some Swimrun-related news to share this week.Ödyssey Swimrun has opened registration for Orcas Island, Casco Bay, and Austin. Register by January 14 to sign up at the lowest prices of the year. They also have a new race on the calendar for 2021: Swimrun Ludington in Michigan. Registration hasn’t opened for that event yet but we have two words that should inspire you to register when it does...SAND DUNES!For those of you looking for a truly epic event to race, Rockman Swimrun registration is open on Raceid.com. The race is on August 14th. If you haven’t seen the Youtube videos of this race, make sure that you are sitting down when you do. Check out Episode 26 with Rockman Race Director Thor Hesselberg to get even more stoked to take a trip to Norway in August.The registration window for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship is open. Go to their press release to get all the details on how to enter. Registration is open until January 20th so make sure that your race results are up to date and best of luck getting a spot on the starting line.Finally, we wanted to let everyone know that Swimrun NC had to move the date of their 2021 event from October 24th to November 7th due to park permit issues.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 got some fun things in the works for 2021 including focusing on Swimrun teams in February, helping to promote the “All The Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions” movie in March, and hosting some live podcasting while on the road at events (COVID permitting.) We’ve added some new content to our website that folks should check out. Under our resources tab, you can now find a 2021 US Swimrun Race Calendar for all the races that we could find. (If we’re missing one, please let us know!)This Week’s InterviewAs we mentioned at the start of the show, this week’s interview is so good! Daniel Sand is a Co-Founder and Chief Designer at Ark Sports and is singularly responsible for the Swimrun wetsuit that we all take for granted. Daniel’s journey to revolutionize Swimrun started in 2014 when he started to design the first Swimrun-specific wetsuit for HEAD. In 2017, he revolutionized the Swimrun wetsuit again when he co-founded Ark Sports and created the Swimrun wetsuit design that is commonplace today.In this interview, we cover the history of the Swimrun-specific wetsuit, its innovation over the years, and Daniel’s role at the center of that. We talked about his rationale for leaving HEAD to start Ark Sports. We also broke down the design process behind some of the key Ark Sports wetsuits like the VIGG, ORNÖ, and UTÖ and, of course, the Keel pull buoy. We asked the tough questions about product durability and learned how Ark Sports is working on that. Finally, we talked about what the future holds for Swimrun equipment and Ark Sports.If we sound like Ark Sports fanboys during this interview it’s because we are. It's hard not to root for them. You can learn more about Ark Sports 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

Welcome to episode fifty-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We are kicking off a new series called “Advanced Topics in Swimrun” where we deep dive into specific aspects of Swimrun. In this episode, we discuss Swimrun Flow. What do we mean by Swimrun Flow? It’s hard to describe but it basically means achieving optimal Swimrun technique and moving through nature as seamlessly as possible. We feel like we really unlocked or leveled up on our Swimrun Flow at the Ödyssey Swimrun Austin in early November and we thought that we would share what we learned during our best race performance to date.There were three reasons why we think we had our best race to date. First, hosting this podcast gave us a wealth of knowledge that we applied to the best of our abilities. This included having a detailed race/nutrition/hydration plan that we stuck to. Second, we made sure that our transitions were smooth and our time at the aid station was kept to a minimum. We probably saved 20 minutes just from having practiced transitions during our Swimrun practices. Finally, we kept the tether attached for the entire race. Keeping the tether attached during the runs really helped with our pacing and allowed us to move more seamlessly through the course. For teams that are looking to advance in the sport, working on the skills mentioned above are low hanging fruit that can help teams unlock their Swimrun Flow.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-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This episode is our inaugural Year in Review/Fireside Chat. In this show, we talk about the origin story of the show, how the show has grown, and our plans for 2021. We also discuss some of our favorite moments and how we’ve tried to keep everyone entertained during the pandemic. Finally, we chatted about our 2020 races and what we hope to race in the coming year.This show would not be possible without the support of our Patrons on Patreon (Andy, Grace, Dirk, Carolyn, Max, Marcus, Bob, and Miguel), our Gear Talk co-hosts Annie and Brooke from the Swimrun Labs, the crew at Ödyssey Swimrun, and all our listeners around the world. We also really appreciated all the feedback that we’ve received and it really helped us improve the show. Looking forward, we are super stoked for 2021 and we’re committed to keeping trying to produce interesting and useful content for all the Swimrunners around the world.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 of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re dubbing this show our carbon fiber episode. Today we have the founder of Frank Paddle, Fredrik Bengtsson. As most, if not all, triathletes (current or former) would, we geek out a lot in this interview about carbon fiber, the design process, and the future of swim paddles for Swimrun. We can’t wait to share this interview with you! More on this later in the show.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out to our listeners in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Looks like they have a burgeoning Swimrun scene in Southeastern Brazil and we’re grateful for you all tuning in to the show. Muito Obrigado!This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)A cool race took place this past weekend in Cape Town South Africa. The #GetWrecked Cape Experience Swimrun put on by Torpedo Swimrun looked like a lot of fun. On their website they refer to the sport of Swimrun as “wildly cool” and we obviously agree. The photos of the event looked amazing with beach runs, rough ocean swims, and a lot of smiling faces. As a bonus programming alert: we’re already looking to get their race director Richard on the show to chat about the Swimrun scene in South Africa.Our friends Fanny and Desirée’s Champions Christmas Challenge is on its third week. The social media photo theme for this week is Christmas trees so post up your workout pics wearing Christmasy stuff for a chance to win some awesome prizes…even a coveted Löw Tide Böyz t-shirt.Finally, ÖTILLÖ has opened its World Championship Registration window. Go to their press release to get all the details on how to enter. Registration is open until January 20, 2021 so make sure that your race results are up to date, and may the odds be forever in your favor.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 got shirts and stickers shipping out so head over to our website if you want to show your Low Tide pride. We’re also thinking of getting some hats made so let us know if you think that’s a good idea or not.This Week’s InterviewAs mentioned at the start of the show, we have the Founder of Frank Paddle, Fredrik Bengtsson. He has a super interesting background and an early love for all things carbon fiber from his pro windsurfer days led circuitously to triathlon and ultimately to Swimrun. In this interview, we chatted with Fredrik about his windsurfing days traveling the world, how he found triathlon and became a certified coach, and how he did his first Swimrun race on a whim. We also talked about all things carbon fiber, how he came up with the idea for carbon fiber swim paddles, and eventually to go all in and start Frank Paddle. We talked about his design process and what he thinks makes for great swim paddles.You can learn more about Frank Paddle 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 forty-nine of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!In this week’s episode, we have a long-time friend of the show who we were lucky enough to meet in Catalina: Helen Wikmar. She was a previous guest way back on Episode 9 of the podcast and then again on our ÖTILLÖ Engadin Course Preview episode. It was great to have her back on the show to talk about her story and how she’s perpetually building community in her hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden. More on this later in the show.Adventure Time!With COVID restrictions about to be reinstituted in Northern California, we are a bit worried that state parks will be officially “closed.” Chris has come up with a rough map for the first test exploration at Lake Sonoma and hopefully, we will be able to get out there and see what happens.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out Joseph Dickinson. He’s been a listener of the show for a while and he’s always been great about giving us feedback which we really appreciate. We hope to see you out a race in 2021.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)We didn’t hear about any new events taking place this past week other than another cold day at the Hellas Frostbite Swimrun. It doesn’t look like it was any warmer this week.In other news, if you’re interested in checking out Finland and score some ÖTILLÖ merit points in the process, the Folkhälsan Swimrun just opened registration (on Raceid.com) for next year’s event to be held on September 18, 2021. The race looks dope with three distances available and team and solo categories for those interested in that sort of thing.Our friends Fanny and Desirée’s Champions Christmas Challenge is on its second week. The social media photo theme for this week is animals so post up your workout pics in your best leopard print tights, bunny ears, butterfly wings, or whatever to have a chance to win some awesome prizes.UpdatesOur latest episode of Gear Talk where we chat with the ladies from The Swimrun Labs about the essentials for cold open water swimming is out now! We recommend checking it out while sipping on some hot tea or cocoa.No other big updates this week, just a programming alert. We will be taking a week off from the show (we mean it this time!) the last week in December and will be back with our normal schedule programming in 2021. We may throw in some bonus content that week but that’s TBD.This Week’s InterviewIt was great to get to chat with Helen Wikmar to hear her story. For those who don’t know who she is, Helen is a mother of 3, Head of Operations at Ark Sports, and just happens to be a bad ass Swimrunner and one of the sport’s best ambassadors. She’s also super cool so there’s that.In this interview we chatted with her about her athletic origin story after starting a family, how she met and teamed up with her racing partner Isabella Hedberg, and how she builds community wherever she goes. This was a fun one and we think that you will enjoy this conversation.You can (and should) follow Helen 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 chat about all things cold open water swimming. We breakdown the science, strategy, and gear for swimming in the cold with a smile. (Smile optional)Before we get into that, we have some gear updates.Gear UpdatesJust a few short gear updates this week.Brooke tried out some curved paddles at the pool and she didn’t like them because they didn’t suit her stroke very well. Winter Swimming ScienceThere are a lot of things to take into account before swimming in open water when the water temp is getting cold. Both physically and mentally, winter swimming requires some preparation. Whether it’s “cryo-gina” or cold shock, taking a measured approach while going into cold water includes walking slowly into the water, control your breathing, and wait for your mammalian dive reflex to kick in. The mammalian dive reflex is basically designed to prioritize oxygen to the body’s most important organs and send blood flow to those organs. Adam Skolnick (previous guest of the show) wrote a book (One Breath: Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits) about freediving and spent some time explaining this reflex well.Athletes starting to swim in cold open water should take their time to get used to the cold shock and acclimate over a period of weeks. It’s important to honor the time that it takes to make sure that you make sure that you’re being safe out there. Coldwater also makes you pee a lot more. This means that you should make sure that you’re well hydrated.Hypothermia is probably what scares people the most about cold water. There are some early warning signs to look out for. When you start losing coordination, get brain fog, or your form breaks down that is a sign of cold incapacitation. Cold incapacitation is what most people consider to be hypothermia and swimmers should be super-mindful of their extremities while swimming to watch for the signs. Shivering in the water is a very bad sign.The Outdoor Swimming Society is a great resource for more information about swimming in cold water safely. Getting out of cold water and “re-warming” is very important. Your body can continue to get cold up to 30 minutes after swimming. Swimmers should start re-warming slowly and get dry and don’t try to jump into a hot shower right away. Cold Water Gear for Open Water SwimmingThis is a gear show so we listed out all the important gear from head to toe that you should consider if you’re going to be swimming in the cold stuff.Head: TYR Neoprene Swim Capsblueseventy Thermal Neoprene Skull CapROKA Strapless Thermal Neoprene Swimming HoodTYR Warmwear CapsDouble up on random Silicone CapsEarplugs:Silicone PuttyWetsuit:blueseventy Thermal Reaction WetsuitROKA Maverick Pro Thermal WetsuitZone3 Neoprene Warmth VestGloves:AquaLung 5mm Thermocline Dive GlovesNRS Maxim 3mm Neoprene GlovesBooties:blueseventy Thermal Swim SocksSeavenger Seasnugs Socks (Brooke’s favorite)Post-Swim:Dryrobe Advance Long Sleeve Change RobeSwimrun-Specific ConsiderationsFor Swimrun, heat/cold management is super important. Luckily there are some easy ways to keep your core temperature where you need it to be. Keeping your swimcap on and not cabbing down after a cold swim can help you warm up during the run leg. Using the right gear, such as socks, can also help keep your core temperature where you want it to be. Being cold can compound over a race and if you can’t properly warm up during a run leg, cold swims can take their toll and lead to a DNF.Another consideration is that being cold uses more energy and, as such, you may need extra nutrition to account for the additional calorie burning.Closing ThoughtsSo now you’re prepared to try to go into cold water. It’s good for you both mentally and physically so give it a shot. Good luck and godspeed.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 forty-eight of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We have a great interview this week. In this episode, we take you to the South of France to talk with Laurene William and Irina Kondratieva of Team Swimrun Mermaids and organizers of the Mermaids Swimrun Club. This conversation was a lot of fun and we’ll talk more about that later in the show.Adventure Time!We took a week off from planning this week due to Thanksgiving but we weren’t totally unproductive. After several months of compiling emails, we are super stoked to announce that our International Swimrun Adventure Guide is finally live! This is a living document so keep sending us your suggestions for Swimrun locations to include in the guide.ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out Anders Nyberg from Sweden. He participated in the Hellas Frostbite Swimrun over the weekend and when we commented on his Strava post, his reply was a true classic: “a bit nippy!” You wouldn’t catch us in that cold water but it gave us plenty of meme ideas so for that we thank you Anders!This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)The Champions Christmas Challenge is in full swing. Our friends Fanny and Desirée are hosting a 24-day challenge to get folks to move at least 1km per day and have fun, win prizes, and attend virtual galas. What’s not to love? The challenge started on Nov. 30th so make sure that you head to the raceid.com website to log your kms.In other news, the Hellas Frostbite Swimrun kicked off over the weekend. True to its name, it looked really friggin’ cold! Check out their Instagram page to see photos of the event…and to gain a new appreciation for the comforts of warm water.UpdatesOur last column of the year for Triathlete Magazine, The Swimrun Pull Buoy – A Love Story, is out on the digital newsstands. Check it out and let us know what you think.Do you need some new t-shirts and/or stickers? Head over to our website and use the code LOWTIDE for free shipping on all orders through December 6th.This Week’s InterviewAs mentioned at the start of the show, we had a really great chat with Laurene and Irina of Team Swimrun Mermaids. Based in the South of France, Laurene and Irina are great ambassadors for the sport and work with their organization Mermaids Swimrun Club to help get more women into the sport. We talked about how they found Swimrun (and each other), why they started the Mermaids Swimrun Club, and why the South of France is a great place for Swimrunners. We also talked about their packed 2020 race season and how their mindset changed due to COVID including signing up for races at the last minute and race with gratitude. We covered a lot of ground and can’t wait to make a trip to France to get a tour of their training grounds.You can follow Laurene, Irina, and the Mermaids Swimrun Club 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 forty-seven of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’re stoked to have Brent Molsberry on the show this week. He’s a race director, adventure racer, Annie Molsberry’s husband, and our tour guide for awesome Swimrunning spots in the great state of Washington.Adventure Time!Our plans are starting to come together for our Swimrun adventure in Lake Sonoma, CA. We will start going out there after Thanksgiving to start scoping out swim routes by running the trails the run pretty much parallel to the lake. We will bust out maps and everything.ShoutoutsWe have three extra special shoutouts this week. In the past few weeks we’ve added three (yes, three) new patrons on Patreon. Marcus Barton from North Carolina, Bob K. from Texas, and Miguel E. from California have all come on as supporters of the show. We really appreciate the support and these funds help us cover our production costs (and help justify to our wives that other people care about Swimrun as much as we do.) A tip of the hat to you three.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)Two of our favorite people, Fanny and Desirée (reigning ÖTILLÖ World Champions), are putting on the Champions Christmas Challenge. What is this Challenge? Their idea was to bring some excitement to these otherwise quite dark and lonely times, make this strange Christmas a little less lonely (in a completely COVID-safe way of course) and for participants to get outside, get some exercise in, win some cool prizes, try something new, and help save the oceans in the process.Event Rules:All you have to do is move 1 K each day for 24 days. If you make it, you get an exclusive invitation to the Grand Champions Virtual Gala dinner on December 23. (This will be more of an early lunch for folks in the US) Weekly Challenge & Prizes - with a guaranteed laugh:Each week Fanny and Desirée will announce a fun challenge (mostly to do with what you wear during your daily exercise) that can make you earn killer prizes from the event sponsors (even some stuff from The Löw Tide Böyz)! The challenges will be communicated on social media each Monday. Documentation: To win outfit prizes and picture prizes, you must have a public Instagram profile and use the hashtag #ChampionsChristmasChallenge with your photo and mention @desireedessi and @fannyfromswe in your caption.So let’s do this! Head over to RaceID.com to register and we hope to see you at the Gala Dinner.UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, The Swimrun Pull Buoy – A Love Story, is out on the digital newsstands. You knew that a dedicated pull buoy article was coming and we delivered! Check it out and let us know what you think.Looking for something for yourself or that special Swimrunner in your life? Check out our latest Gear Talk episode where we give our thoughts on cool Swimrun-specific gifts.Do you need some new t-shirts and/or stickers? Are you trying to skip the Black Friday hysteria this year? Head over to our website and use the code LOWTIDE for free shipping on all orders through December 6th.This Week’s InterviewAs mentioned above, our guest this week is Brent Molsberry. We met him in Catalina earlier in the year and have wanted to have him on the show ever since. This interview was part Lonely Planet Guide for Swimrunning in Washington, the part origin story of Ödyssey’s Orcas Island race, and a part recap of Brent’s first Swimrun race in Catalina. This was a fun one and we think you will enjoy it.Brent shared with us some of his go-to Swimrun training grounds in the western part of Washington. We’re listing them here for anyone that might be planning a vacation in the Pacific Northwest.Bellingham, WA: Lake Padden ParkSite of the Bellingham Swimrun, this park abounds with swimming and running routes for any distance Swimrun.Bellingham BayThe bay offers some open water Swimrun options.Larrabee State ParkThis park offers some challenging climbs on the trails but swimming options are all over the place.Anacortes, WA:Deception Pass State ParkThere are beautiful bays and lakes that give a nice mix of cold water and warmer lake swims.Seattle, WA:Seward ParkIt’s on a peninsula in South Eastern Seattle that sticks out into Lake Washington. There are tons of options for swim and run routes.It’s very close to the city so this park is great for a casual afternoon Swimrun practice.San Juan Islands, WA:Orcas IslandLocation of the Ödyssey Swimun Orcas Island race but it’s also a great place to just go explore the lakes, mountains, and trails.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, the gang shares their holiday gift ideas for the Swimrunners in your lives…or just yourself.Before we get into that, we have some gear updates.Gear UpdatesJust a few short gear updates this week.Annie tried out the Seavenger SeaSnug socks during a walk in her neighborhood and got a blister on her foot. She pretty decided not to even try them on a run after that. (Sorry Brooke!)Chris used the SurfEars 3.0 ear plugs during Ödyssey Swimrun Austin and they worked beautifully. Chipper could rest assured that Chris could hear him even though Chris may have been ignoring him.High Gear, Low GearNew segment alert!!! In this new segment, the crew will break down what gear they wore at their latest race and give their High and Low rankings on what worked well and what didn’t work so great. Chipper and Chris recently raced Ödyssey Swimrun Austin and shared their kit setup and what they liked/didn’t like.Chipper’s Swimrun Kit:Speedo Vanquisher 2.0 gogglesArk Sports ORNO 2Ark Sports Kangaroo topRegular sport underwearSwiftwick Aspire 12 socksHoka One One Speedgoat EVO shoesArk Sports Keel+ (Lasso Mount)Ark Sports Blade Swim Paddles (Medium)High Gear award: The Keel+ worked perfectly and Chipper had no issues whatsoever. Low Gear award: Chipper thought that he had his shoes dialed in but during the race it felt like the uppers of the shoes felt a little stretched out and his foot was moving around in the shoe.Chris’s Kit:Aqua Sphere Kaiman gogglesArk Sports VIGGArk Sports Kangaroo topSwiftwick Aspire 12 socksSalomon Slab Amphib shoesArk Sports Keel+ (Simple loop waist mount)Roka Swim Paddles (Medium)Ultimate Direction waist belt (Discontinued)High Gear award: Pretty obvious here, but Chris thought that the Ark Sports VIGG was the perfect wetsuit for the air and water temperature in Texas.Low Gear award: Chris thought that the Ultimate Direction waist belt was less essential this race because of the Kangaroo top from a storage perspective and it was basically being used to store the compression bandage and attach the tether. Holiday Gift Guide for SwimrunnersNow for the main event! The gang broke our ideas for cool gifts into three categories to take into account different budgets.Stocking Stuffer/White Elephant Gift Level (Under $30ish)Annie: Ödyssey Swimrun hand-Thrown, Custom Glazed Coffee Mug ($30)Brooke: Zoggs Predator Next Gen Swim goggles ($19.99)Chipper: Swim Stretch/Bands ($15.99)Chris: Swiftwick Aspire Socks ($14.99-29.99 depending on sock height)“Nice” Gift Level (Under $100)Annie: NU Orza Pull Buoy ($50)Brooke: Wild Swimrun Annual Club Membership ($58)Chipper: NU Lapa Bra ($60)/NU Lapa Shirt ($90)Chris: SurfEars 3.0 Ear Plugs ($59.95)Trying to Impress/In the Doghouse/No Limit (No $ Limit)Annie: “Year of Swimrun” (Price Unknown; Entry to either Orcas Island or Casco Bay Swimruns, Two full Swimrun kits (a beginner kit and an intermediate kit, training camp weekend in Europe with Wild Swimrun, and private coaching by Swimrunner John Stevens)Brooke: Ödyssey Orcas Island Long Course Swimrun Race Entry ($450-$650 depending on when you register)Chipper: Ark Sports VIGG ($430)Chris: All expenses paid trip to ÖTILLÖ Malta (Flights: ~$2,000; Hotel: ~$1,000; Food/drink: ~$500; Race entry: ~$650)Closing ThoughtsThat’s our best thinking on what to get to that special Swimrunner in your life. If you’re on the fence about what to get, giving the gift of race entries is a great way to support race directors and help keep the sport of Swimrun growing in the US and elsewhere. We hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving holiday and remember to stay safe, wear a mask, and all that.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 forty-six of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have John Stevens on the show. He’s a coach with Purple Patch Fitness, Assistant Race Director with Ödyssey Swimrun, endurance adventurer, and a stud Swimrunner in his own right. We had a really great chat with him and look forward to sharing that with you later in the show.Training Update/NEW SEGMENT ALERTNo update this week because it’s the off-season!! We still plan on training and stuff but we will be pretty unstructured outside of continuing to swim on a regular basis. Our goal is to not eat our way through the holidays but that’s still TBD.In other news, we are starting to plan an epic Swimrun adventure in Northern California and will be documenting the journey in a new segment called “Adventure Time” where we will keep you all informed on our progress. This adventure could be epic or an epic fail but either way, strap in for the ride! ShoutoutsThis week we’re shouting out all of our listeners that use CastBox to listen to our podcast. We’ve never heard of this app but here’s a tip of the hat to the 1.48% of our listeners that use that app!Feats of EnduranceWe’re going to put a pause on this segment until 2021 but we will still be keeping tabs with kudos to everyone in our Strava Club and look forward to following everyone’s training and adventures. On that note, if you’re planning Swimrun adventures, let us know! With no races happening, this will be a fun way to keep folks engaged in the sport that really doesn’t require events in order to take place.This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)With COVID cases on the rise in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere, there were no events this weekend and it’s looking like Swimrun Austin may end up being the last race of the year. While this is a bummer, we urge all our listeners to exercise caution, listen to the scientists, wear masks, engage in social distancing, and stay safe. We will get through this. UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, The Swimrun Pull Buoy – A Love Story, is out on the digital newsstands. Check it out and let us know if you share our love for all things pull buoy. This Week’s InterviewAs mentioned above, we have John Stevens on the show this week. He’s a close to a household name (among U.S. Swimrunners) as you can get. He’s raced almost every Ödyssey Swimrun event (in addition to being an assistant race director) as well as ÖTILLÖ events including the World Championship. In this interview, we touched on a bunch of topics. John gave us his mini-race director report of how Ödyssey Swimrun Austin went. We chatted about his origin story and how he found Swimrun. We also talked about his newfound enjoyment of endurance adventures. Finally, we peppered him with questions for swim training during the offseason.There was a lot of good stuff in this interview and we think that you’ll enjoy it.Listeners can follow John on Instagram and sign up for coaching through Purple Patch Fitness.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 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 forty-five of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!We’ve got a special episode this week. We just finished racing Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on Sunday, November 8th and we’ll be sharing our race report from our weekend in Texas. We were super stoked to be able to race and hope that you enjoy our thoughts on how that whole thing went. (Spoiler alert: Stoke level is still super high!)Initial ThoughtsIt was a stressful week with the election, COVID, travel, and a race on the horizon. We felt better once we got to Texas and we were really happy with our performance on race day. Sure, we could have trained harder…but we probably would be saying that regardless of how hard we trained. Regardless of our level of fitness, we managed to put together a strong performance and that only a small part of what was an amazing weekend.Getting to Texas/Pre-race MeetingGetting to Pace Bend Park from AUS was pretty easy (Chipper picked Chris up from the airport on Saturday afternoon) and we managed to show up only slightly late to the mandatory pre-race meeting.Shout outs to folks that we connected with this weekend: (We’re really sorry if we missed anyone)Drew and MichaelBrooke and SamanthaAdrianTrevor AKA The Copper PaladinTrista and Amy (Who brought us a giant donut from Round Rock Donuts)MelJennyBobRick (from Florida)ChaseChrisMattMelissaGemmaKristen (RD at Swimrun Lake James in April 2021)Lee Green LIKE THE COLOR (Chris’s new bestie)The entire Odyssey team!It was also great to see previous guests of the show as well:Bronwen and Greg AKA The Boston Wet SoxAndy HewittBlake and Beek AKA Team Envol BaywatchSean and Phillip AKA The Swimrun MonksMarcus BartonJohn Stevens (he had a cameo on Gear Talk. Future full episode with John coming soon!)Lars Finanger, Race Director for ÖdysseyIt was really great to see everyone and we really appreciated all the kind words from folks saying that they listened to the podcast and found it helpful in their race prep. That night we put into practice a lot of the advice that we had learned from previous guests of the show and made our plans for the race. The main things that we wanted to put into practice on race day were: having a detailed plan for nutrition, hydration, and when to cab down (Team Precision Hydration UK and The Boston Wet Sox); focusing on technique especially fast transitions in and out of the water and at energy station (Andy Hewitt and Nicolas Remires); stay mentally engaged in the race and problem solve quickly (Mario Fraioli, Johan Carlsson, and Oscar Olsson); and Swim straight (Megan Melgaard and Jim Lubinski).Race Day: Leg by leg (Play by play)The weather on race morning looked pretty great but we were worried about it getting hot during the race. Ödyssey did a great job with their COVID precautions and the race started on time with a time-trial start where teams started 5 seconds apart. Run 1 - 2.11 miles: The start was pretty straight forward and, frankly, it was nice to finally get to race again!Swim 1 - 663 yards: The swim felt a bit short. There was no significant current in the water and the water temp was very pleasant. Run 2 - 1.28 miles: This run was pretty straight forward. The classic Texas trails (rocky, rooted, etc.) made their appearance.Swim 2 - 1,166 yards: This swim was pretty straight forward and sighting was not a problem at all.Run 3 - 2.12 miles: This run was getting into the meat of the course and we started pushing on the runs a bit more. We made the decision to keep the tether attached the whole time. It was a new experience for us to race that way and we both felt that it was major benefit to not have to worry about putting it away and then attaching it again before a swim saved a lot of mental energy.Swim 3 - 1,145 yards: The swim entrance was at the end of a steep boat ramp. This swim was against the water current, but it wasn’t really noticeable. It was cool to swim next to the limestone cliffs.Run 4 - 3.33 miles: This was the longest run of the day. We got to see a bunch of our friends on the out and back portion. We had planned for Chipper to cab down as soon as we got done with Swim 3 and that happened smoothly.Swim 4 - 536 yards: This short swim started at the end of another steep boat ramp and Chris led the entire swim like a big boy. The swim exit was the most technical water exist.Run 5 - .56 miles: This short run led to the cliff jump section of the course. We ended up not doing the cliff jump because we were moving so well and wanted to save time by not having to swim another 300 yards or so.Swim 5 - 955 yards: This swim also felt short and we started mingling with the short course athletes. Run 6 - 2.49 miles: This run was the most technical of the day and we were moving well. So well that Chris missed a turn and did a bonus cruise by the finish line (we probably lost a few minutes but not much more than that) before we got back on course. The entrance to that swim was down a bunch of stairs to a boat ramp to jump in

Welcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs swimrun gear review show!In this episode, we discuss the NU Lapa Bra for women (and men.) Annie and Brooke swear by this undergarment for Swimrun and we get their full download in this episode. You can also read their review on the Swimrun Labs website.Before we get into that, we have some gear updates.Gear UpdatesBrooke has been training with her Ark Keel in the pool all year and has noticed that she started getting some lower back pain. She thinks that the pain might be from overuse (she uses it about 70% of the time) or muscle imbalance. She has started mixing the pull buoys that she uses during pool training to see if that helps. This echoes what our guest Shane Chaplin mentioned recently on the podcast that training for Swimrun-style swimming is different than training for open water swimming and that doing both is probably the best practice in order to be a good overall swimmer…and survive if you lose your pull buoy for some reason.NU Lapa Bra ReviewWe briefly mentioned that Lapa Bra in our Swimrun Undergarments episode. We thought that it required a full review given how much Annie and Brooke love this piece of kit. Before they found out about the Lapa Bra they had tried a whole bunch of DIY options. When Annie discovered the Lapa Bra, she immediately called Brooke and proceeded to yell on the phone that they “cracked the code” for undergarment storage.The Lapa Bra ($60) has three pockets in the front of the bra that provides ample space for storage. Brooke liked the color scheme (not the “shrink it and pink it” approach) of black and yellow and it was specifically designed for the needs of female Swimrunners.General ImpressionsTaking into account that all bodies are different, Annie and Brooke found this bra to be very supportive. Sizing is based on chest circumference but the ability to use the pockets for storage might depend on chest size.The bra material is mostly mesh material and very breathable. It did not get soggy and would wick water well. The three separate pockets are also mesh and they have a lot of elasticity to expand to hold a lot of gear. This bra allows users to fine-tune a “system” that can always be helpful.The bra did have a lot of seams and Brooke in particular has gotten some chaffing under the arm from the seams. That would be the main thing that she thinks that NU could improve upon in future versions of the Lapa bra.Swimming ImpressionsAnnie and Brooke both gave the best endorsement for the bra…that it was a “non-issue in the water.” This is what we always look for how a product will work during the swim legs of a race. The last thing that you want is to be bothered or need to stop to readjust something during a swim.Transition and Running ImpressionsThe ladies thought that the Lapa bra worked well during transitions and during running legs. Annie was able to stuff her paddles in the center pocket and Brooke would use her pockets for a spare set of goggles, nutrition, and one specifically for trash. As mentioned above, they thought that the bra was very supportive but that might be individual to the chest size of the end-user.Annie’s Pull Buoy RankingAnnie gave the Lapa Bra 4.5 pull buoys. She wears it every time that she Swimrunners and hasn’t had any problem with it. She docked ½ pull buoys due to the seams being a bit thick and the need to make sure that it is lubed up before a Swimrun. Annie sees this as an “insta-buy.”Brooke’s Pull Buoy RankingBrooke gave the Lapa Bra 4 pull buoys. Brooke thinks that her Lapa Bra (next to her pull buoy) is a must-have. She docked it points for the reason that the bra drew blood once due to chaffing. Overall though, she thinks that this product is essential for female Swimrunners.Overall ImpressionsThis is a sport-specific piece of gear that is made for women (or people with breasts) that actually works. That, in and of itself, is a great thing. The NU Lapa Bra also reflects well the ethos of Swimrun of it being an inclusive sport and the fact that brands in the sport are designing products that are specific to the needs of female Swimrunners is really great…and we hope to see more if it down the road.The best part of this entire review is that Swimrun Labs now has an online store where they are selling NU products in the U.S. (rather than from Spain.) So head over to their website and order!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 forty-four of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!Like some of the most popular superheroes with alliterative names, this week’s guest definitely fits in. We’re not talking about Matt Murdock, Clark Kent, Bruce Banner, or Peter Parker. This week we have the one and only, Oscar Olsson on the show. While he needs no introduction, we should do one anyway. He’s widely regarded as one of the best Swimrunners in the world and is a great ambassador for the sport.This interview was a blast and we’re super stoked to share that conversation later in the show.Training UpdateIt’s race week!!! We’re super stoked for Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on Sunday. The hay is in the barn and we can’t wait to see a lot of our listeners and friends at Pace Bend Park. If you need to cram some last-minute racecourse info check out our Odyssey Swimrun Austin Course Preview!Shout OutThis week we’re shouting out the Commonwealth of Australia. They’ve been climbing the charts on our downloads list and we’re really happy that they are finding our brand of content interesting. We’ll keep it going!Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week’s winner is Lee G. He’s a member of our Strava Club and has been putting in the work heading into Swimrun Austin. He’ll also be racing with one of our favorite humans, Marcus Barton. Enjoy the taper and see you there Lee!This Week in SwimrunWe have another short report this week.There were no races again this week because of increased COVID restrictions. In happier news, we are super stoked to announce that this segment is now being powered by Raceid.com. They recently rebranded from race.se to raceid.com in late October and we’re looking forward to beefing up our “reporting” with their help.Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesWe don’t have any updates this week that you haven’t already heard before. Stay tuned for our race report of Swimrun Austin next week!InterviewNow for this week’s interview. Oscar Olsson is one of the most well-known Swimrunners in the world and has the personality to match. His enthusiasm for Swimrun and the community is infectious and we had a great time chatting with him about his Swimrun journey.In this interview, we chatted about his athletic background and how he found Swimrun and fell in love with the sport. We also chatted about his preparation for races including the ÖTILLÖ World Championship and races of the first impression. We talked about the mental side of training and how he’s been handing the curveball that COVID has thrown to the world. He shared his experiences racing Catalina and how he just popped in and raced the World Championship at the last minute one year.Oscar runs his own gym and coaching business, o2Tri in Gothenburg Sweden. He’s also super accessible on Instagram to answer questions from Swimrunners.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 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 forty-three of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have Shane Chaplin on the show. If you don’t know who Shane is, well you should. He’s an Australian living in Sweden who’s witnessed the early days of ÖTILLÖ, he’s sailed the world, skied all over the world as well, raced the XTERRA World Championship, he’s a marine biologist (that works at a bank), and last but not least, he’s a Swimrunner. More on this super interesting interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe’re getting super close to race day and we’re dialing in where we can before Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on November 8th. It’s officially tapered time so we apologize in advance to everyone that we may be grumpy towards.Shout OutWe’re doing a group shout out this week to everyone that joined us for our first Instagram Live event with Odyssey Swimrun’s Lars Finanger. It was great to see so many people on IG and we hope that folks found the Q&A useful. It was especially nice to see some of our friends from Sweden jump on to say hi!Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week’s winner is Tom A. from Amsterdam. He’s been a member of our Strava Club for a while and we’ve been taking notes on where to train for Swimrun if we ever find ourselves in The Netherlands.This Week in SwimrunWe have a short report this week.There were no races this week because of COVID. Races in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and North Carolina were all scheduled but ended up being canceled or postponed. So be safe, wear masks, and practice social distance people!Swimrunners all over the world got the email this week from ÖTILLÖ with the sad news that their season is over. Given the COVID situation in Europe, their Malta race was canceled. In the same email, they also listed their tentative schedule for 2021. You can see that schedule on their website. Notably, for folks in the U.S., Ötillö Catalina is scheduled for November 20-21, 2021. We’re not sure when registration will open but we’ll make sure to let everyone know when we know.We’re sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, What to Expect at Your First Swimrun Race, is out in the digital newsstands now! Check it out and give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.Finally, head over to our website to pick up some cool Löw Tide Böyz shirts and stickers and show your Low Tide Pride in the streets. InterviewNow for this week’s interview. We’ve wanted to get Shane on the show since he first slid into our DM’s and dropped some knowledge bombs on us. He’s a super interesting guy who’s been all over the world…happens to be Michael Lemmel’s neighbor. We covered a lot of ground in this interview. We chatted about the early days of Ötillö and how the original race developed over the years. What it’s like to be Michael Lemmel’s sometimes Swimrun race partner. His thoughts about orienteering as a key aspect of training. How he thinks that Swimrunners in the U.S. should train on super technical to better compete in races in Europe. His thoughts on what swim paddles should look like. And so much more!Shane shared his thoughts on how Swimrun is changing the way people train for open water (OW) swimming. This part of the interview was so rich that we asked him for some notes to share with everyone.OW swimmers with good natural buoyancy and/or kick driven stroke are relatively penalized compared to the pack in Swimrun mode. This is because the buoy conveys little extra buoyancy benefit and the legs are immobilized. Or if you do try and kick your legs, you will go backward.Conversely, sinky-leg swimmers and those with more upper body power get a relative boost.Swimmers with over-glide or dead spots will be relatively penalized because they can’t use their legs to iron out the dead spots. So, don’t worry about fast or slow cadence. Focus on ironing out dead-spots.Other elements of the bad technique can be masked over in Swimrun mode. Particularly any actions which would normally result in the legs sinking (push-down during the catch phase, breath-holding underwater, and head lift during breathing).Braking actions with the hand paddles (upward glide), will be magnified and penalized - which is why some people aren’t faster with paddles at first.Swimrun swimming is flatter – i.e. less rotation. It, therefore, favors swingers and those with flexible shoulders. You need to try and generate rotation a bit more from the core because the legs are out of action.Paddles – most paddles on the market have way too much area out around the fingertips. This puts unnecessary strain on the forearm muscles and the elbow joints and burns energy in these muscles unnecessarily. There’s a real niche still waiting to be filled by paddles that have the center of the area further back in the hand, which transfers the load to the lats (and pec) muscles instead. This i

Welcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs review show!In this episode, we do a deep dive into the Seavenger SeaSnugs sock and give our impressions on Brooke’s favorite socks. Not to be confused with the Seavenger Zephyr which she mistakenly mentioned in the budget swimrun gear show, the SeaSnugs are the socks that Brooke swears by for training and racing. Before we get into that, we have some first impressions and our newest segment, Guest First Impressions.First ImpressionsArk Sports Kangaroo ReviewChris recently started testing the Kangaroo top and although he was previously anti-undergarments, he’s been convinced at the virtues of having extra storage capacity on-board. The top fits really well under a Swimrun wetsuit and the storage capacity is perfect. It has now become part of his race kit. If you are looking for more information about things to wear under your swimrun wetsuit be sure to check out our Swimrun Undergarments episode!SurfEars 3.0 Earplugs ReviewSome swimmers (including Chris) need to wear earplugs in order to keep cold water out and keep from getting disoriented. Chris recently purchased the SurfEars 3.0 because they claimed to keep water out but allow sound in. It has been an issue in the past where Chris couldn’t hear Chipper during a Swimrun unless he was right next to him and even then if he was zoning out, we couldn’t hear his partner. SurfEars are pricey ($59.95) but they worked as advertised. The fit was customizable and they kept water out well. The best part was that Chris could still hear Chipper yapping away. They even come with a lanyard so that they are less likely to get lost. If you need to wear earplugs to swim, you might want to give these a shot. Guest First ImpressionsFriend of the show, G Flo, recently sent us a note after our swimrun paddles episode that he had started testing the carbon fiber Frank Paddles. He had been using the Ark Sports Blades and noticed that Frank Paddles were much stiffer and that over his test the lack of flex helped his fingers not get as fatigued as they did with the Ark Sports Blades.Lindy from the UK reached out about the Seavenger socks after our Budget Swimrun Kit episode. She had found a sock by Inov8 called the Extreme Thermo sock High that looked similar. We’re curious to hear what she thinks about these.SeaSnugs Details from SeavengerAccording to the Seavenger website, the SeaSnugs are the perfect socks for beach sports. (Note that there is no direct mention for the application of Swimrun) They have the following features:ADJUSTABLE FIT — Adjustable strap ensures a snug fit and stretchy material is great for wide feet.PERFECT FOR ALL WATER SPORTS — Wear alone to protect from hot sands or layer underneath fins.COMFORTABLE CONSTRUCTION — Flat-lock stitching prevents chafing and minimizes flushing.DURABILITY THAT LASTS — Heel and toe caps leave extra room for your toes and add extra strength.QUICK-DRY TECHNOLOGY — Moisture evaporates rapidly for convenient comfort.The SeaSnugs have neoprene on the sole, heel, and toe with Lycra on the rest of the sock. There are plenty of color and design options and come in two lengths: ankle and tall.Swimming ImpressionsBrooke swears by these socks and thinks that they feel snug and keep her feet warm. They are easy to swim with and were a non-issue…as hopefully, all things should be while swimming.Chris thought that the socks were also a non-issue for the swim and definitely provided some extra warmth.Annie has been injured but still tested the socks for just open water swimming and they kept her feet warm and were great for walking in and out of the water without worrying about stepping on anything sharp. She also noted that they were easier to take off than full neoprene socks when her hands are super cold after a swim.Chipper didn’t get a chance to test them while swimming but still did science…Transition and Running ImpressionsChipper did a science experiment to test out the SeaSnugs. He went for a two-mile out-and-back run with the socks and shoes, then immediately stepped in a kiddy pool filled with water and hung out for two minutes, and finally went for the same two-mile run that he did with dry socks/shoes. He noted that the socks were “boggy” and felt “squishy” while running once they were wet. His feet also got noticeably toasty. He also noticed some pilling on the lycra upper.Brooke didn’t experience the bogginess that Chipper felt and in her studies, she thought that the SeaSnugs retained less water than socks like the Swiftwick Aspire. The socks are so snug in her shoes that she doesn’t get any debris in her socks and shoes during transitions. Chris was not a fan of running in the socks. Transitions weren’t an issue at all with a sandy beach entrance and exit. They felt squishy and the seams felt like they were generating hot spots on the run. It got to the point where during his last run leg of his test he ran to the car to see if he had a spare set of socks to change i

