Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast

Welcome to episode nineteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Lars Finanger of Ödyssey Swimrun. This might be one of our favorite shows so far. (Every other show is tied for second place!) We’re still under shelter in place and still training for life at this point. We’ve also committed for some reason to grow our hair out. Chris has already been on that train but Chipper just joined. Fans of the show can suggest what type of mullet Chipper should grow.For shout outs this week we are virtually waving our hands to Sarah Fergot. She’s a Novato resident and stout swimrunner in her own right. She’s had a bunch of the races she had on the calendar get cancelled including a 50K and a 100 mile ultra. She’s channeling that energy positively and is currently running the virtual race across Tennessee. That race is a 1000 kilometers and she has until August 1st to cover that distance. Best of luck Sarah!Now for this week’s interview. It’s safe to say that Lars has done a ton to help grow the sport of swimrun in the US. While in this interview we chat about his background as an athlete, writer and race director, we could dedicate an entire episode (and we shall) to talk about Ödyssey Swimrun (formerly Swimrun USA.)Lars was born in Norway and grew up in Saudi Arabia. He participated in his first triathlon event in an Eighth Grade Physical Education class (it was organized by his Dad) and grew up playing baseball and endurance events. He has two kids and his wife Emily is a stout athlete in her own right (she won Norseman twice!)Lars learned about swimrun when he was working for Slowtwich.com and Jonas Colting was commenting on the forum about that Mats and Michael were putting together. Fast forward to 2014, the timing was right to try to cover the event for the magazine that Lars was working for. When he reached out to Ötillö about getting an entry to the Otillo World Championship. They told him no but that he should come out and somebody might be injured and he might be able to sub in. Sure enough, there was a guy that got food poisoning before the race and he was in! His “teammate” was from Spain and didn’t speak much English and somehow managed to put together a decent race. Loving every minute, Lars was hooked but in 2014 there were only three swimrun races in the World.Fortuitously, Jeff Cole reached out to Lars while he was still in Sweden to tell him about swimrun and about a course in Maine that would be a perfect venue. Right then and there the idea was hatched for Casco Bay Swimrun.In addition to starting Ödyssey Swimrun, Lars still races a lot of swimrun events. He recently raced Ötillö Catalina with his partner John Stevens (a stout swimmer and athlete in his own right.) They had a great race experience in Catalina and add to that that they even chartered a giant sail boat to stay on. On Catalina, Lars unveiled the Kraken Collective, an online swimrun community for training and racing team. With COVID-19, the collective is on hold and we’re looking forward to seeing that re-launch once all the shelters in place orders have lifted.We ended the interview chatting about why swimrun is so different from triathlon and why it’s such a unique experience. Lars wants to see the sport grow organically and keep the vibe that’s similar to gravel riding or ultrarunning. Swimrunning can fun and hard and not have it be super serious. You can learn more about Lars and Ödyssey 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 episode eighteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Mr. Xterra (and Mr. Low Tide Boy for 2020) Marcus Barton. We had a great time chatting with him about his journey in swimrun and we think that you’ll really enjoy the interview! More on that in a bit.Shelter in place continues in California and we’re still exercising and did some endurance antics this week. Chris ran a marathon on Friday for no reason and Chipper ran 33 laps around his block to celebrate his 33rd birthday. Fun times!For shout outs this week we are tipping the hat to Bruno Frisch. He’s a Novato resident and stud athlete who’s been giving us great feedback on the show. You can find him on Instagram here.We also have a special announcement: we are going to start producing some bonus content for everyone in the form of swimrun-specific gear reviews. Our first review will be on the Blue Seventy Alliance wetsuit. The folks over there were cool enough to send us a couple of suits to try out and gave us their blessing to put out our opinions. Not only did they do that, they also created a discount code for all our fans for 20% off on their site. Just use the code SWIMRUN at checkout on their website!Now for this week’s interview. If you don’t know who Marcus Barton is, well you should. He’s a great ambassador for the sport and we had a great conversation chatting about his love for swimrun and his journey in the sport. Marcus started racing triathlon in 2007 and his first race was XTERRA Uwharrie. He was instantly hooked on XTERRA events. He was part of the XTERRA Ambassador team for 7 years and in 2016, he was bestowed with the honor of being named Mr. XTERRA. In 2014, one of his XTERRA racing buddies, Dan Kimball, started talking to him about this crazy race called Ötillö. He started training for to race Ötillö in 2015 and raced his first swimrun in July of that year at Swimrun Rockman. They went on to race the Ötillö World Championship later that year. Since then he's raced a ton of swimruns with Ötillö Catalina this year being his 25th swimrun race. Racing with a varity of partners, his results in swimrun are usually at the top with his teams' efforts earning them the Top Ranked team title in the 2019 US Swimrun Rankings. Although swimrun is his focus these days, he also enjoys adventure races, off-road triathlons and trail running. During the interview we decided to name Marcus “Mr. Low Tide Boy” for 2020. Not only has he been super supportive of our show and meme account but he’s opened a bunch of doors for us to be able to get interviews for the show. In all, it was great to hear from Marcus why he loves the sport of swimrun (spoiler alert: the connection with nature) and what he thinks needs to happen to grow the sport in the U.S. the right way.You can follow Marcus’s adventures at his blog or on facebook.