Welcome to episode forty-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have our first AMA-style episode with Tower 26 coaches Megan Melgaard and Jim Lubinski. We were lucky to get these super experienced coaches on the show and it was a lot of fun. We asked them a bunch of listener questions about open water swimming and, it’s safe to say, that we learned a ton and think that you will as well. More on the interview later in the show. Training UpdateWe had a good week of training with a big 3-hour Swimrun practice to dial everything in for Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on November 8th. It’s almost taper time so please pray for our wives as we will surely get moody on race week. Racing Odyssey Swimrun Austin? Check out our full course preview guide here. Shout Out/Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week we’re doing a combo shout out to Adrian Cameron. He’s a member of our Strava Club and participated in Ödyssey Swimrun’s Austin course preview training day and was essentially our man on the ground. He gave the club a ton of great intel on the course and we really appreciate him taking the time to share the knowledge. If that wasn’t enough, we got the idea on Sunday night to try to get Adrian on the show to do an Addendum for our Austin Course Preview episode and he was down to help us with that. That Addendum bonus episode is out now! Major tip of the hat to Adrian.This Week in SwimrunWe have a short report this week.ÖTILLÖ Cannes took place over the weekend. The weather looked much better than last year and everything that we saw about the event looked amazing. Big shoutouts to former guests of the show Desirée for winning the mixed division with her partner, Guillaume Heneman, and for Nicolas Remirez finishing in third place overall with his partner, Francesc De Lanuza Gimeno.Over in the Canary Islands of Spain, Swimrun Fuerteventura took place. Can’t believe we’re saying this…but we may have added yet another race to the bucket list. The photos of the event looked spectacular and it looked like a nature paradise to swim and run in.We’re sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, What to Expect at Your First Swimrun Race, is out in the digital newsstands now! Check it out and give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.Ödyssey Swimrun Austin is super close to selling out! Join us in Texas, if it’s safe for you to do so, and use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% on your entry. In addition, if you’re racing Austin but still need a Swimrun wetsuit, we have some that we can bring for you to use for the race. We have 3 Men’s medium (Blueseventy Alliance Swimrun Long-sleeved, Orca RS1 Short-sleeved, Head MyBoost Pro Sleeveless) and 2 Men’s large suits (Blueseventy Alliance Swimrun Long-sleeved and Zone3 Swimrun Evolution Short-sleeved.) Send us a message and we’ll make sure to bring it for you.Finally, head over to our website to pick up some cool Löw Tide Böyz gear and show your Low Tide Pride. InterviewNow for this week’s AMA-style interview with Megan Melgaard and Jim Lubinski from Tower 26. Megan and Jim are super experienced triathlon and open water swim coaches. They have helped thousands of athletes improve in open water and we were lucky to be able to pepper them with questions from our listeners. We covered everything from how to get started with open water swimming to how to use open water sessions to replace pool sets if you don’t have access to a pool. This was a great conversation and we already anticipate having them back on the show so answer more questions in the near future.You can learn more about Tower 26 and the coaching offerings on their website. If you want to follow Jim on Instagram his handle is @jimlube and if you want to follow Megan her Instagram is @meganmelgaard.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 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 also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to this bonus episode of the Löw Tide Böyz, a Swimrun Podcast!A few weeks ago, we dropped our deep dive course preview of the Ödyssey Swimrun Austin race coming up on November 8th. That episode has been listened to over 500 times and it appears that folks are getting a lot of value from it…which we love. Given that this is a first-year race, there are a lot of gaps in our review. Fortuitously, Ödyssey put together a course recon training day at Pace Bend Park this past weekend and one of our Strava Club members, Adrian Cameron, was on the scene and brought back some great intel that he shared with the club. The intel was so great that we thought that we should produce a quick addendum to the Course Preview episode and get Adrian on to share his insight with everybody.So without further ado, we welcome Adrian to the show and get right to it!Ride’em Cowboy AGAIN! (Updates to our Short and Long Course Leg Breakdowns)As a refresher, Swimrun Austin offers two distance options: short course (total distance 8.96 miles; total run 7.04 miles; total swim 3396 yards/1.92 miles) and long course (total distance 16.42 miles; total run 13.04 miles; total swim 6036 yards/3.38 miles). Both courses offer solo and team divisions. You can check out the detailed map for both courses here.The Ödyssey course recon training day didn’t cover the entire course but there were a lot of additions that we were able to make to our leg by leg breakdown of the course.Ödyssey Swimrun Austin Short Course Annotated Leg Breakdown:Run 1 - 2.11 miles (Flat run)Swim 1 - 663 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 2 - 1.28 miles (Slightly hilly run)Swim 2 - 1166 yards (Swimming with the current; wind might be an issue)Run 3 - 2.49 miles (Flat/rocky run; Cliff jump option into Swim 3)Swim 3 - 1582 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 4 - 1.15 miles (Flat run)Ödyssey Swimrun Austin Long Course Annotated Leg Breakdown:Run 1 - 2.11 miles (Flat run)Swim 1 - 663 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 2 - 1.28 miles (“Lite” hills run)Swim 2 - 1166 yards (Swimming with the current; wind might be an issue)Run 3 - 2.12 miles (Narrow trails, rocky, and hard-packed; first half is mostly uphill; Sandy at points in the second half the run; finishing with a very steep run down a boat ramp to Swim 3) Swim 3 - 1145 yards (Swimming against the current; Current mild or non-existent if water levels remain low; stick close to the cliffs to keep the swim as short as possible; very steep water exit so make sure your hands are paddle-free upon exit)Run 4 - 3.33 miles (Slightly less flat but still pretty flat run; this run is exposed and could be very hot; very steep start but then levels off; pretty narrow trail so it will be mostly single file; the end of run has another super steep boat ramp to get to the swim leg)Swim 4 - 536 yards (Swimming against the current; Current mild or non-existent if water levels remain low; wind might be an issue; swim start has about 6 inches of muck for about 20’ out; make sure your shoes are on tightly so you don’t get a “flat tire”)Run 5 - .56 miles (Flat run; this is a “teamwork-heavy” section; the swim exit for this run is very steep; you will need your hands free for this technical section; there are bathrooms along the road of this run; cliff jump option into Swim 5; the highest jumping-off point is around 20’ but athletes can scale down some ledges to make a smaller jump)Swim 5 - 955 yards (Swimming against the current; Current mild or non-existent if water levels remain low; wind might be an issue)Run 6 - 2.49 miles (Flat/Rocky run; cliff jump option into Swim 6)Swim 6 - 1582 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 7 - 1.15 miles (Flat run)Final ThoughtsIt’s important to note that the water temperature was 78 degrees Fahrenheit (the air temperature was 62 degrees) during the course training day. You can check the water temps for yourself here. Folks should plan accordingly for that. Other than that, paying attention during the trial runs will help prevent collisions and tripping on roots, rocks, and the like. We want to thank Adrian again for taking the time to give us his field report. He’s going to do great on race day…and so will all of you!That’s it for this week’s bonus 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 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 also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode forty-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have Ben and Rhian Martin of Team Precision Hydration UK. You can probably guess where they are based out of by this point but what you might not know is that they were the number 1 ranked mixed team in the Ötillö World Series in 2017 and 2018. They’ve traveled all over Europe to race and they share their wealth of experience in this interview. Get your notepads ready for this pro-tip bonanza! More on the interview later in the show. Training UpdateWe’re back to our regularly scheduled programming…in terms of training. With Ödyssey Swimrun Austin around the corner, we are sharpening our knives/rusty machetes with a big Swimrun practice this weekend. Yeehaw!Shout OutsThis week we’re shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon, Team Max Mockermann, AKA, G Flo, and Tobias. They have been friends of the show since our early days and we really appreciate all their feedback and insider product reviews that they’ve been sending our way. Much like us, they take Swimrun and Swimrun gear seriously but don’t take themselves seriously and we can’t wait to be able to race with them at some point. Thanks again for the support guys! Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardOur award this week goes out Sarah V. She did something that has been on our bucket list over the weekend that was pretty much a shoe-in for getting the award: a rim to rim to rim Grand Canyon run. Make sure to join our Strava Club to be part of the action. This Week in SwimrunWe have a fun report this week.Keen As Mustard Events in the U.K. was at it again this past weekend with Box End Bedford Swimrun. It was looking chilly out here but hey, it could be way worse! At least that’s the look that people had when they crossed the finish line.Swimrun Portugal hosted the 4th edition of Swimrun Madeira and it looked amazing. We checked in with Race Director Bruno Safara (and former guest of the podcast) after the race and he told us that he got his mind blown with how perfect the weather was. The water was 23 degrees Celsius (73 Fahrenheit)!! Gravity Race Lake Annecy looked like a dope event. (Fun fact: Lac d’Annecy is basically the next lake over from Lac du Bourget to the northeast where last week’s Swimrun Aix-les-Bains) The courses and the views looked great. The event had a 44k distance that looked particularly sporty. They also had over 550 participants which would have seemed huge in 2019 but in 2020 it’s just bonkers! Finally, ÖTILLÖ Cannes is happening this weekend. After the Utö bummer fest a few weeks back, it will be great to see Ötillö back to hosting a Swimrun! Check out last year’s hype video, The Force of Nature, to see what it’s all about. (The video was produced by our former guest of the show, Rasmus Lodenius) We’re sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesÖdyssey Swimrun Austin is closing in fast! Join us in Texas, if it’s safe for you to do so, and use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% on your entry!Our friends at Precision Hydration have turned on our discount code again so make sure that you use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ to save 15% off your order. We recently re-upped on our supply and are looking forward to testing out our new (and much improved) hydration strategy at Swimrun Austin in a few weeks. Precision Hydration is the official hydration partner of Ödyssey so we won’t be able to use hydration issues as an excuse for our “race performance.”Finally, head over to our website to pick up some cool Löw Tide Böyz gear and show your Low Tide Pride. InterviewNow for this week’s interview with Team Precision Hydration UK. Ben and Rhian Martin are the second husband and wife Swimrun team that we’ve had on the show. They took up the sport in 2015. They quickly became the fastest team within the UK in the early years and became the number 1 ranked mixed team in the Ötillö World Series in 2017 and 2018. They’ve raced many of the Ötillö and Breca Swimrun races including Isle of Scilly, Germany, Croatia, Malta, Wales, and qualified for the Ötillö World Championships 4 times. We had a great conversation that covered everything from training and racing while coordinating schedules as they were growing their family, to great pro-tips for Swimrunners coming into the sport. There were so many pro-tips that we just thought we’d list them here:Advanced Swimrun TipsPlan out your nutrition and your hydration strategy in detail for the event that you’re racing and estimate how much gels and salt to take on. Know what’s available at the energy stations of your race (and where they are located on the course) and plan accordingly from there.Write down your nutrition plan for when you plan to take on gels and salt and have it with you on race day.If you’re carrying both caffeinated and non-caffeinated gels, have one partner carry the caffeinated ones a

Welcome to episode forty of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!This week we have coaches Lauren and Matt Hurley from Black Sheep Endurance Project on the show. Besides being super accomplished athletes in their own right, they are also leading the way in training athletes for multisport and Swimrun. Get your notepads ready because this show is packed with great info. More on the interview later in the show. Training UpdateAir quality continues to be an issue in Northern California but we are getting out when we can. With Ödyssey Swimrun Austin just over a month away, we are starting to dial in our gear and plan a couple of long Swimrun practices—weather permitting—and we should be ready for the endurance hootenanny. Shout OutsThis week we’re shouting out the country of Taiwan. They clawed their way into the top ten of our most downloads list and we are stoked to see our friends in Asia checking out the show. Fun fact: 65% of all wetsuits are made in Taiwan.Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardOur award this week goes out Lana C. She’s been holding it down in the Strava Club for all of Australia and has been putting in consistent work all Spring(?) long. Keep it up!This Week in SwimrunWe have a short report this week.Keen As Mustard Events in the U.K. had another race this past weekend. The Nene Park Peterborough Swimrun had three distance options with a mix of solo and team categories for the 21km long course race. It looked a bit chilly out there so perhaps the smiling faces were frozen in place but at least folks were smiling.Over in eastern France, Swimrun Aix-les-Bains looked like a cool urban Swimrun going around Lac du Bourget. In case you’re wondering what’s going on in Aix-les-Bains, it is known as a thermal spa town and swimming, sailing, golf, and now Swimrun are the popular sports. Landmarks include the Roman ruin, Temple of Diana, in the town hall, and the belle epoque Château de la Roche du Roi. We’re sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesÖdyssey Swimrun Austin is just a month away! Join us in Texas and use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% on your entry. The fun will be had by all! Our friends at Precision Hydration have turned on our discount code again so make sure that you use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ to save 15% off your order. Have questions about PH? You can literally email them and a live human being will talk you through which products will work best for you! Be sure to check out our episode featuring Precision Hydration Co-Founder Andy Blow. Finally, head over to our website to pick up some cool Löw Tide Böyz gear and show your Low Tide Pride at your local Costco and other locations where shirts are required. InterviewNow for this week’s interview with Lauren and Matt from The Black Sheep Endurance Project! Lauren Hurley (formerly Goss) was a pro triathlete before becoming a coach and Matt Hurley was a coach with Purple Patch Fitness before they started Black Sheep Endurance Project together in 2019. They met at 2018 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon and legend has it that Matt fell instantly in love with Lauren.We had a great conversation where we chatted about how they developed their coaching philosophy, how Black Sheep instantly took off when they launched it in 2019, how they intentionally keep the number of athletes that they coach low so that they can focus on one-on-one coaching and their plans for the future.We couldn’t help but hit them up for free coaching advice since we had them on the show and they did not disappoint. We discussed how to work on specificity in the pool and how to apply that in open water. We got some great tips for doing big swim sets in a fatigued state. We got their advice on swim paddle size. And so much more! We definitely got a lot out of this interview and think that our listeners will as well.Black Sheep Endurance Project doesn’t really have a website so the best way to get a hold of them is through DM’s 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. 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 thirty-nine of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we the Martin Scorsese of Swimrun hype films; the one and only Rasmus Lodenius. If you’ve ever been on YouTube at 2:30 am geeking out on Swimrun videos, there’s a good chance that you’ve been turned on to the sport by Rasmus and his team. We are super stoked for this interview and we’ll get to that later in the show. Training UpdateSo we got back to training and had to hit the pause button yet again due to wildfires and poor air quality in Northern California. We are still going full steam ahead for Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on November 8, 2020, and managed to get some good Swimrun practices in before the smoke came back. We’re back to working out indoors until the skies clear…again. Shout OutsThis week we’re shouting out Piet from The Netherlands or as it’s called in Spanish, Los Países Bajos. He’s a fan of the show and was cool enough to fill us in about a Swimrun event in the Netherlands that took place over the weekend that he participated in. Thanks for the support Piet!Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardOur award this week goes out to the 2020 Mr. Löw Tide Böy Award Winner: Marcus Barton. He completed a 24-hour adventure race over the weekend. No big deal for him but it looked intense to us mere mortals. Make sure to check out our Strava Club to be a part of the love/kudos fest!This Week in SwimrunWe heard about a couple of Swimrun events this past weekend that looked pretty cool. (Programming Note: as more events start popping up, we’re going to have a harder time getting them all included in the show but we’ll do our best.)Swimrun Sport Nederland took place on Saturday. (Thanks to Piet again for telling us about the event) This was the third year of the event and sold out with 175 participants. While the race didn’t have a lot of elevation on the course, it looked like a fun time was had by all with three distance options to accommodate different skill levels. We although think that their race tag line was pretty good: “you swim in your shoes on and run in your wetsuit.” That pretty much sums up the sport!Epic Blue Swimrun Finale Ligure took place on Sunday. Located on the Italian Riviera on the Gulf of Genoa, Finale Ligure looked like an amazing place to host a race and the photos from the event didn’t disappoint and our bucket list of races to try just got longer.In more of bummer news, ÖTILLÖ Utö was canceled during race week due to their permit being unexpectedly pulled. Michael and Mats were as frustrated as the rest of us with the news but, as usual, the Swimrun community came through to still make the weekend special. Our friends at Wild Swimrun had a bunch of ladies on the island on Saturday to casually follow the route and the good folks at Envol Coaching have a large group out on Sunday on the course. Finally, everyone was able to get into the action to support some great causes with Ark Sports’ Dark Swimrun virtual race.We’re pretty sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesÖdyssey Swimrun Austin is just about a month away so make sure that you use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% on your entry and join us in Texas for some Swimrunning, cliff jumps, and other fun stuff. Our friends at Precision Hydration have turned on our discount code again so make sure that you use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ to save 15% off your order. We swear by the stuff and don’t see that stopping anytime soon. If that wasn’t already awesome enough, PH has given our listeners a 15% off code for their The Science of Endurance Hydration Training Peaks online course. Use the code PODCAST15 and get your hydration education on! Finally, make sure to check out our interview with PH Co-founder Andy Blow to get your mind blown about proper hydration for Swimrun and life.Our new swag store is up and running. Head over to our website to pick up a shirt and some stickers. InterviewNow for this week’s interview with Rasmus Lodenius! It was really great to sit down with him and learn about his journey as a filmmaker and how he got hooked up with ÖTILLÖ to work on their race films. It was especially cool to get to peek behind the curtain to see how these race hype films get made since for so many of us these films are our first introduction to the sport of Swimrun.In the interview we chat about everything from his upbringing on the island of Utö, his experiences in film school, how he learned about Swimrun and ultimately started working with ÖTILLÖ, and finally his experience of his first Swimrun race as a participant at the 2020 ÖTILLÖ Final 15 event. We covered a lot of ground in this episode and really appreciated Rasmus taking the time to chat with us.Check out these videos on YouTube to see some of Rasmus’s best work (as curated by Rasmus):ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Cannes 2019 - The Force of NatureÖTILLÖ Swimrun M

Welcome to Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, we do a deep dive into Swim Paddles for Swimrun. If you’re new to Swimrun you’ve probably seen photos or videos of races with folks wearing giant paddles, and other swimrun gear, as part of the race kit. We discuss why paddles are so ubiquitous in Swimrun, how to minimize your risk of injury in using paddles, and we have a discussion of what paddles we’ve used, and why. Gear Updates/First ImpressionsThe Ark Sports ORNÖ 02 sagas continue with Chipper developing a hole in the sleeve area of his suit. He applied a patch kit. He got some advice from Annie on how to fix it and reached out to Ark Sports for more advice on how to patch the hole. We shall see how that holds up and report back.Main Discussion: Swim PaddlesHistory of Using Swim Paddles in SwimrunAs the sport of Swimrun has evolved over the last 15 years, the ability of teams to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible (while wearing a full kit) has resulted in a lot of optimization for forwarding propulsion during the swim legs. Over the years the pattern that emerged was using a big pull buoy (such as the Ark Sports Keel) coupled with a large set of swim paddles as the established method for most speed. As you will see below, the answer to whether swimming with giant paddles makes you faster is that “it depends.” It depends on a lot of factors that we will discuss below.Swim Paddle Education We chatted with Coach John Stevens for his advice on paddles.Legend has it that John was actually born with paddles on his hands. He is the only Swimrunner we’ve ever heard of with a stroke so powerful that he actually cracked a paddle in half while swimming. One of the strongest swimmers on the US Swimrun circuit, John and his partner have won Odyssey Casco Bay every year of its running since 2016. He has coached swimming at many levels and currently offers his coaching services to triathletes and Swimrun athletes through Purple Patch Fitness.Should every Swimrunner use paddles?Every Swimrun athlete should aspire to use paddles, but it may not be the right thing off the bat. For example- my Swimrun partner Matt Hurley couldn’t translate paddles to his stroke, it slowed his cadence too much and actually slowed him down. Do it unless you have a hx of shoulder issues, and make sure you’re in shape swimming wise and your form is there.What guidelines and technique elements should someone keep in mind if they are interested in safely and sustainably using paddles?Work on the catch. If you’re dropping the elbow on the catch you’re pulling with just your hand and putting a strain on the bicep and rotator cuff. The idea is a high elbow allows you to scoop water with your forearm too and engage your lats.If you know you have a tendency to drop your elbow, build into paddles very intentionally.If you push out to the side to balance your breath stroke or do the keyhole or S, you are also liable for injury with paddles.Midline cross over is another liability.Elements in Swimrun such as shoes, wetsuit, and pull buoy cause less rotation, more of a square swim stroke is actually better for Swimrun and better for injury prevention with paddles. don’t let your arm move out or in, keep it it’s lane and elbow high.Injury Prevention when using Paddles for SwimrunThis is obviously super important because we don’t want anyone getting hurt trying to keep up with Joneses. Brooke wrote a pretty detailed article all about shoulder injury prevention in Swimrun that we recommend that everyone check out. Are Bigger (Paddles) Better?Coach John weighed in on this question as well.How can an athlete determine optimal paddle size, and what are the pitfalls of a paddle that’s too large vs. a paddle that’s too small?Always start smaller than you think you need and build into it. Even if you’re advanced, start small.If your turnover has slowed down, your paddle is too big and you’re likely depowering your stroke.Elements of the course should be taken into account when decided what size paddles to use.We are seeing a paddle size trend to a larger and larger paddle among European racers- should we follow suit?NO. This works for very few people. Be honest about how strong of a swimmer you are. Do you have resiliency build up in your shoulders? If you are this person, you’re probably a lifelong swimmer, you’ve probably used paddles and know how to use them.Flat vs. curved- any thoughts?Fan of flat. Allow you to get a hold of the water and pull more directly.Always look for holes in the flat paddle- the more the better and if there are no holes you might as well consider them to be the next size up because there is so much more resistance.Curved paddles don’t hold water as well per John’s opinionFinally, we asked Coach John about what paddles he uses and why.Favorite paddle- what do you use for training and racing?2 or 3 different size paddles: small for shorter faster stuff with higher cadence arm turnoverTempo or

Welcome to episode thirty-eight of the Löw Tide Böyz, a Swimrun Podcast!We’ve got a super-comprehensive course preview for you this week. We’re doing a deep dive to give you as much information as possible for Ödyssey Swimrun Austin happening on November 8, 2020. This is our second attempt at this type of show and we tweaked the format a little bit to take into account that this will be the first year for this event.These episodes are pretty labor intensive and we definitely could not have done this without the help from Lars Finanger and the rest of the crew from Ödyssey Swimrun, Lauren and Matt Hurley from the Black Sheep Endurance Project, and Bronwen and Greg from team Boston Wet Sox. A huge thank you for sharing all their insight for this show.Let’s get right to it!The Stars at Night are Big and Bright…. (Getting to Austin and What to Do)Swimrun has arrived in Texas! For anyone who’s not familiar with the great state of Texas, it’s a pretty massive state with a lot of variety in terms of terrain and climates. Swimrun Austin takes place in Pace Bend Park in Spicewood, Texas. This Park is within the city limits of Austin and is about an hour drive (40ish miles away/1hr drive) from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Here’s a handy link for directions via Google Maps.Hotels, rental cars, and food are plentiful. If you’ve never spent time in Austin, we think that you’ll enjoy the vibe and the food is amazing although it skews towards non-vegetarians, I.e., Texas BBQ is legendary and totally worth checking out places like Salt Lick and Iron Works for BBQ and Moonshine Grill for southern comfort food (they have vegetarian options here.) You also can’t go wrong with any of the restaurants on Rainey St. near downtown Austin. PRO TIP: save the BBQ for after the race.Yee-haw! (Intro to Swimrun Austin)The Austin Hill Country, where the race is located, is well known for trail running and water sports so it’s a natural place to combine those two activities for a Swimrun race. We chatted with Ödyssey Race Director Lars Finanger about how he found Pace Bend Park and why he thought that it would be a great place to host a Swimrun.Lars gave us a lot of info about Pace Bend Park and explained why this location is perfectly suited for Swimrunning. The courses don’t favor runners or swimmers and have a good mix of both making it a great race for everyone. Ride’em Cowboy! (Ödyssey Swimrun Austin Short and Long Course Breakdowns)Swimrun Austin offers two distance options: short course (total distance 8.96 miles; total run 7.04 miles; total swim 3396 yards/1.92 miles) and long course (total distance 16.42 miles; total run 13.04 miles; total swim 6036 yards/3.38 miles). Both courses offer solo and team divisions. You can check out the detailed map for both courses here.The air temperature on race day can be unpredictable. While the average air temp. for early November is 70 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the weather almanac, the weather on November 8 last year was 50 degrees. The water temps are pretty much unknown and could be anywhere 60-80 degrees.Lars shared with us a leg by leg breakdown of both the short and long courses and we have added as many details as we could to our leg summaries below. In short, the theme for Swimrun Austin is race “heads up” and follow the pink ribbons and flags.Ödyssey Swimrun Austin Short Course Leg Breakdown:Run 1 - 2.11 miles (Flat run)Swim 1 - 663 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 2 - 1.28 miles (Slightly hilly run)Swim 2 - 1166 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 3 - 2.49 miles (Flat/rocky run; Cliff jump option into Swim 3)Swim 3 - 1582 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 4 - 1.15 miles (Flat run) Ödyssey Swimrun Austin Long Course Leg Breakdown:Run 1 - 2.11 miles (Flat run)Swim 1 - 663 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 2 - 1.28 miles (“Lite” hills run)Swim 2 - 1166 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 3 - 2.12 miles (A little hard to plot out but it looks pretty flat)Swim 3 - 1145 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 4 - 3.33 miles (Slightly less flat but still pretty flat run; this run is exposed and could be very hot)Swim 4 - 536 yards (Swimming against the current)Run 5 - .56 miles (Flat run; this is a “teamwork-heavy” section; cliff jump option into Swim 5)Swim 5 - 955 yards (Swimming against the current)Run 6 - 2.49 miles (Flat/Rocky run; cliff jump option into Swim 6)Swim 6 - 1582 yards (Swimming with the current)Run 7 - 1.15 miles (Flat run)Time for Supper! (Nutrition on the course)The short course has 3 energy stations. The long course has 5 energy stations. It’s important to note that several of the aid stations are before swim entrances so planning your nutrition and hydration accordingly. The aid stations will have gels, electrolytes, and other snacks for participants. Both courses are cup-less so remember to bring a collapsible flask or cup with you.As far as we know, there will not be any Texas BBQ at the aid stations.Giddy Up! (Training for Swimrun Austi

Welcome to episode thirty-seven of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show, we have Jon Littlewood from Swimrun Club. He’s a Swimrunner out of the UK that is doing some really cool stuff for the sport. More on his interview later in the show. Training UpdateOur training plans were ramping up for Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on November 8, 2020, but wildfires on the West Coast have put a bit of a pause button on our build towards the race. We have been forced to mostly workout indoors since the air quality has been dangerously unhealthy but will be back out there as soon as the sky clears. Undeterred we are still super stoked for the race in a few months. Need some added incentive to sign up for Swimrun Austin? Use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% on your entry. Shout OutsThis week we’re shouting out the entire United Kingdom. Our listenership has been growing a ton in the UK and we are really appreciative of all the love and engagement on our meme page that we’ve been getting from across the pond. Hopefully, when COVID is past us and we get a chance to do our European show tour, we’ll be able to meet a lot of you when we come to town.Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardOur award this week goes out to Donnie and Preston. These guys were some of our earliest Strava Club members and in the OG spirit of Swimrun do a lot of training together which we love to see. Congrats and keep up the good work guys!This Week in SwimrunWe heard about a couple of Swimrun events this past weekend that looked pretty cool.The Åland Swimrun took place on Saturday in Åland Finland. They had to modify the race a bit and cut out the “Tough Enough” 51k distance but they still hosted 3.5k, 8.5k, and 15k distances. The water looked a bit cold but everyone was smiling in the photos that we saw.Bewl Water Swimrun put on by the Folks at As Keen as Mustard events happened on September 13th. That race featured 6k & 10k solo courses and a 21k solo and team course. This looked like a really fun local race.We’re pretty sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, “What’s the best ‘Full Spec’ Swimrun Kit?” is out on the digital newsstands now! Let us know if there’s a burning Swimrun question that you’d like to have answered.We got some new merch in the works so make sure that you check out our website for the latest in LTBz apparel and stickers. We also just released a new Youtube video about how to make a lasso style swimrun pull buoy mount, so give that a look if that is something you are wanting to try out.Finally, the rock flute intro is about to make a comeback! We are working on a course preview episode for Ödyssey Swimrun Austin so look for that to drop soon.InterviewNext to us, Jon Littlewood is probably the most stoked person on Swimrun. He started out as a trail runner that enjoyed it most when the conditions were miserable. He was basically a Swimrunner before he knew that it was a sport. He learned about Swimrun in June of 2020 and has gone full speed ahead since then!In this interview, we chat about how he fell in love with the sport, his mission to help grow the sport in the UK, and how he’s setting up Swimrun Club (a new app), Swimrun Radio (a new podcast, and his plans for the future. We covered a lot of ground in this episode and his passion for the sport is infectious. He has a lot of irons in the fire and we’re looking forward to seeing what Jon is able to build for the sport.You can learn more about Swimrun Club and sign up to help test their forthcoming Swimrun app here. You can also learn about the soon to launch Swimrun Radio 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. 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 Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.On this episode, we answer a question that we got from several of our listeners: what GPS Wearable should I get for swimrun? We discuss everything that should be considered in choosing a GPS watch and share our personal favorites. But first…Gear Updates/First ImpressionsAnnie ordered the Aquasphere Classic Pullbuoy that was mentioned on the Budget Swimrun Kit episode for $6 and free shipping. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as giant as advertised. It’s the size of a regular swim pull buoy. That being said, for $6 you can buy two of them and glue them together.Ark Sports KORPBrooke has continued to have water infiltration issues with her Ark Sports KORP wetsuit. She contacted Ark and they mentioned that she should have sized down…but didn’t offer to replace it for the right size since she had already used it in open water. While the KORP might run big, Chris mentioned that his VIGG suit might run small. So make sure that you are super confident about your size.Ark Sports Keel+ Swimrun Pull Bouy Finally, Chris and Chipper have started testing with Ark Sports Keel+ Pull Buoy (this item is sold out online). Chipper did a “scientific” test of 100 yard swims with nothing, a regular pool pull buoy, a Keel, and the Keel+. The Keel+ was definitely the fastest. Chipper also used the Keel+ in a swimrun practice and was a lot faster in a full kit. Chris did a longer non-scientific test of 500s with paddles alternating between the Keel and the Keel+ and his gut told him that the Keel+ was faster. It took some getting used to swimming with the Keel+ given the size and extra buoyancy in a pool without a full kit on. We’ll have a full review on the Keel+ in a future show. In the meantime, you can listen to our complete review of the Keel Pull Buoy on Gear Talk.GPS Wearables for SwimrunBefore getting into the details about the best GPS wearables and watches for Swimrun, we wanted to make some global statements about GPS watches. First, having a GPS watch is not a necessity to participate in Swimrun or have fun out there so don’t let the lack of a GPS watch stop you from training and signing up for a race. Second, there are a lot of considerations about the technical features of the different watches. There is a better source for that type of analysis: DC Rainmaker is the gold standard for super in-depth reviews about specific watches. Finally, while most GPS watches have some form of heart rate monitoring and use different methods, either with a chest strap or wrist-based optical readers. Chest strap is the most accurate so if you’re looking for something for heart rate training and optical tracking is more for folks that aren’t totally devoted to zone training. Annie had some more thoughts on the matter that you can read below:Optical HR sensor accuracy can vary from individual to individual. Aspects such as skin color, hair density, and position can impact accuracy. The band should be snug. It doesn’t need to leave marks, but you shouldn’t be able to slide a finger under the band (at least during workouts). Chest strap will always be more accurate than optical. If you do a lot of steady state training, using a wrist based HRM is generally pretty reliable because there’s not much HR variation it needs to pick up. Still can be 2-10 BPM off though, which is a lot.If your training is based on shorter intervals and you rely on HR to guide effort frequently, as in tightly zone-based training, opt for chest strap over optical HRM and save some bucks on your watch as you won’t need this feature. Wrist based HR can have a delay in presenting changes in HR, so if for example you are doing a 30 sec interval at higher intensity, you may be done with the interval before your watch picks up the effort increase.One last note- 24x7 HR monitoring (am resting HR, avg resting HR) can be helpful for gaining a lens into when you may be over-fatigued, having trouble recovering from your training, or responding to other stressors in life. Fatigue and cumulative stress is an important metric to monitor for any athlete. Optical wrist HR does well with this application.Some general recommendations that we have are the following:Make sure that the watch is a GPS watch and doesn’t require you to run/swim with your phone.Make sure that it has good battery life if you’re going to be doing longer events.Make sure it’s waterproof.Make sure that the watch has some form of multisport setting. (Either built-in like Garmin or able to add like Coros, Suunto, etc.)Make sure that the watch can capture the metrics that you care about.GPS Wearables and Watches that We’ve UsedChris and Chipper both use the Garmin Fēnix 5 and would recommend it. It works well, has swimrun-specific settings, good battery life and it’s tough. Chris has used Suunto watches in the past but would always come back to Garmin. Chipper has always used Garmin watches for multisport events but hasn’t seen any reason to change.Brooke uses

Welcome to episode thirty-six of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we are talking with George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg of Kraken Swimrun to chat about their epic 3-day Swimrun Adventure covering the entire Stockholm Archipelago. Yes, you heard that right. A total distance of 242km while traversing 79 islands in just 42 hours! George and Pontus are also the reigning Ötillö World Champs and just super cool dudes. More on all this later in the show. Training UpdateOur training plans are ramping up now that we are just two months away from Ödyssey Swimrun Austin race on November 8, 2020. There will be lots of Swimrunning in the near future as we dial in our technique after not racing since early March.A quick reminder that we want to see you at the race with us! We’ll be the guys in the back of the race. Need some added incentive? Use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% of your entry. Shout OutsThis week we’re shouting out Justin. We’ve known Justin for years and he got hooked on Swimrun at the Sprint distance race at Ötillö Catalina. He sent us some lovely feedback on the show and we really appreciate him taking the time to do that.Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardOur award this week goes out to Nuno. He raced Swimrun Zêzere over the weekend and it did nothing to help our FOMO for not being able to be there are chatting with the race director last week.Congrats and thanks for being part of our Strava Club community.This Week in SwimrunA lot of folks were riding the good vibes from the Ötillö Sprint Final 15k race in Utö and jumped into races this past weekend.Västerås Swimrun took place in Björnön, Sweden. The race was capped at 150 participants and similar to other events in Sweden, the race started in waves of 50 athletes at a time. Apparently, they had two Djs on the course blasting beats! There were some pretty funny team names as well including “Team Cold Soups and Abrasions,” “Team Half Decent Sea Lions,” “Team Latina Lovers,” and our personal favorite “Team Chips on the Couch & Cream on the Waffle.” (Honorable mention: “Team Earth, Wind & Water”)Breca Jersey went down on Saturday on the island of Jersey. Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands located between England and France. This 20K race looked very epic based on our in-depth Instagram research. Dare I say that this race has been added to our already very long bucket list.Finally, Zêzere Swimrun looked like a blast on the Zêzere River in Portugal. The event had two distances: Standard (31k) and Sprint (14.7k). We had Race Director Bruno Safara on the show last week and we can’t help but root for him as he grows the sport in Portugal.We’re pretty sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, “What’s the best ‘Full Spec’ Swimrun Kit?,” is out on the digital newsstands now! Check it out and let us know if you agree with our choices for the best top of the line kit choices in all the main categories. We got some new merch in the works so make sure that you check out our website for the latest in LTBz apparel and stickers. InterviewThe interview this week is just epic. George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg of Kraken Swimrun are reigning World Champs and elite athletes. You would think that would be enough to get them on the show. We didn’t even talk to them about that because they came on to talk about their journey traversing the entire Stockholm Archipelago. This conversation is all about how they decided that since the Otillo World Championship wasn’t happening this year that they would embark on an “Ultra Swimrun Adventure.” And what an adventure it was! We chatted with them about how they came up with the idea, why they decided to do this, how the event almost got derailed because they couldn’t find a boat driver, and finally, we get their “race report” breakdown on how each day went. This interview covered a lot of ground (figuratively for us) and hearing from George and Pontus about this feat was a lot of fun.Here’s a detailed breakdown of their Kraken Ultra Swimrun Adventure’s stats:They started in Arholma at dawn on Friday 28 August and reached Landsort at dusk on Sunday 30 August, covering in tot: 242 km (150 miles), 79 islands, in 42 hrs.Stage 1: Arholma-Landsort, 12 hrs, 80 km (16,000 m swim/ 64 km run) [49.7 miles total], 32 islands. Longest swim 1,500 m (Ålandet-Gåsö) and longest run 10,5 km (Yxlan).Stage 2: Möja-Ornö, 15 hrs, 86 km (8,700 m swim/77,3 km run) [53.4 miles total], 22 islands.Longest swim 1,400 m (The ”Pig swim”) and longest run 18,5 km (Ornö).Stage 3: Ornö-Landsort, 15 hrs, 76 km (13,700 m swim/ 62,3 km run) [47.2 miles total], 25 islands Longest swim 6,130 m (Danzige Gatt) and longest run 13,8 km (Utö).There were a lot of people and sponsors that came together to help make this adventure be successful. Here’s a shoutout

Welcome to episode thirty-five of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we are going across the pond to Europe to learn about the Swimrun scene in Portugal with Bruno Safara of Swimrun Portugal. This was a fun one! More about the interview later in the show. Training UpdateOur training plans are still sideways due to forest fires in Northern California and the terrible air quality. We’re basically doing indoor stuff until the air quality improves.One big piece of news in terms of training is that we will actually have to start training because we are committed to going to the Ödyssey Swimrun Austin race on November 8, 2020. We’ll be doing an Odyssey Swimrun Austin course preview show in the next few weeks in case you need any additional motivation to sign up and join us in Texas for some Swimrunning. In case you need any additional motivation to sign up, use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ, and save 25% of your entry. Just FYI, this race with be either preceded and/or followed by some serious Texas BBQ.Shout OutsThis week we’re shouting out Per Åström. Chipper did some deep internet research and discovered that Per left the very first comment to our announcement of the launch of the podcast. He’s basically an OG from day 1 so a tip of the hat to you sir. For some reason if you don’t follow us on Instagram you are really missing out! Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week’s award was a toss-up between two finalists so we decided to give the “prestigious” award to both of them. First, Courtney and Christian have put in some major miles together this past week. We think that they are a husband and wife mixed team. Second, Clare busted out a 90-mile ride on her trainer over the weekend. Yes, 90 miles…indoors. Congrats and thanks for being part of our Strava Club community.This Week in SwimrunIn case you were living under a rock this weekend and/or somehow cut off from WIFI, the Ötillö Sprint Final 15k race went off without a hitch in Utö. This two-day event featured 3 separate waves of 50 athletes each wave to comply with Swedish COVID rules. This weekend also featured some pretty gnarly weather so that must have been fun.In more of a bummer than news to anyone, the Ötillö World Championship was slated to take place this past weekend and would have been the 15th race of the OG Swimrun. We are all looking forward to celebrating the 15th edition in 2021!Swimrun Sumin happened in Sumin, Poland on Sunday. Looked like a cool local event and the photos on Instagram were FOMO inducing with the mix of town and trail runs and lake swims. This race had Marathon (42K), Sprint (27.7k), and Super Sprint (13.8k) distance options.The Torekov Swimrun took place in Torekov, Sweden. The field was limited to 150 participants due to Swedish COVID rules but it looked like fun was had by all. The race only had one distance: 23k divided into 18 sections with 4.7k of swimming.While it wasn’t a race per se, the Kraken Swimrun team of former and current Ötillö World Champs and other stout athletes completed the three-day adventure from Arholma to Landsort that we mentioned in last week’s show. The adventure ended up being a total of 242K’s of swimming and running, or roughly one Ötillö World Championship each day for three days! Check out their Instagram page and prepare to get your mind blown.We’re pretty sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.LTBz UpdatesOur latest Gear Talk show with Swimrun Labs is out and it’s all about getting started in Swimrun on a budget. Check it out wherever you listen to your podcasts. Keep sending in your submissions for our “International Swimrun Adventure Guide.” We got a bunch of entries and we’re almost ready to start putting something up on our site. As a reminder, If you have a great training route that you don’t want to keep secret you can head over to our website and fill out the form on our website homepage.InterviewAs mentioned above, this week we go to Portugal to get the story about how the Swimrun scene developed in that Country from Bruno Safara. A badass athlete in his own right, Bruno discovered Swimrun and never looked back. He organized one of the first races in Portugal in 2017 and now runs Swimrun Portugal that puts on six races in some of the coolest destinations in the country. In this interview we chatted about his background, how he decided to go all-in on Swimrun, Loch Ness, and “Nessie,” how he chooses venues and designs his racecourses, and what the future holds for events in Portugal. Swimrun Portugal’s next race, Zêzere Swimrun, is happening on Sept. 6. We can’t wait to get out to one of Bruno’s races in the future! You can follow Swimrun Portugal on Instagram is you want some FOMO-inducing content in your life. 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 favor

Welcome to another episode of Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.In this episode, we break down the different parts of the Swimrun kit with an emphasis on keeping it under a budget of $350 for those interested in getting into the sport of Swimrun but want to dip your toe in and not go full cannonball. We’ll talk more about that later in the show.Gear Updates/First ImpressionsAnnie is still loving her Arc’teryx Norvan SL shoes. She’s now used them on a variety of endurance expeditions and they are holding up great! These are quickly becoming her favorite Swimrun shoe.Brooke recently picked up an Ark Sports Women’s Ark KORP wetsuit. This was her first new suit in several years and said that running in the suit was totally amazing. Some water did get into the suit while swimming but she thinks that it could be a sizing issue. Overall, first impressions were mixed but optimistic.Budget Swimrun Kit RoundtableTo frame this discussion, Chipper came up with a prompt and a goal that we used to come up with our recommendations. Prompt: You are new to Swimrun. You run on trails on the weekends, but other than shoes you don’t really have any of the gear. You’re doing a race in 6 months and don’t want to invest too much money. Goal: Create a budget-friendly Swimrun gear setup (not counting shoes, tether, nutrition, etc.) to get you started and stay under $350With these cues in hand, we broke down the different elements of the Swimrun kit and talked about each gear category (goggles, pull buoy, etc.) and gave our thoughts on the best/cheapest gear to get you started. We also made recommendations on where you should splurge and where you can save some money. Most prices are approximate. Below is the breakdown of our choices:Chipper: (Total $347)Goggles: Speedo Vanquisher ($20)Wetsuit: Blueseventy Alliance Swimrun Wetsuit ($240)Pull Buoy: Ark Sports Keel ($47)Undergarments: Under Armour sleeveless shirt ($20)Paddles: Strokemaker Paddles ($20)Chris: (Total $267)Googles: whatever you already have. Don’t own goggles, I’m a fan of Aquasphere Kayenne ($28)Wetsuit: Orca Core ($169)Pull Buoy: Definitely spurge on this and get the Ark Sports Keel ($47)Socks: use what you have (something with synthetic fibers. Cotton is not your friend.Paddles: If you’re already training with paddles use those, if you’re not training with them, start with something manageable like the Speedo Power Paddle Plus ($20)Annie: (Total: $198)Wetsuit: Zone 3 Womens Swimrun Versa, currently on sale for ($137.50)Goggles: Roka R1 goggles are a personal choice and fit issues vary between people, but your goggles definitely can’t suck. These are my favorite and it’s worth investing in a pair that works for you. ($33)Pullbuoy: Aquasphere Classic Pullbuoy bigger than all the rest! ($6) One hole, one bungee cord ($1.50)Undergarments: sports bra and sporty undies you already own, Versa wetsuit has 2 internal and 1 external pocket so no additional storage needed.Brooke: (Total $219.39)Goggles - Zoggs Predator Next Gen ($16.99)Wetsuit - 2019 Orca Core ($169)Pull Buoy - Rise Pull Buoy x2 and glued together for Mundo vibes $5 ea. ($10) + bungee cord ($1.50)Undergarments - use what you have, but here are my fav socks and options for nutrition storage for longer eventsSocks: Seavenger Zephyr 3mm Neoprene Socks $16.95Belts: FlipBelt Classic Running Belt ($28.95) or just stuff gels in your sports bra...we’ve all done it. Or go with the RJ Sport Race Number Belt $8.95 Amazon. Also, stores some gels and has places to hook paddles.Paddles - Synergy Swim Paddles $9.95Overall ImpressionsAs you can tell, there are many ways to get race ready and that’s one of the cool things about Swimrun. There’s no right or wrong answer. Whatever works for you is the right answer. We recommend try before you buy whenever possible and reach out to other folks who might have gear that you can check out. (If you’re in the Bay Area, reach out to us and we can bring our gear to a swimrun practice for you to try out.)If you are looking for more in-depth gear reviews be sure to check out other episodes of Gear Talk, Swimrun Undergarments, Swimrun Shoes, and various swimrun wetsuit reviews. We also have the beginner's swimrun gear guide called Swimrun Gear Guide. 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 ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode thirty-four of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we Herbert Krabel. Co-race director of Swimrun NC and Editor of Slowtwitch. This was a fun, wide-ranging interview that we will chat more about later. Training UpdateOur training plans went sideways this past week due to forest fires in Northern California. We’ve had to stay indoors because of the poor air quality so there wasn’t too much training action that wasn’t on something stationary.Our thoughts are with all the folks that have been evacuated from their homes (including Chris’s parents) and those working day and night to fight these fires and help those in need.Shout OutsThis week we’re giving prospective shoutouts to a bunch of current and former Ötillö World Champions that are plaining on swimming and running the entire Stockholm Archipelago in three days. That’s 150K of trail running and about 50K of swimming or basically one Ötillö World Championship each day. George Bjalkemo, Pontus Lindberg, Kristin Larsson, and Annica Ericsson are the four athletes doing this. We will try to get them on the show to talk about this feat and ask the key questions: What? Why? What?!Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week’s award is going out to Trista and Amy of Team Adorkable. They’ve definitely been embodying the spirit of this award all Summer with their feats putting in some serious mileage including a “secret” 50-mile trail run on a 1.5-mile loop last week! Keep it up, ladies! This Week in SwimrunAs far as we could tell, there were three Swimrun events last weekend (August 22-23) including an Ötillö Merit Race in France. The photos looked great for all three events and definitely gave us some major FOMO. We would like to apologize in advance for butchering the pronunciations.Skatås Sjöar Swimrun on August 22nd featured a 10km and 15km events. This event took place just outside of Gothenburg and definitely looked like it had a cool community vibe from all the photos that we saw on Instagram.Immeln Swimrun in Immeln Sweden took place on August 22nd and featured a short (15km) and long (37km) course options. This race is put on by A to Be Events which we think is an awesome name for a Swimrun race company.Swimrunman Great Lakes of Laffrey by HEAD in Laffrey France took place on August 23rd. Nothing like some swimrunning in the French Alps! The event featured Sprint (14.75km), Classic (22.1km), and Vertical Ötillö Merit race (30.6km) distances. The merit race looked particularly intense with the race finishing with a run-up to the top of Alpe Du Grand Serre.If we missed any races or you want to tip us off to a future race that you want us to include, send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll make sure to include it.LTBz UpdatesKeep sending in your submissions for our “International Swimrun Adventure Guide.” We got a bunch of entries and we’re almost ready to start putting something up on our site. As a reminder, If you have a great training route that you don’t want to keep secret you can head over to our website and fill out the form on our homepage.We’re going to have a couple of open water swim coaches from Tower 26 on the podcast in a few weeks and we’re going to this as an “Ask the Coaches” episode. Submit your open water swim questions to us via email or DM and we’ll get them asked on the show.We just launched our Swimrun Gear Guide! This guide covers everything you need to get started doing swimrun, well for the gear portion at least. InterviewIt’s safe to say there is no one who has spread the gospel about Swimrun in the United States and beyond as much as Herbert Krabel has over the years. He has down pretty much every type of endurance event that there is to do including being a pro mountain bike racer for a while. When he found Swimrun, he was instantly hooked. We had a great wide-ranging conversation and we think you’ll enjoy it.In this interview, we chat about Herbert’s athletic background, how he found triathlon, and then Swimrun. He recalled for us his first Swimrun race, Ötillö Engadin, and how that went. We spoke at length about Swimrun NC, his role as co-race director, and how that race has developed over the years. We also talk about the growth of Swimrun in the United States, what makes a good race, and what the future looks like.You can follow Herbert on Instagram and read his articles on Slowtwitch.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. 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 thirty-three of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we have Team Cali Swimrun Girls. Caroline Wolek and Kelsie Pearson are a Swimrun team out of Southern California and part of the California Swimrun crew with Andy Hewitt, Sean Durkin, The Swimrun Monks, and others. More about this interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe didn’t do a Swimrun practice this weekend for the first time in a while. Our usual Sunday swim was also canceled due to thunderstorms…so it was a lite weekend of training. Chris finished his One Punch Man Challenge but is still trying to do a bunch of pushups every day for some reason.Shout OutsThis week we are shouting out our newest patron on Patreon, Carolyn. She’s been a big supporter of the show since we launched it in January and a good friend to us since way before that. Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week’s award is going out to Rob from San Anselmo. He’s been putting some work in! Congrats.New Segment AlertStarting next week, we will be launching a new segment for the show: This Week in Swimrun. We plan on updating everyone on the Swimrun events that happened around the world (and that we heard about) to showcase all the cool places where race directors are putting on races. We’ll probably not catch every single event, but we’ll try.LTBz UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, How to Pick an Awesome Swimrun Team Name, is out now so make sure that you check it out and give it a thumbs up if you liked it.We recently posted our Swimrun Gear Guide to help everyone that might be looking for a place to start on all things Swimrun gear. We get asked a lot of questions about gear and what we use so we thought that we would write something up that we will update as we try new and review new stuff.Our new-ish project, The International Swimrun Adventure Guide, is up and running and we’ve got a bunch more submissions. If you have a great training route that you don’t want to keep secret you can head over to our website and fill out the form on our homepage.Finally, our latest episode of Gear Talk is out and we review the Vivobarefoot ECS Tempest, give some updates on previous gear that we’ve reviewed, and a first impressions report of the Ark Sports Vigg Swimrun Wetsuit. Check it out and send us suggestions for future episodes!InterviewCaroline and Kelsie are both amazing athletes (D1 swimmer and an almost-pro triathlete respectively) and found Swimrun separately and then got introduced to each other by Sean Durkin and Andy Hewitt. In this interview, we chat about their athletic background, how they met, and what it took for them to finally become a team. (Spoiler alert, they weren’t fans of each other at first.) This is a wide-ranging interview where we talk about Ötillö Catalina (they finished 3rd and qualified for the World Championship), connect a bunch of storylines from the race, talk about the beauty of the team aspect of Swimrun, random swimrun adventures, and the future of the team as Caroline prepared to head off to medical school. All kinds of good stuff in this episode. You can follow the Caliswimrungirls 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. 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.

Vivobarefoot ESC Tempest ReviewWelcome to Swimrun Gear Talk, co-hosted by our friends Annie and Brooke from the Swimrun Labs.In this episode, we break down the Vivobarefoot ESC Tempest Swimrun Shoe. Chris and Chipper have trained in the swimrun shoes for several weeks and they are ready to share their thoughts on the Tempest and get peppered with questions by the Swimrun Labs.(Note: Vivobarefoot was kind enough to send us a couple of pairs of shoes to demo and they have not asked us for an endorsement or paid us for this review.)(Second Note: if you want to learn more about Vivobarefoot and the genesis of the ESC Tempest, check out episode 23 of the podcast for our interview with Asher Clark, Co-founder of Vivobarefoot.)Previous Show Review UpdatesSalomon Amphib Shoe Mini ReviewIn the “Shoedown” episode we chatted about the Salomon Amphib shoe (not the S-Lab version) and Chris has recently have been using these shoes for urban Swimrun practices in San Francisco for several weeks and really liked them. In the Shoedown episode, it was brought up that traction was an issue with these shoes on trails but they have been working extremely well on pavement. Chris would definitely recommend these for more urban adventures.These shoes aren’t in production anymore in the current iteration but the new version is called the Amphib Bold Water Shoe and looks very similar to the version that Chris used.Ark Sports ORNÖ 02 Swimrun WetsuitIn our previous review about the Ark Sports ORNÖ 02 wetsuit, we chatted about durability being an issue since the suit is so thin. Recently Annie noticed that she was getting yet another hole in the armpit of the suit and had to fix it with Aquaseal + Neo Neoprene Contact Cement. At this point, she’s thinking that the armpit wear might be a problem if this suit is used too often.Gear Talk First Impressions ReportsArc’teryx Norvan SL Shoe ReviewAnnie recently picked up a pair of the Arc’teryx Norvan SL shoe at a rock-climbing store and loved them. The upper material is very similar to the Amphib uppers and allows for maximum drainage. The Norvan SL is a trail shoe so the tread had a great grip coming out the water and on trails. Annie now thinks that this shoe is a contender to become her everyday Swimrun shoe. Ark Sports VIGG Swimrun Wetsuit ReviewAs mentioned previously, Chris made an ill-advised late-night purchase and ordered the Ark Sports VIGG Swimrun Wetsuit. He used it for one Swimrun practice and it’s safe to say that he’s hooked. The suit is very light and uses the Running++ material in the legs, back and arms. Running in the suit was amazing. It felt more like running in swim skin than a wetsuit. Even though the suit is thin, the neckline kept water out and the suit was comfortable in relatively cold water (around 56-58 degrees Fahrenheit/13-15 Celsius) even without using arm sleeves. Note: the VIGG does not include removable arm sleeves. The Running++ material repelled/shed water as soon as he came out of the water. After observing the ORNÖ O2 and the VIGG closely, the Running++ material appeared to be a tighter weave that the Running+ and felt thinner. The seams on the VIGG look a bit sturdier than those on the ORNÖ as well. This might be due to all the Running++ material used. The jury is still out on durability but it looks like it might last with proper care.Overall, the suit was amazing and Chris now understands why Annie and Chipper want to use their Ark Sports suits in training despite the durability issues. The VIGG is a joy to Swimrun in and Chris plans to use it in training as long as the water temperature allows.The Main Event: The Vivobarefoot ECS Tempest Swimrun Shoe ReviewThe Tempest is the first style to launch as part of the “Extreme Survival Collection,” and is touted as “the best Swim Run shoe on the planet, for the amphibious athlete” on the Vivobarefoot website. The description of the shoe states that it was “[i]nspired by nature's aquatic animals and blended with modern technology, we created a lightweight organic cage to provide flexibility, drainage, and protection.” The sole was developed in collaboration with Michelin using a proprietary compound that provides grip on every surface. The shoe retails for $220.The shoe looks pretty revolutionary from top to bottom and has the following features:Sticky rubber outsole developed in collaboration with MichelinSpeed toggle for easy fasteningQuick draining mesh and recycled plastic PET ankle sock constructionBio-based Bloom EVA midsole gives additional flotation reduces heavy feet in the waterThere’s a lot to unpack here so let’s jump right into the review of the shoe.Swim ReviewThe shoe performed excellently on the swim. It was definitely a non-issue and didn’t require any mental energy while swimming. A great shoe for swimming. Period.Swimrun Transitions ReviewIn transition, the shoe performed well. The ankle sock construction isn’t tight around the ankle so some debris can enter the shoe but it wasn’t very not

Welcome to episode thirty-two of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!One the show this week we have Gerry Rodrigues, Founder of Tower 26, and Emma-Kate Lidbury. Former Pro Triathlete and Editor at Triathlete Magazine, to talk about their new book: Triathlon Swimming: Master Open Water Swimming with the Tower 26 Method. We do a deep dive into the book and their swimming methodology later in the show.In other exciting news, we’ve reached the milestone of 10,000+ downloads! We’re surprised and humbled by all the support that we’ve gotten since starting the show and have a lot of gratitude for everyone that’s checked out the show.Training UpdateWe did yet another Swimrun last weekend which was fun and Chris is in the middle of the One Punch Man Challenge where he is doing a 10k run, 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats every day for a week. Why? Nobody knows, least of all him.Shout OutsThis is a special shout out to the “Dude from Costco” that recognized Chris wearing a Löw Tide Böyz shirt and chatted him up. It was totally random but definitely the highlight of an otherwise ordinary trip to Costco. Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardThis week’s winner is Kawika (Beek) from Team Envol Baywatch. He did the Pier to Pier Quest and submitted an audio clip describing his 27 Mile point to point Swimrun adventure for your listening pleasure. We also got our first Feats of Endurance award acceptance speech! We love seeing everyone working out in our Strava Club so keep up the great work!LTBz UpdatesOur latest column in Triathlete Magazine, How to Pick an Awesome Swimrun Team Name, is out now so make sure that you check it out and give it a thumbs up if you liked it.Our new project, the International Swimrun Adventure Guide, is up and running and we’ve received a bunch more submissions. If you have a great training route that you don’t want to keep secret you can head over to our website and fill out the form on our homepage and we’ll start compiling the entries and getting them listed on the site.In other news, our next episode of Gear Talk will be coming out soon and we will be reviewing the Vivobarefoot ECS Tempest, give some updates on previous gear that we’ve reviewed, and a first impressions report of the Ark Sports Vigg Swimrun Wetsuit.InterviewOur guests this week recently published a new book all about training for open water swimming. Gerry Rodrigues and Emma-Kate Lidbury put together an excellent resource for everyone looking to get better in open water. While the book is centered around the triathlete experience, there is a lot of crossover with Swimrun and we think that our listeners will get a lot of value from the wealth of expertise that Gerry and Emma-Kate shared with us.In the interview, Gerry and Emma-Kate shared their background and how they got the idea to write the book and how it all came together over a year later. We chatted about their new book and did a deep dive into some of the questions that we had about the Tower 26 Method and how it translates to Swimrun training and races. We touch on a lot of swim training and open water strategies. We also discussed how the Tower 26 Method is a great way to be “race ready” for triathlon and/or Swimrun.There are a lot of great tips in this episode so we definitely recommend that you take some notes and check out the book, Triathlon Swimming: Master Open-Water Swimming with the Tower 26 Method if you’re looking to take your training and racing to the next level. You can follow Emma-Kate on Instagram and learn more about Gerry and Tower 26 on his website and on the official Tower 26 Podcast. 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. 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 thirty-one of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On the show this week we have our first repeat guest, Ötillö World Champion Fanny Kuhn. We chatted with her about her experience post-Catalina and how she dealt with the shelter in place restrictions in Barcelona. More on the interview later in the show.Training UpdateWe are still training for something—not sure what yet—but we had another Swimrun practice over the weekend and we’ll be doing another Swimrun adventure soon.ShoutoutsThis we’re shouting out Vicky. She’s in our Low Tide Boyz Strava Club and a fan of the show. She recently found out that she shares one of her favorite movies, The Big Blue, with Chris after listening to our interview with Journalist and Writer Adam Skolnick. Bonus shout out to the Ötillö Hype Video crew for their latest opus: the 2020 Engadin Recap Movie. If that doesn’t make you want to go to Silvaplana, then we don’t know what will. If you want to learn more about the Engadin course, check out our Course Preview episode to get all the details!Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardWe are giving our feats of endurance award this week to Neil Copper. He’s been putting in a ton of work so we wanted to give him the ole’ tip of the cap. By the way, we’ve finally ordered the bumper stickers! We’ll be reaching out to our past winners to get mailing address and get these in the mail for everybody.LTBz UpdatesCheck out our latest gear review on our newly re-named “Gear Talk” show with Swimrun Labs. This week we do a deep dive into the Ark Sports ORNÖ 02 Swimrun wetsuit. Check it out wherever you listen to your podcasts.Our new project, the International Swimrun Adventure Guide, is up and running and we got our first submission from all the way from Germany! If you have a great training route that you don’t want to keep secret you can head over to our website and fill out the form on our homepage and we’ll start compiling the entries and getting them listed on the site.In other news, we didn’t come up with any new projects this week! That’s a first for us.Fanny Kuhn InterviewOur guest this week is Fanny Kuhn. She’s the reigning Ötillö World Championship and one of our favorite humans. We previously chatted with her about her organization Wild Swimrun with her co-founder Mia and we’re stoked to have her back as our first repeat guest.In this interview, we wanted to chat with Fanny about how her life changed when she returned home to Barcelona after racing Ötillö Catalina and COVID-19 changed the course of everyone’s lives. She opened up about how she dealt with being in quarantine for three straight months, losing her world-class fitness and deciding to take time off from Swimrun (she had made the hard decision to not race the World Championship before it was cancelled.) We also talked about how she gained a new perspective for her training and maintaining balance in her life.This was a deep interview that touched on a lot of topics and it just confirmed to us how great we think Fanny is and why she’s such a great ambassador for Swimrun. You can follow Fanny on Instagram here and learn more about her organization Wild Swimrun 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. 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 the (newly named) Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs review show!In this episode, we do a deep dive into the Ark Sports ORNÖ 02 Swimrun wetsuit.We’ve talked about Ark Sports a lot on Gear Talk and we’re stoked to take a closer look at the ORNÖ 02 suit. Both Chipper and Annie have used the ORNÖ 02 in training and racing so we get their perspective on the suit while Brooke and Chris peppered them with questions. We were first introduced to Ark Sports when we interviewed the co-founder, Christofer Sundberg for the podcast back in February 2020.Wetsuit Details from Ark SportsThe ORNÖ is Ark Sport’s “flagship suit” and it has been tested and trusted by the world’s best swimrun athletes since they launched it in 2017. Ark Sports describes the suit as “a stripped racer with no unnecessary additions. Designed with the single purpose of making you move as smoothly and quickly as possible even through the hardest conditions.” The suit boasts the following features: Premium Yamamoto LIMESTONE neoprene Low weightRunning+ (the material of the bottom half of the suit)Master buoyancy belt - 4 mm AIRAnti-leak construction - totalUltraFlex inner linerGlide skin coatingThe suit comes in Men’s and Women’s specific cuts and costs $480. It includes removable arm sleeves and a whistle can be purchased separately. The size chart on the Ark Sports site is very detailed and both Annie and Chipper we’re able to dial in the right size easily.Swimming ImpressionsAnnie loved swimming in the suit. She was expecting it to not be a cold-water suit but because the suit locks out water so well it worked well in a variety of conditions. The removable sleeves also worked really well despite how thin the neoprene was. Similarly, Chipper loved swimming in the suit and echoed Annie’s experience of the suit sealing out water.The shoulder material in the suit is very thin and allows for full range of motion. Chipper felt like the suit was like a second skin in the water. The lower half of suit which is a different material that the top half didn’t result in feeling cold and was a non-issue.One negative of the suit is how delicate it is. Annie has been using the suit a lot (over 17 times) and she’s gotten several holes in the suit in the anterior shoulders, on the hip seam and in the back of the neck. Chipper’s suit is just starting to get some small tears in the armpit area. Annie and Chipper both recommended pairing it with a large swimrun pull buoy to address the lack of buoyancy in the lower half of the suit, which is very minimal and designed for ultimate running mobility…which we will discuss below. They weren’t sure if buoyancy would be an issue if swimrunners are not using a large pull buoy.Overall, the suit performs exceptionally well in the water. The suit looks great but it has a low safety score because of the color. The suit doesn’t come with a whistle but you can get one for an extra $10. While durability is an issue, it is a very well-engineered wetsuit designed specifically for Swimrun.Running ImpressionsThe ORNÖ 02 performed amazingly during runs. As mentioned above, the lower half of the suit uses a material that Ark Sports calls “Running+” that is a spandex material with some thin neoprene with nylon backing that doesn’t absorb water.Running in this suit was “hands down the best running suit” that Chipper has used. The suit doesn’t hold water and is super light. Annie also felt that the suit was great for running. Chipper hasn’t cabbed down (lowered the top half of the suit for runs) as often as Annie has and it appears that the tearing issues started as a result of excessive cabbing down and up.One potential negative is that the suit has zero storage. While the new Utö suit, Korp and Vigg suits have a back pocket, the ORNÖ 02 requires you to either wear an undershirt with storage or have some other external storage solution. This might be okay for a race with ample energy stations but it’s an issue for longer self-supported Swimrun adventures.Annie’s Pull Buoy RankingFor racing, Annie gave the ORNÖ 4.5 pull buoys. It works exceptionally well for racing and she docked a half a pull buoy for lack of any storage. For “everyday” or overall use, she gave it 4 pull buoys mostly because of the lack of durability.Chipper’s Pull Buoy RankingChipper thought this was the best suit that he’s tried and even seen. He gave it 4.5 pull buoys because of the lack of durability and storage.Overall ImpressionsAnnie and Chipper both agree that this suit will result in a performance advantage for anyone that uses it. This is a great race suit but given how delicate the suit is, it’s not be the best suit for everyday training and potentially worth have another suit that is primarily for training and save the ORNÖ 02 for race day. Annie recommends getting some Aquaseal + Neo Neoprene Contact Cement to fix any tears that might happen from training or racing in the suit. Chipper’s favorite feature of the suits are the running+ leg m

Welcome to episode thirty of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!We have the one and only Mario Fraioli on the show this week. He’s an Olympic level running coach, host of the morning shakeout podcast/newsletter, and the last member of the Marin County Holy Coaching Trinity of to be interviewed for the show. (Mike Olzinski and Nate Helming are the other two members of that crew.) More on Mario later in the show.Ötillö World Championship UpdateIf you’ve been off the grid or just getting all your Swimrun reporting from us, then you haven’t heard that Ötillö made the tough decision to cancel this year’s World Championship. You can read more about their decision here. You can also read about how the slots are being set for the 2021 race here. This hasn’t been without controversy but there’s no way to please everyone and we are living in unprecedented times.In other (happier) news, Ötillö Engadin happened last weekend and it looked like it was an epic weekend in Switzerland. If you’re curious as to what the course is like, check out our course preview episode and start planning for 2021!Training UpdateChipper was on vacation in Lake Tahoe and enjoyed some time away from the show while swimming and running in one of the most beautiful places in California.Chris and Sandrine teamed up to race the Swimrun Edmonton Virtual Race at Aquatic Park in San Francisco. “Team Untethered” made their debut and apparently won a prize box from the race organizers. True to the LTBz pact, we didn’t use a tether. (This was a good thing since Sandrine is an amazing swimmer and Chris would have been dead weight on that tether.)ShoutoutThis we’re shouting out Patrick from Italy. He’s a triathlete that was looking for something else to do and DIY’d his own pull buoy, got after it, and is now “100% hooked.” Glad we played a small part in his new Swimrun journey.Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardWe had a lot of feats of endurance this week! We had a couple of folks in our Strava club that raced Ötillö Engadin over the weekend. Tobias and G Flo raced the World Series race on Sunday and looks like they had the best time in Engadin. You can check out their race report on Spotify here.We also wanted to give a special shout out to the Swimrun Labs crew doing a 50k distance Swimrun. (They can’t win the Feats of Endurance because we co-host a show with them) Here’s their description of the Swimrun: “12 runs, 11 swims, 50k total distance, volcano views, bracing ocean swims through kelp forests to secret coves, single track climbs through prehistoric old growth forest, new friends, old friends, mobile roving aid station, PBJs for days, currents from all directions... we’ve often said we could swimrun all day and today we actually got to. We were back, middle, and front of the pack, had highs, lows, swallowed some seawater, and shouted out loud about the magic.” LTBz UpdatesWe have a new Patron on Patreon! Thank you Dirk for the support all the way from Germany. We really appreciate the support!We also want to announce yet another new project, the International Swimrun Adventure Guide! With races being canceled and a lot of people training on their home turfs, we’ve noticed in our Strava club that a lot of teams have their go-to training locations. We thought it would be fun to compile them all in one place so swimrunners can explore new training grounds if they happen to be visiting from out of town/state/country or if they are looking for some variety in their training. We need your help to get this off of the ground. If you have a great training route that you don’t want to keep secret you can head over to our website and fill out the form on our website homepage and we’ll start compiling the entries and getting them on the site.Mario Fraioli InterviewOur guest this week needs no introductions in running circles. Mario Fraioli is an Olympic-level running coach, a journalist, the host of the morning shakeout podcast, the creator of the morning shakeout newsletter and one of the greatest human beings around. We’ve known Mario for years (Full disclosure: Chris’s company helps to produce the morning shakeout podcast and newsletter and manages sponsorship and sales) and frankly, he has no business being on our show, but he’s just that awesome!In this interview we cover a lot of topics including his coaching background, how the morning shakeout newsletter got started and how that expanded to the super successful podcast, and what he’s up to now.We spent most of the interview talking about running and how to approach any Swimrun course and reverse engineer the type of build that you would want to have a successful race. According to Mario, every race is about problem-solving and understanding the course. We also talked about the mental game and how to work on “perspective” while training for races and the importance of making sure that every session has a purpose and some type of “quality” to maximize both the training effect but also developing mental

Welcome to episode twenty-nine of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!In honor of Ötillö Engadin happening this week, our guest is Johan Carlsson, a member of last year’s winning Otillo Engadin men’s team (Team Simployer). We chatted about his story, mental toughness and, of course, Swimrun. More on Johan later in the show!Training UpdateWell we did Nicolas Remires’ 3-hour Engadin key swimrun workout that he recommends on our Ötillö Engadin Course Preview episode on Saturday at Aquatic Park in San Francisco. We used Hyde Street (a very steep street famous for the cable cars that go up and down it from Ghirardelli Square) for the “hill.” Needless to say, it lived up to its billing. It was super hard and super fun! Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardOn Saturday, we had Ray and Sandrine (members of our Strava Club) join us for the sufferfest for no other reason than they were easily convinced. For that reason alone they are both winners of this week’s Feats of Endurance award.LTBz UpdatesWe only have a couple of updates this week. Make sure to check out our latest column in Triathlete Magazine and hit the like button if you enjoyed it. Also remember to check out our latest special edition episode with the ladies from Swimrun Labs all about Orca Wetsuits.Johan Carlsson InterviewJohan is a super experienced swimrunner based in Stockholm. We met him earlier this year in Catalina and knew then that we wanted to get him on the show at some point. He came in second in the mixed team division at Otillo Catalina with his girlfriend (and stout swimrunner in her own right) Helena Dalivin. He’s raced pretty much every Ötillö race in the series and won Ötillö Engadin in 2019.We covered a lot of topics in this conversation. We chatted about Johan’s athletic background, his time in the Navy as an underwater mine-clearing diver (yes, you heard that right), and how he found swimrun thanks to his main partner Joakim Brunzell. Joakim had raced Ötillö in the early days of the championship and convincing Johan to take on the adventure. When they started racing, they were doing it mostly for fun and then at some point they started to train very hard and started seeing great results.We chatted about his experience racing in Catalina, how he trained for it and where he ranked it in terms of difficulty compared to other Ötillö races (Spoiler alert: They are all tough!). We spent some time talking about swimrun training in general (averaging 20-25 hours a week) and how he sets up his training blocks for the specific features of each course. We also talked about the importance of training the mental game to make sure the mind is ready for the effort required to compete at a high level. We discussed Ötillö Engadin and how he raced in 2019 to win. He shared some funny race stories with us as well. We talked about training in the age of COVID and how to stay motivated when there aren’t races to train for and keep working on the mental aspect of racing to keep sharp.You can follow Johan and Team Simployer 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. 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.

Orca Swimrun Wetsuits ReviewWelcome to the fifth Löw Tide Böyz swimrun gear review show! This review is once again co-hosted by our friends Annie and Brooke from the Swimrun Labs.This episode is all about Orca Swimrun Wetsuits and Accessories. Brooke and Chris have used several Orca suits so they review while Chipper and Annie ask the questions. It’s good stuff so let’s get right to it.Orca has been around for a long time with triathlon, open water, free diving and kids gear. Relevant for this show is their evolving line of Swimrun-specific wetsuits. Their first iteration of suits, The Core and RS1 suits, were basically triathlon suits where they cut the legs and sleeves off and put the zipper in the front. We’ve seen an “evolution of industry-standard” with their second iteration of suits that we’ll talk about later in the show.The Swimrun Core Wetsuit (First Iteration)Both Brooke and Chris have used the Swimrun Core. It’s Orca’s entry-level wetsuit that runs under $200. (You can read Swimrun Labs super in-depth review of the Core here.) It has the standard zipper in the front and it’s definitely a swimrun wetsuit with thick-ish neoprene on the chest and thigh region with thinner shoulder and back neoprene. It comes with removable neoprene sleeves for colder conditions, a small hip pocket that can hold one or two gels or the team bandage, a whistle and a medium size zippered pocket in the lower back. It’s a versatile suit that works well in various water temperatures and was overall pretty good in the water. While running, the thick thigh neoprene didn’t feel super inhibiting but hip flexion might be an issue for a really long event. Brooke has issues cabbing down in the suit but it wasn’t a deal breaker. PRO-TIP: you don’t need a lot of hip buoyancy in the suit if you’re using a large pull buoy like the Ark Sports Keel. (You can listen to our in-depth review of the Keel here.)LTBz Pull Buoy RankingBrooke: 3.5 PULL BUOYSIt’s not a fancy suit but it gets the job done. It’s held up for 3 years with a lot of use and wear and tear. It you’re looking for something fancy, then there are plenty of options but it you want something that won’t break the bank and will perform well in a lot of conditions, then you can’t go wrong with the Core. Chris: 3 PULL BUOYSThe price point was great. Other than the mobility issues that Chris had in the shoulders (which might totally be his own issues) the Core is a great training suit and pretty versatile so it’s great for beginners or folks using a separate training suit than their racing suit. That being said, there are newer suits that have better/newer technology.The Swimrun RS1 Wetsuit (First Iteration)The RS1 is the mid-range/top of the line suit that Orca offers. The material is very similar to the Core except that the shoulder material is a little thinner. The suit comes with removable sleeves, a two-way zipper in the front, a small pocket in the upper chest that stores a whistle and has a very large pocket in the back for almost too much storage. Unlike the Core there isn’t an external pocket in the hip. The neoprene material in the hips is still very thick neoprene but there is a small thinner panel in the hip flexor region. The suit goes for $399. LTBz Pull Buoy RankingChris: 3.5 Pull BuoysIt’s a great suit. For the price point, you’re not getting so much more for the money. It performed well in the water and on land and is pretty durable. If you’re an Orca fan, skip the Core and get the RS1.Second Iteration/Generation Orca Swimrun WetsuitsSince we’re on the topic of Orca wetsuits, we thought it would be instructive to discuss the new suits that Orca has released since Chris and Brooke got their suits. Orca’s new offerings are the ORCA Perform and new RS1. As expected, the new suits follow the newer style of swimrun suits that other brands are making where the entire lower half of the suit (from the lower waist down) is a thinner material designed for ease of running and the upper part of the suit is where the traditional neoprene is placed for warmth and buoyancy. The new RS1 has what looks like a new style of zipper. We couldn’t totally figure out how it worked so we can’t tell if it was a positive or negative. (If anyone listening has used it, let us know what you think!)Orca also makes a separates suit where tops and bottoms are sold separately. We didn’t know what to think about this, but it seems like a good idea to get a good fit if you have an odd body type.Other Orca Swimrun ProductsOrca offers a bunch of accessories for swimrun including calf guards, a pull buoy with Velcro straps, a neoprene undershirt with storage, belts and a tether.Overall ImpressionsIf we’re talking about affordability, you really can’t go wrong with either the Orca Core Wetsuit or the blueseventy Alliance Swimrun Wetsuit (you can listen to our review of that suit here) for the price point. We think that the decision should be based on where the swimrun wetsuit will be used. If you’re i

Welcome to episode twenty-eight of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!This week we have journalist and swimrunner, Adam Skolnick. We had a great chat with him about his super interesting life and his Swimrun origin story. More about Adam later in the show.Training UpdateTraining continues to go well. A lot of swimming happening lately and we’re ramping up to take on Nicolas Remires’s 3-hour Engadin swimrun workout. You can check out that workout at around minute 48 of our Engadin Course Preview show. That should be fun…and painful.For shout outs this week, we’re tipping the hat to our friend Ray who we convinced to come out to do a swimrun practice with us. We had a wetsuit for him and he was sold after the first transition.Feats of Endurance Weekly AwardFor this week’s Feats of Endurance, we congratulate Nancy and Denise from upstate New York that had a cool swimrun practice last weekend. Nancy also sent us a nice email with feedback for the show so thanks so much for that. We love hearing from our listeners. If you want to get in on the Feats of Endurance be sure to join the Low Tide Boyz Strava Club. LTBz UpdatesThe main update this week is that our second column in Triathlete Magazine, “What’s the Deal With the Swimrun Tether?” is out now. Check it out and give us a thumbs up if you liked it. We’re always on the hunt for ideas, so let us know your burning swimrun questions and we’ll answer them…or find smarter people than us to answer them.Vivobarefoot ECS Tempest ReviewWe also wanted to give a mini-review of the new Vivobarefoot ECS Tempest that that folks at Vivobarefoot sent over for us to try out. Check out our interview with Asher Clark if you want all the details about the Vivobarefoot Tempest. We thought that we would give everyone a short review and then plan to do something longer at some point. Our initial impressions of the shoe after testing them on a couple of swimrun practices are that they are definitely amazing swimrun shoes…with a caveat that we’ll talk about in a bit. The shoe fits true to size and were great in the water and on land. In the water, it felt like you weren’t wearing shoes and in transitions they didn’t collect sand or rocks. We ran with them on trails and road and they performed well on every surface. The main caveat for these shoes is that you need get comfortable with running in minimal shoes. If you’re already on that train, then we can’t recommend them enough. If you’re not on that train, you need to make sure that you take it easy as you transition to minimal shoes. Adam Skolnick InterviewNow for our interview with Adam Skolnick. He’s an award-winning independent journalist and author covering adventure sports, environmental issues, travel and human rights for The New York Times, Outside, Playboy and Lonely Planet. He’s traveled the world, contributed to 35 Lonely Planet travel guides and is the author of One Breath: Freediving, Death and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits. If that wasn’t enough... Adam was the ghost writer and narrator of David Goggins’ hit memoir and audiobook Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds, which has sold over two million copies and counting worldwide. Notably for Swimrun, Adam wrote the New York Times article chronicling Rich Roll and the Ötillö World Championship in 2017 and the article about the inaugural Ötillö Catalina event earlier this year.We had a great conversation that hit on a lot of topics. Adam shared with us how he became a journalist and how he wrote his first book. We also chatted about how he met David Goggins and ended up ghostwriting the book that has sold millions of copies worldwide. We also discussed how Adam ended up writing the story for the New York Times about the 2017 Ötillö World Championship and how writing that article led him to sign up for the Experience distance at the Inaugural Ötillö Catalina in 2020. Finally, we chatted about Adam about becoming father in a few months and how plans to keep swimrunning.You can learn more about Adam on his website. You can also listen to Adam on the Rich Roll Podcast “Roll On” episodes twice a month.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. 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 twenty-seven of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s guest doesn’t need much of an introduction. Within Swimrun circles if you just say the name “Desirée” and everybody knows who you are talking about. Hailing for Stockholm Sweden, she is the reigning two-time Otillo Swimrun World Champion (2018 & 2019) with her partner and friend of the show Fanny Kuhn (she was on the show in Episode 10). Most recently they won the inaugural Ötillö Catalina race and they are ramping up to defend their world title in August.Training continues to go well. We actually did a Swimrun practice this past weekend and it was fun even though the water was a little gross because it was very low tide, too low. (The irony is not lost on us) The swimming and running will continue at this beach for sure because it’s a very good spot for working on what Nicolas Remirez (from Episode 14) calls Swimrun technique.For our shout out this week, we are tipping the hat to our friend John Hayato for his amazing 12 hour run around the block of his house in Denver to raise funds for KEEN USA. KEEN helps kids with physical and cognitive disabilities enjoy exercise. It’s a great a cause and John raised over $2,000 while running almost 50 miles!His feat of endurance got us thinking…something that is dangerous for us. But alas, we are super stoked to introduce a new segment to the show: The Löw Tide Böyz Weekly Feat of Endurance! Every week we will shout out a member of the Löw Tide Böyz Strava Club for a workout or race that they post. The feats can be either epic, funny, cool route, great photo or any combination therein. The weekly winner will receive a special edition bumper sticker. All you have to do to be a part of it is join our Strava Club. (This week’s winner is John Hayato)If that wasn’t enough, we are also starting the Löw Tide Böyz Feat of Endurance Hall of Fame! We figured that this was a worthy title for people who shouldn’t be eligible for the weekly award because they are such beasts. Our first HOF inductee is Amber Ferreira of Team Better Tethered Together. Not only has she recently “Everested” on her bike, she’s consistently crushing everything she does. Congrats Amber! You’re awesome!In other news, our next column in triathlete magazine is dropping soon so make sure to look out for that. We were also recently interviewed for Trimax Magazine. The piece is in French so just take our word for it that it’s a nice little article if you can’t read it. Finally, Ötillö Engadin is still happening! Check out our Ötillö Engadin course preview episode if you’re going to be racing but make sure that you check on the Ötillö website to get the latest info regarding quarantines and travel restrictions. We wanted to give a plug for our recent Swimrun Undergarments special episode with The Swimrun Labs. A lot of great info in that episode so make sure to check it out to get all your burning questions answered about how to prevent, uhm, chaffing burns, what to wear under your wetsuit and so much more.Finally, we wanted to give everyone a quick reminder that we have some discount codes from former guests that are still good. You can use the code SWIMRUN at blueseventy.com for 20% off your order. You can also use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ at precisionhydration.com for 15% off your order. Support these great companies and make us look good in the process!Now for our interview with Desirée! We chatted about her athletic background, how she found Swimrun and how she ended up teaming up with Fanny to become the powerhouse Otillo World Championship winning duo. We spoke about what it’s like to always be a favorite to win and how she handles it in competition. We also chatted about what her typical training week looks like, how she trains for races when her partner lives in another country and how she will alter her training for the length of the World Championship course. We covered a lot of ground in this episode and we learned a lot from Desirée. We really enjoyed this conversation and think that you will as well. You can follow her 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. 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 the fourth Low Tide Boyz swimrun gear review show! This review is once again co-hosted by our friends at Swimrun Labs and this is going to be a regular thing going forward to we’re very happy about that.Like our swimrun shoe Shoedown episode, this episode covers that nebulous category of Swimrun gear that goes beneath your Swimrun gear. Think undershirts, bras, undies, nothing, and socks! Welcome to the Underwear episode. Let’s get right to it!Global Considerations in Selecting Undergarments for SwimrunChaffing AbatementWarmthStorage Capacity“Bogginess” (wet diaper effect)Chaffing a big issue so we broke this down a bit. Body Glide, Vaseline, 2Toms Sports Shield or Tri Slide are essential to try to keep your wetsuit from chaffing your neck, arms or thighs. Brooke uses multiple layers of Body Glide and 2Toms on her skin and separately her wetsuit. Lubing up neck, armpits, any other opening, bra line and the “nether regions.” Another option for abatement which we learned from Team Envol Baywatch (listen to Episode 6 with them here) is the use Rocktape or KT Tape around the neckline where the wetsuit would make contact.Anyway, chaffing is annoying and can get debilitating the longer the event. Take it seriously and avoid it like your life (or at least your skin’s life) depends on it!Next, we’re going to breakdown undergarment choices going from head to toe.HeadThe main thing in this region is wearing something under your race swim cap if the conditions call for it. There are neoprene caps (with or without chin straps) that Roka, Blue Seventy, Ark Sports and others make and non-neoprene caps like TYR Warmwear caps.“Wetsuit Region”One challenge with Swimrun is the gear that you need to carry on board for longer races and the lack of storage capacity in most Swimrun wetsuits. Ark Sports and NU make special undershirts that have kangaroo pockets for extra storage under the wetsuit. NU also makes some sports bras for women (or men we guess) that also have a pocket in the front. For warmth, an undershirt would help. For ladies, one product that worked for Brooke was the Smartwool Merino Wool racer back sports bra.A question that we get a lot is “what do you wear under your swimrun wetsuit?” There are a lot of options to choose from but we recommend something with compression and made of synthetic fibers so that they don’t ride up under the suit and also wick water away. Sporty underwear should be the first place you look at. The main thing to about is anything with big seams (due to the potential for chaffing) or things that might ride up and create rolled-up material that would be super uncomfortable.FeetThe question that we get the most is what socks to wear for Swimrun. We recommend NOT using cotton socks or socks that have extra padding or cushioning in the footbed or toes (to prevent bogginess). Using a wicking sock like a thin running or cycling sock that is higher than ankle length is the way to go. Ankle socks could lead to getting more rocks or sand in your shoes. A couple of brands that we like are Gococo (the official sock of Ötillö), CEP, Stance (the run infiknit socks) or Swiftwick (Aspire is the best model that we found for Swimrun). Brooke uses neoprene socks for racing, specifically, ankle neoprene socks called the Seavenger Zepher. Blue Seventy makes booties that can also be used. This is definitely an area where you want to test to make sure that using booties is going to work for you in a race.So…This was a lot of information and we covered a lot of ground. The main takeaway should be that there are a lot of different ways to get to the finish line. All four of us used different products and were happy with it. We suggest starting with what you have and experimenting from there.That’s it for this week’s special edition 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 twenty-six of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Thor Hesselberg, endurance athlete and race director of Rockman Swimrun. We have a fun chat with him about the Swimrun scene in Norway and talk about his truly epic race. More on that later.We wanted to give everyone a quick reminder that we have some discount codes from former guests that are still good. You can use the code SWIMRUN at blueseventy.com for 20% off your order. Check out our chat with the CEO of Blueseventy John Duquette. You can also use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ at precisionhydration.com for 15% off your order. If you missed the episode with Andy Blow the co-founder of Precision Hydration that is one not to miss! Support these great companies and make us look good in the process!We have dual shout outs again this week! First, we wanted to give a big congrats to Amber Ferreira (of Team Better Tethered Together) for crushing her Everesting attempt on June 20th. For those who don’t know what that is, she cycled the total elevation of Mt. Everest (29,029 feet) in one ride. Check out her Strava file to see her stats for the ride. Second, we wanted to give a special shout out Rob Sainsbury, who has been a supporter from day 1. Rob (so_aero on Instagram) wrote a post about swimrun on the VJ Shoe blog. Thanks for spreading the good word about swimrun and the Low Tide Boyz! Our training has definitely picked up now that our pool is open and we will be embarking on some local Swimrun adventures in the coming weeks. Make sure to join our Strava Club to see us bite off more than we can chew.Now for this week’s interview with Thor Hesselberg. An endurance athlete that focused on extreme triathlons and naturally found out about Swimrun in his travels and instantly fell in love with the concept. Thor became involved in Rockman when members of his swim club in Norway were putting together the first edition of the event. He volunteered by hosting a pre-race BBQ and volunteering during the fjord crossing swim. The rest is Swimrun history.We chatted about how Rockman has evolved over the years and the rationale for all the awesome hype videos to showcase the event. (You can check out their hype videos here.) We discussed how he grew the race to now being one of the most recognizable Swimrun events in the world.We also chatted about how he sees the sport of Swimrun evolving and his thoughts on how to keep growing the sport the right way. He feels that the sport needs to stay honest to the original spirit of Swimrun and keep leaving no footprint or environmental impact. Finally, we chatted about the mythology around Rockman (and the 4,444 step climb at the middle of the race) and the experience that awaits anybody that chooses to take on the challenge. We also talked about bison. You can learn more about Rockman here and start planning your trip to Norway! If you need some extra epic photos in your life, check out the Rockman Instagram page 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. 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 twenty-five of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show, we have Andy Blow, the Co-founder of Precision Hydration. We did a major deep dive into hydration for Swimrun and chat about his quest to solve his own performance issues and how that led him to start PH. More on that later in the show. But we have to tell everyone that Andy was cool enough to set up a discount code for our listeners for 15% off online orders with the code LOWTIDEBOYZ. This code is good through the end of July so place an order and help make us look good while properly hydrating for your training and racing.We have dual shout outs this week! First, we wanted to give a shout out to Tim Fleming of the Endurance Performance Training Center in Mill Valley. As prep for our interview with Andy for this week’s show, he hooked us up with an appointment to get a legit/advanced sweat test. Tim conducted the test and was incredibly knowledgeable. We learned a ton and could have chatted with him for hours. We really appreciated all the time he gave us and we will definitely have him on the show at some point because he is a wealth of knowledge on all things endurance performance.Second, we wanted to give a special shout out to an entire country. The country of Japan has started listening to our Swimrun 101 episode this last week at a super high rate. Somehow the word got out and a bunch of swimrunners or soon to be swimrunners are going to be getting after it in Japan. Konnichiwa and Arigato!We wanted to remind everyone to join our Low Tide Boyz Strava Club. It’s been a fun way to see what everyone is up to training and racing-wise and we make a promise that every person in that group is guaranteed to get kudos from us. So if anyone really wants an extra two kudos for every workout plus the probability of funny comments from us, join up.Now for some exciting news, our pool has finally opened! (Queue the pearly gates music) We are excited to destroy our shoulders and build back up our swim fitness. We are loosely following a training plan from an article from Triathlete Magazine about returning to swimming after a long layoff. Speaking of Triathlete Magazine, make sure to check out our monthly column on all things Swimrun! If you have any suggestions for topics or have questions that you want to be answered, feel free to reach out to us.Now for this week’s interview! Andy Blow has a few top 10 Ironman and 70.3 finishes and an Xterra World Age Group title to his name. He has a degree in Sport and Exercise Science and was once the Team Sports Scientist for Benetton and Renault F1 teams. He raced his first Swimrun (the Ötillö World Championship) in 2014. He founded Precision Hydration in 2011 to help athletes solve their hydration issues. PH became a sponsor and official hydration partner for Ötillö in 2017.Andy’s draw to Swimrun was the idea of being able to race in pairs. After knee surgery and essentially backing away from triathlon, he asked his training partner Elliot if he wanted to check it out. They then reached out to Mats and Michael at Ötillö to get into the 2014 race. (They finished in the top 10) Part of the attraction to Swimrun for Andy was the wild west/infancy stage and the adventure.We chatted about how he started PH by basically trying to diagnose and solve his own fueling problems in races. The idea for the company took shape after helping a bunch of athletes with a lot of success. We also chatted about the misconceptions about hydration and how a lot of symptoms that athletes experience during and after events can be solved by taking proper amounts of sodium. We did a deep dive into how to calculate sweat rate and properly hydrate and how to unlock better race performances. We broke down the different theories around hydration and why hydration now can be much more individualized and effective. Andy explained to us why they designed their products to have three levels of sodium formulas—1500, 1000, 500—and how to determine which to use and when.Finally, we talked about how to properly hydrate endurance events generally (they have a great blog post on their website about this) and specifically for Swimrun. Since teams are limited in what they can carry onboard, properly using aid stations to make sure that sodium levels are kept at optimal levels. We closed out the conversation talking about how to properly recover sodium levels after workouts.Andy and the Low Tide Boyz encourage everyone to take a free sweat test on the PH website and reach out to them with questions at [email protected]. PH also provides free consultations to help individuals get their hydration strategy dialed in which is super cool! Don’t forget to use the discount code LOWTIDEBOYZ that’s good for 15% off through the end of July!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. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and

Welcome to our third Low Tide Boyz swimrun gear review show! This review is co-hosted by our friends at Swimrun Labs and we’re super stoked to have them back for another episode.This show is all about swimrun shoes! Instead of doing a specific review of a product this week, we thought it would be helpful to take a big picture look at Swimrun shoes and all the considerations that should go into selecting the right pair for everyone. Let’s get right to it!Global Considerations in Selecting a Swimrun Shoe (or a pair of shoes to use for Swimrun training or events.)DrainageTreadCushioning/Stack HeightBuoyancy Good FitParticle Size Impermeability/Water PermeabilityIn general, you shouldn’t do anything different for swimrun than you wouldn’t do for trail running. If you’ve never run in Hokas or minimal shoes, then you shouldn’t go all in because there is a risk of injury. From a medical perspective (courtesy of Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs) is to make sure that you take a graded progression to make sure that you don’t go down an injury rabbit hole. Another consideration is that studies have shown that runners that train in various models of shoes have seen a reduced occurrence of injury by 39%.With all that, let’s talk about specific considerations for Swimrun.Swim ConsiderationsOverall, shoe performance in the water should be a net neutral. Swimming with shoes is an unnatural experience and they create a lot of drag. Some of this is mitigated by using a large swimrun pull buoy but at the end of the day you are swimming with shoes and the best that you can hope for is that they are a non-factor. The features of the shoes should be considered based on the general considerations above. For example, Asher Clark of Vivobarefoot mentioned in Episode 23 of our podcast that they used bright orange on the soles of their swimrun shoes so that partners could easily spot their partner swimming in front of them.Rule of thumb: you shouldn’t feel annoyed while swimming.Run ConsiderationsObviously, shoes are pretty important on the run. A great place to start is looking at what shoes you already have and preferably a trail shoe since most if not all Swimrun events are on trails. Not all shoes are created equal so you should make sure to try a couple of shoes because a sloshy shoe will get annoying quickly and not all shoes will feel this way. Does the shoe drain well? Do they retain a lot of water and feel waterlogged?It is important to test the shoes on various terrains (after swimming in them) to make sure they will work. You can also get technical and soak the shoes in a bucket and then weigh the shoes, wait 2 minutes and then weigh them again to see if they shed a lot of water.Getting into the water is also loaded with considerations. Speaking of loaded…do your shoes load up with rocks and sand? This can get annoying quickly but it doesn’t happen with every shoe. This is where particle size permeability can come into play and help you have a better race experience. Basically, you want particle impermeability and water permeability.Another consideration is having an integrated insole in the shoe that you settle on. Removable insoles are basically sponges for water that can lead to sloshiness on the run. Depending on the course, a shoe with a rock plate or a tough sole to prevent sharp rocks from causing discomfort.Roundtable Discussion, A.K.A. “Shoedown”This is probably the best part of the show but it’s too much good intel to write it all down. So just listen to the show for all the golden nuggets of wisdom shared.Overall ImpressionsIf you haven’t figured it out already, shoes are an individual decision and there are a lot of options to chose from. It’s best to start with what you currently have and experiment in training to make sure that they meet all or most of the general considerations mentioned at the outset. If you have a couple of shoes that work well all the better for injury prevention and for having options depending on the terrain of your next swimrun event. Feel free to hit us up if you have any questions about this special episode and/or reach out the Annie and Brooke from the Swimrun Labs on their website or on their Swimrun Labs Facebook Group.Handy List of Shoes Mentioned on the ShowAltra SuperiorAltra Vanish XCHoka One One Evo JawzHoka One One SpeedgoatHoka One One Speedgoat EvoInov-8 X-Talon 212Inov-8 X-Talon 220Merrell All Out CrushSalomon AmphibSalomon S-Lab AmphibVivobarefoot ECS TempestVJ Shoes IROCK 3That’s it for this week’s special edition 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 twenty-four of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!We’ve got something completely new this week! For this week’s show we’re doing a deep dive into Ötillö’s Engadin World Series race. We thought that since this was the first major race to happen after shelter in place orders have lifted that it would be cool to test out a new format for race previews.We definitely couldn’t have done this without the help of Lauritz and Mats Skott from Ötillö, Nicolas Remirez of Envol Coaching, Helen Wikmar of Ark Sports and Daniel Hansson. If almost all of these names sound familiar is because with the exception of Daniel, Mats, Nicolas and Helen are previous guests on the podcast. The idea for this format kept coming up in feedback from friends and listeners. Way back when we started the show we thought that it would be could do race previews and all the feedback kept convincing us that this would be fun content to produce and share. We spent three weeks getting everything together and we hope that you enjoy and are inspired to add Engadin to your Swimrun bucket list. (We definitely have it on ours!) So let’s dive in.FIRST, WHERE IS ENGADIN?Located in southeastern Switzerland and situated in a high alpine valley at an elevation of around 1800 meters or 5900 feet Engadin is a long high Alpine valley region in the eastern Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in most southeastern Switzerland with about 25,000 inhabitants. Engadin means “Valley of the Inn People” and the En (pronounced Inn) is the river that flows through the valley and ends in the Black Sea but not before passing through some amazing looking lakes. This region is known for skiing, hiking, trail running, water sports and since 2014—Swimrun.Travel to Engadin is pretty straight forward. The closest major city is St. Moritz and it’s about 200km or 124 miles from Zurich and 175km or 109 miles from Milan. Flying, driving and railway are all ways to get to the race location. And uhm, what a location! Situated in a high alpine valley at an elevation of around 1700- 1800 meters or 5500-5900 feet the Swiss Alps look like a painting. Check out this race hype video by Ötillö to get a sense of the region and race course. Ötillö describes this destination a fairy tale. It is the race that launched the international swimrun movement in 2014 as the first Ötillö race ever outside of Sweden. “A unique race in a unique place, hosted in the fantastic Engadin Valley in Switzerland.”We sat down with Mats Skott who chose the location and designed the course for his take on all things Engadin.Why Engadin?Up until the Engadin race in 2014 Ötillö (which means island to island) was only taking place in the Stockholm Archipelago and they wanted to show that swimrun could be done anywhere where there is water to swim in and trails/roads to run on. He said that the beauty of the region and the challenge of mountains serve to highlight both that Swimrun is a versatile sport and that it can be truly international. It is now one of his favorite races to produce year after year.Key features of the course?Mats took into account the natural beauty of the region and used the valley and mountains surrounding the valley for great swimming and a lot of climbing on the run legs. Athletes traverse three lakes as they start in Maloja and make their way towards the finish in Silvaplana.Important info for swim runners considering racing Engadin?It’s important for folks to know that the race is in the mountains and as such, athletes need to prepared for sudden changes in weather and account for cold water temps. Having the right equipment and being properly trained is key to have a great experience. Athletes also need to recon with the elevation of the race and the technical/steep climbs and descents on the run legs. Training technical downhill running is key aspect to train for this event.Ötillö Race FACTS (World Series Distance)Total race distance: 45.4 km (28.2 miles) Trail-running: 39.6 km (24.6 miles) Run sections: 9 Swimming: 5,800 m (6,343 y) Swim sections: 8 (12.8% Swimming) Longest swim: 1,400 m (1530 y) Longest run: 8.5 km (5.3 Miles) Total elevation: 1,499 m (4918 feet)The World Series race starts near the town of Maloja and ends in the town of Silvaplana. (The hub for all pre-race activities including packet pickup, course briefings, etc.)Sprint and experience distance events take place in Silvaplana the day before the World Series distance event.Average race times: Based on 2019 results, the winning team finished in 5:27:29 (Team Simployer.) Daniel Hansson and Helen Wilkmar who we interview later in the show each finished second in 2019 with their teams ARK Swimrun for Daniel and ARKsouls for Helen. The last team finished in 9:21:31 in 2019. 5 teams missed cutoff times at aid stations. 13 teams did not finish.Fun fact: 29 countries were represented at the 2019 event.Weather on Race DayIn the middle/end of July, it is usually summer in the Engadin Valley with dayt

Welcome to episode twenty-three of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show, we have Asher Clark, the Co-founder of Vivobarefoot. We will be talking about the origin story of the company and do deep dive into the new Vivobarefoot ECS Tempest Swimrun shoe. (We also talked about surfing, which is awesome!) More on that later in the show.We added another thing to the list of “things the Low Tide Boyz are doing” with the first swimrun column at Triathlete Magainze! Be sure to give it a read and share it with your networks. Training is about to get a kick in the pants as it appears that pools are starting to open and open water swims are now fully allowed at our usual spot. RIP to our shoulders! We also just dropped our ARK Keel Swimrun Pull Buoy Review, so be sure to check that out as well. We wanted to give a shout out this week to Helene from Sweden. She has been sending kind words and feedback along since the very beginning. Thanks for the support Helene!Now for this week’s interview. We’re stoked to get to chat with Asher of Vivobarefoot. If you’re not familiar with Vivobarefoot, they are a minimalist shoe company and are a staple in the Swimrun space. The company was started in 2010 with a simple idea to make shoes that allow feet to do their thing and, in effect, respect human movement.We chatted about the origins of the company and the simple/profound idea that feet should be allowed to unleash their natural potential and the shoe should be as minimal as possible and be as sustainable as possible by using a few materials as possible. Vivobarefoot had the goal of being sustainable since the beginning. The foundation of making a sustainable shoe for Vivo is to make sure that the shoe functions to allow for natural movement. The guiding light being regenerating as a concept and not just being sustainable as a company to get closer to the ultimate goal of mimicking nature.Vivobarefoot got into Swimrun while they were developing their Primus trail shoe. They tested the prototype of the shoe with some elite athletes in Sweden. Asher then met with Mats Skott and Michael of Ötillö in 2015 and went for a short 10k Swimrun (No wetsuit, cold water) and Asher was hooked. Swimrun to him was one of the most visceral ways to be connected with nature. It’s human locomotion over land and you hit the coast and you keep going. The first Swimrun shoe was released soon after adapting the Primus Trail shoe for Swimrun with the now iconic orange sole.The new Tempest shoe was a few years in the making. The ESC (Extreme Survival Collection) Tempest is basically the best Swim Run shoe on the planet, for the amphibious athlete. It is inspired by nature's aquatic animals and blended with modern technology, Vivobarefoot created a lightweight organic cage to provide flexibility, drainage and protection. The sole was developed in collaboration with Michelin to provide super grip to the ground in both slick and dry conditions. The shoe sounds awesome and looks like it would work in every race condition easily.The main caveat to using minimal shoes is that the Tempest isn’t for everyone because there’s not a lot cushioning and if your feet aren’t used to running in barefoot or minimal shoes, you can get hurt. Like anything, it’s a journey and Vivobarefoot has a guide to transitioning to barefoot-style shoes on their website to help people transition to running well in their shoes. Make sure to check out the Tempest shoe. They are available now!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. 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 twenty-two of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Erika Rosenbaum. She’s a key historical figure in the sport of Swimrun with two claims to fame: she coined the word swimrun and produced the first swimrun event (Swimrun Hellas) that wasn’t Ötillö in 2012. She’s an amazing human being and we really enjoyed chatting with her. We wanted to give a shout out this week to Iain from the UK. He’s given us great feedback on the show and explained the UK Swimrun scene to us. There are certainly some events that we’ll want to check out there in the future. Thanks for taking the time to write us Iain!We also just dropped another bonus swimrun gear review episode. We reviewed the ARK Keel swimrun pull buoy. Now for this week’s interview. After starting a family, Erika started running in 2007 to get back into shape. She started running and it turns out that she was good at it. She then turned to triathlon and raced her first Ironman distance event in 2010 after mastering the Olympic distance. (She has since raced 8 Ironman distance events) She’s a running coachShe raced her first swimrun race in 2011: Ötillö (The only swimrun event in the world.) And she just loved that race! She came home after a 3rd podium finish thinking of how this activity has to be available to all people, not only the long-distance athletes. So she said that this has to be a sport and it’s going be called “Swimrun.” (She has since raced the World Championship 5 times and finished third place three times!)First, she thought the sound of the word Swimrun was really corny, but every word she came up with was corny so she said Swimrun 100 times to herself so it would sound more normal. She then sent out invitations to Swimrun Hellas, made the course and started to bake. The first race was in June 2012 and many of the competitors from then are still racing. That race was officially the first swimrun event that wasn’t the Ötillö World Championship. More on Swimrun Hellas later in the show.She now races marathons and swimrun events with her daughter Maja and hopes to race the Ötillö World Championship with her one day.When she first heard about Ötillö she thought that it sounded impossible, so it was definitely the race for her. She instantly fell in love with the sport, the Stockholm Archipelago and being in nature. She also loved not having to have as much gear as triathlon. At that race, she had the epiphany that this sport should be accessible to everyone and there should be shorter races for people to discover swimrun without having to commit to race 75km.After coining the name swimrun, Erika had thoughts about trademarking the name. Instead she had a conversation with Michael Lemmel and Mats Skott of Ötillö and she agreed when they asked her to use the name for their event. Other events also reached out to her to use the name and she said yes. She, in effect, gave a name to the sport and then shared it with the world so that the sport could grow. Now there are 1,500 swimrun events in the world.Erika is happy with how the sport has been growing and really appreciates the attention to every detail that Ötillö takes with each of their events. It’s been fun to see all the races popping up all over the world. Swimrun is such a great way to for people to exercise and be with nature. She now races swimrun events one or two times per year with her daughter.In 2012, when she started Swimrun Hellas, her goal was create a course that people could try out the sport and do “social sport.” Hellas is a national park near Stockholm with a marked course that people can go visit and train for swimrun. Her event sees World Championship winners racing alongside beginners and sharing the love for the sport with everyone. By creating the first short-course swimrun event, Erika was the catalyst for the evolution and growth of the sport that we all enjoy and love today.We encourage everyone to check out the Swimrun Hellas website, Erika’s Swimrun Family facebook page and follow Erika 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. 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 our second Low Tide Boyz swrimrun gear review show! This week we are reviewing the Ark Sports Keel Pull Buoy. This review was co-hosted by our friends at Swimrun Labs and we think that you will enjoy this review as we left no stone unturned for this one.We first learned about the Keel while researching swimrun brands to interview for show and quickly became obsessed with this pull buoy once we bought one a put it through its paces. Ark Sports is a great company that we are really rooting for. If you want to learn more about Ark Sports, check out Episode 7 on our podcast where we interview the co-founder of Ark Sports, Christofer Sundberg. The Pull BuoyBy way of introduction, Ötillö rules state that the maximum size that a pull buoy can be to be “legal” for any race is 32 cm x 30 cm x 15 cm. You can even use more than one pull buoy but the total size needs to be the same.The Ark Sports Keel Pull Buoy comes in at 28 cm x 26 cm x 12 cm. It costs 45 Euros or 50 dollars plus shipping to the U.S. from Sweden. (Ark Sports is currently working on setting up U.S. distribution so the shipping costs will come down in the near future.)According to the Ark Sports website, the Keel was developed and optimized by the world’s best swimrun athletes and the swimrun community. Its distinctive shape claims to minimize drag and maximize floatation in order for you to move as fast as possible through water. The pull buoy is made of EVA foam provides massive floatation with a rating of 46.1 Newtons. (The force of gravity on Planet Earth is only 9.8 Newtons.) Needless to say…this pull buoy really floats!The TestWe all tested the buoy extensively in training and raced with the Keel.The Swim Review Have we mentioned that this pull buoy is super buoyant? So buoyant that you want to be careful in the water because if you’re not bracing yourself, you could flip over in the water. The Low Tide Boyz tested the Keel with other pull buoys in the pool it was pretty clear that the Keel was faster than the Ark Sports Pontoon, the Roka Pro Swim pull buoy and a TYR Swim Float buoy by about 5 seconds per 100 yards (this was not a super scientific study). The ladies of Swimrun Labs also put the Keel to the test in a much more controlled trial…that took five days…where they tested 4 types of pull buoys and 1 calf flotation device and found that the Keel was the fastest option. (You can see the results of their study here.) They also found that the Keel was a great leveling agent because it put you in an optimal position for swimming. They experienced some chaffing from the shape of the buoy and the girth of the buoy did require some adductor work to keep the buoy in place. This appeared to be mitigated by using the lasso system to keep the pull buoy in place.The Transition ReviewSwim to Run: This was mostly a non-issue with the Keel. Due to the massive floatation we all recommended making sure your bracing yourself as you come out of the water because the Keel will explode out of the water to the surface and that can be interesting if you’re not ready for it. The shape of the buoy was also conducive to placing it on the hip or back depending on a swimrunner’s preference. Run to Swim: This transition was a bit more complicated. Given the buoyancy of the Keel, it was important to make sure that we were ready to enter the water and start swimming because if not the pull buoy would affect entry into the water. In effect, you have to drown the pull buoy to place it between your thighs if you already waded into the water before being set to swim. Getting horizontal immediately is the best way to get going without having the buoyancy affect you. One point of note is that since the pull buoy is asymmetrical you want to make sure that it’s point the right direction.The big zoom out is to get to know how the pull buoy acts in the water because it requires a bit of practice to understand how it works.The Run ReviewRunning with the Keel takes some forethought. If you’re using the thigh attachment method, it could cause problems on really technical trails getting caught on branches and brush. The lasso/back method resolves that problem, but It takes some getting used to as well. The material of the pull buoy doesn’t slide around and stays in place which is nice.Low Tide Boyz’z RankingsChipper: 4.5 Pull BuoysChipper thinks that the Keel is the gold standard of swimrun pull buoys. It looks good and it durable. He docked some points for the cost and for training with the Keel to make sure that you know how to wield it by the time race day comes around.Chris: 4.5 Pull BuoysChris loved the Keel but docked some points for the cost and the fit. It’s not as comfortable as it could be due to the design. That being said, this pull buoy does make you faster. Similar to how the Nike 4% running shoes essentially make you faster (if you know how to run in them) over the marathon distance due to the technology on board, the Keel pull buoy will make you faster in t

Welcome to episode twenty one of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs. We had a great chat with them about their journey in the sport and their review website.Training was interesting this week. Chipper remains sane and Chris ran from his house to a coffee shop 37 miles away hitting all the main peaks of Marin County. You can check out the run and our strava group here. We are also ramping up our bonus episodes where we do some swimrun gear reviews, so be sure to subscribe to get those. Wild Swimrun hosted their first camp of 2020 in Sweden this past weekend. It looked like a great event with perfect weather and chilly water. You can learn more about the founders Mia and Fanny and Wild Swimrun on Episode 10 of our podcast and help support their efforts to grow female participation in the sport by buying some swag from our store. (100% of proceeds go towards the Wild Youth Initiative that provides scholarships for women and girls to attend a Wild Swimrun camp.)We have two shout outs this week! First, we want to give a special shout out to Grace from St. Paul, MN for supporting us on Patreon. She’s a fan of the show and we appreciate her support to help keep the lights on.We also wanted to give a shout out to Greg from team Boston Wet Sox. We interviewed Bronwyn and Greg on Episode 15 of the show and Greg recently sent us some great feedback and suggestions for the show that we will definitely take to heart. We love getting feedback because we are committed to growing the sport and understand our place in that process. It really helps us to make sure that we are creating content that folks will find helpful and letting us know is the best way for us to iterate to keep making the show better!Now for this week’s interview. Annie and Brooke of Swimrun Labs are amazing ambassadors for the sport of Swimrun. Not only are they great athletes, they put out a lot of great information about Swimrun racing and gear on their website. They have competed in 9 swimruns together and qualified for the Ötillö World Championship in 2020.Annie initially convinced Brooke to sign up for a race but Brooke pretty much taught her how to swim. They fell in love with the sport after their first race in 2016 at the Bellingham Swimrun in Washington. (Note: the race director of the event is Annie’s husband and that’s how she learned about the sport.)They started their website in late 2019 to try to help educate people about the sport and help impart the love for the sport and differentiate the sport from triathlon. The main purpose to create the site was to create a space to help the sport grow in the “right way” and encourage everyone that comes along to help steward the sport. Given that swimrun is so different from any other type of event out there, describing that vibe and magic is really something that has to be experienced to sense. They apply a data-driven approach to the reviews to test products and help make the research digestible for people to make good decisions about their training and gear.We chatted about their favorite races (Casco Bay and Orcas Island), race stories (listen to the show for that!) and what makes a good partner. They thought that having similar goals and temperament are the best qualities to look for. They encourage team pre-race dance routines and having as much fun as possible on the course.You can learn more about Swimrun Labs on their website and on Instagram. Lastly, Annie and Brooke encourage everyone to sign up for a swimrun race! We second that sentiment.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. 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 twenty of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have the CEO of blueseventy, John Duquette. We had a great conversation about the brand and their expansion into swimrun.For shout outs this week we are saying hi to Sossi! She’s a Bay Area swimmer and former triathlete that is a big fan of the show. She recently reached out to Chris to let him know that there was a swimrun team (in blueseventy Alliance swimrun wetsuits incidentally) training at Aquatic Park. While we appreciate the intel it was made funnier by two other of our friends letting us know that they saw a team out there on the same day! This week is also her birthday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOSSI!Training continues this week with Chipper starting to ramp back up on volume and Chris keeps reliving the glory days with a lot of volume of running, cycling and cross-training. Make sure to join our strava club to follow along with our workouts and other LTBz fans.Now for this week’s interview. We were lucky to get a chance to talk to John about the history of blueseventy and their development of their swimrun wetsuit.John Duquette started racing triathlon in 1999 and since then has competed in multisport, running and cycling races all over the world. After working at a Seattle running store for 7 years he joined the team at blueseventy in 2007. In 2015 he was named CEO and purchased the brand in 2017. After 20 years in the endurance space he’s seen and experienced enough to tell stories well past last call in the local pub. While he still enjoys racing his mountain bike his primary focus now is making sure his two children develop a love for the outdoors and making sure his dog gets enough exercise to keep him from chewing up his running shoes.The company was actually founded in 1993 as Ironman Wetsuits and did business under that brand name until 2006. The company rebranded as blueseventy in 2006 and John joined the team in 2007. blueseventy is a small company where everyone is an athlete and into open water swimming.Swimrun first came onto the their attention from their distributors in Europe. They started working on a suit for 2 years before they ended up releasing their suit. Mike Orton, a former Olympic swimmer, was the chief designer of the suit that was perfect for swimming and geared for durability. The Alliance Swimrun wetsuit was the result. (You can read our swimrun gear review of the Alliance Swimrun wetsuit here.)The next version in development will have a zipper on the front and the back, sleeves that are removable and re-attachable and better materials. They will also start working on a new performance-based suit. They are also working on additional products that are specific for swimrun like new swim paddle designs and larger pull buoys.John and the folks at blueseventy were cool enough to set up a discount code for our fans to use for 20% off of the site. Just use the code SWIMRUN at checkout for 20% off everything on their site.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. 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 the first ever Low Tide Boyz swimrun gear review! This week we are reviewing the blueseventy Alliance Swimrun Wetsuit.blueseventy was cool enough to send us a couple of suits to put through the paces and they gave us their blessing to do an unbiased review based on our experience and, admittedly mediocre, athletic abilities. Check out the suit at blueseventy.com and remember to use the discount code SWIMRUN for 20% off anything in the store.The SuitOverall, the blueseventy Alliance swimrun wetsuit is a great suit. With a bunch of key swimrun features such as two internal pockets, front zipper, built-in tether loops, large back pocket and rubberized neoprene for durability, this suit is definitely versatile and durable. It comes with fully taped long sleeves that athletes can cut to their desired length. (We didn’t cut the suits for reasons we’ll explain later.) The blueseventy Alliance is available in men’s and women’s specific styles and retails for $270. This price point already makes this a very economical suit that is built to last. It comes in one colorway, black with orange elements. We weren’t huge fans of the orange but it is great for visibility in open water so we can’t knock it that much for that. The TestWe tested the suits while doing our swimrun trainings leading up to Ötillö Catalina in the Bay Area. The water temps were pretty chilly and in all, we spent about 3-4 hours in the suits putting it through the paces of swimming, running and transitions.The Swim Review The suit was great in the water. Given how cold the conditions were when we were testing the suits, we definitely appreciated the thicker neoprene of the Alliance. As mentioned above, because of the cold conditions we ended up not cutting the sleeves we were liking having the extra coverage. This is definitely a swimmer’s suit. Good buoyancy throughout the torso. The shoulder neoprene felt just right, not too thin and not too thick. The neck was comfortable and the zipper didn’t feel obtrusive in any way. As mentioned above, we were really appreciating the thickness in cold water but we were worried about potentially overheating if conditions were warmer.The Run ReviewWe felt that this was definitely a swimmer’s suit…when we were running. Given the thickness of the neoprene, we experienced some overheating on the runs and on one occasion we stopped to cab down because Chipper was “roasting.” We also experienced some hip impingement while running. We felt that the neoprene in the hip flexor region was a bit too thick for long running efforts and thought that this could lead to run fatigue. That being said, we did see teams at the Catalina race run in the suits no problem so this issue might be athlete-specific. Low Tide Boyz’z Rankings(We’re unveiling are new pull buoy ranking system for our gear reviews! 5 pull buoys being the best and 1 pull buoy being the worst.)Chipper: 3.5 Pull BuoysChipper though that the blueseventy Alliance swimrun wetsuit was good suit for certain races/ water temps but was worried about it in warmer races. It’s a good value swimrun wetsuit and its durability really makes this a perfect training suit. The suit could have used some exterior pockets in the thighs and more accessible areas for nutrition storage since the internal pockets we are bit tough to access without a lot of effort. Overall, he plans on training in the suit and maybe racing in it, if the weather conditions seem to indicate that the Alliance is the suit to use.Chris: 4 Pull BuoysChris gave the Alliance 4 pull buoys for mostly the same reasons as Chipper. For him, the value of the suit at $270 (or $216 with the 20% off discount code SWIMRUN) made it a great suit for beginners or folks that want to have a more cold weather suit in their stable of options. He wasn’t a fan of the orange on the suit but he’s a diva and everybody knows that. Finally, if getting cold during a swimrun—especially towards the end of the race—then this suit is a great choice. Overall ImpressionsOverall, we would definitely recommend folks checking out the blueseventy Alliance swimrun wetsuit. We are definitely stoked on the suit and plan on using it in training pretty regularly. Check out the suit at blueseventy.com and remember to use the discount code SWIMRUN for 20% off anything in the store.