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 seventeen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Nate Helming. Nate is an endurance, strength and mobility coach and co-founder of The Run Experience. Lots of great training tips in this episode so be ready to take some notes. We learned this week that the shelter in place order for the Bay Area where we live is going to be extended through the end of the month of May. While we are bummed, we know that we are doing our part to slow the spread of the virus. As usual, we encourage everyone to listen to the medical and science experts about best practices and hopefully we will be past this and back to racing soon. For shout outs this week we wanted to give props to Brent Molsberry. His race report for Ötillö Catalina in an amazing read and we encourage everyone to check it out. Brent is also the Race Director for the Odyssey Swimrun Orcas Island race and it might surprise folks to read that Catalina was his first swimrun race!Now on to this week’s interview. We were fortunate to get some time on Nate’s busy schedule to chat about the importance of strength training and mobility for endurance athletes. Nate has been Chris’s triathlon and endurance coach for years and we think that everyone will get some benefit from listening to this episode.Nate has extensive running, triathlete and strength training experience and has channeled it all into his coaching. He believes that being fit means having the training that allows you to be a complete athlete. He preaches against sport specificity because training variety is what keeps athletes healthy and strong. After being injured and not being able to race the Ironman World Championship he realized that endurance athletes were slipping through the cracks with injuries because most endurance athletes were not focusing on cross-training and getting injured in their chosen sport.Nate recommends adding strength and mobility to any endurance training plan. With just four basic movements athletes can start easing into strength work with. These movements are the squat, the pushup, the lunge and (everyone’s favorite) the burpee. Just adding these movements 2-3 times per week in addition to their endurance sport specific training. These sessions can be as short as 20-30 minutes and you can just do body weight and focus on technique. Nate has a ton of videos on their Youtube page that explain all the movements and provide training tips.You can check out Nate and The Run Experience on their website or on Youtube. Finally, you can be a part of the “Together We Move” free daily programming on their app.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 sixteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have Mats Skott, co-founder of Ötillö. NBD! Real talk: if you would have asked us when we started this show in January that we’d be interviewing anyone at Ötillö, let alone one of the founders, we would have lol’d. Yet, here we are! More on our most journalistic interview later in the show.We’re still under a shelter at home order in California and trying to balance work, family and training. We’ve been at it for over a month at this point and we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll be able to jump back in the pool soon. As usual, we encourage everyone to listen to the medical and science experts about best practices and hopefully we will be past this and back to racing soon. Until then, stay safe everyone!For shout outs this week we wanted to let everyone know about Riding Easy Records. Based in Hermosa Beach California, this independent record label that focuses on metal and hard rock were cool enough to let us use one of their songs for our intro and outro music. While their music might not be for everyone’s taste, we think that we can all agree that this is a great time to support local businesses and we thank the crew over there for letting us one of their tracks for the show.Now for this week’s interview. We are lucky to have Mats Skott, co-founder of Ötillö and basically the co-pioneer with Michael Lemmel of a new worldwide sport.Mats was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. His sports growing up were Cross-country skiing and orienteering on a national level. In 1995, he started racing in Adventure Races around the world until 2008. His best results being a second place finish in the World Championship 2004. In, 2006 Michael Lemmel and Mats started Ötillö. Neither of them were swimmers but when they heard about the idea from the “original four” and how to move in nature they loved it and they were tasked with organizing the first Swimrun race and named it ÖTILLÖ which means “island to island” in Swedish.We chatted with Mats about his athletic roots and how he eventually discovered adventure racing in 1995. These races are between 300-1000 kilometers long and you race with a mixed gender team of 4 or 5 people and moving as a team through nature non-stop to the finish line. These races includes running, hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, horseback riding and rock climbing. To make it even better, a team would get the map to follow only 2 days before the race start and teams would only have a general idea of what disciplines to train leading up to the event. These events could be 4-6 days long.We, of course, asked Mats about his version of the origin story of Ötillö and how Michael told him about the crazy bet and the “race” that took 2 days for the Original 4. (Now the race champions finish the race in around 8 hours.) Both Michael and Mats fell in love with the idea of how to move in nature. We also chatted about the first year of Ötillö and how their background in Adventure Racing really informed how they set up the race and shared some war stories about the early years and how they weren’t afraid to make changes to help grow the sport. Mats is really happy and proud how the sport has grown and folks are finding a way to move in nature. There was also a tactical decision to have the name “swimrun” which was invented by Erika Rosenbaum be free (read: not trademark) so that the sport could grow freely. This decision turned out to be the best way to make it a worldwide sport and show a new way to move through nature.We also chatted with Mats about his view of how the inaugural Ötillö Catalina went in their view. He was super happy with the race to say the least. It was great to put on a race in Two Harbors because it made the race feel like personal while having everything be as professional as possible. Mats favorite part is really about designing a great course that takes advantage of the challenges that nature gives you to make a unique race experience. Mats background in orienteering helps inform his ability to make the courses amazing. They may make some changes to course for the 2020 edition. Those changes will be announced soon!Fast forward to the current state of affairs in the world. Mats talked about how Ötillö has worked hard with their team to figure how to move forward with COVID-19 and the stress of trying to make good decisions so that Ötillö can survive this period and be able to put on races once we are passed this pandemic. Listeners can read Ötillö’s updated event policies and new 2020 race schedule here. Some of the major changes to the 2020 race schedule are Isle of Scilly and 1000 Lakes events had to be cancelled. Mats is planning (and hoping) that these events returns in 2021. The major adjustment for teams that are trying to qualify for the 2020 Ötillö World Championship race is that the World Series race Engadin in Switzerland (which was postponed for three weeks to July 25-26) will now hav

Welcome to episode fifteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have the U.S.-based mixed team, the Boston Wet Sox! Bronwen and Greg are partners in swimrun and in life and we had a great time chatting with them about their journey in swimrun. More on that later.We’re still under a shelter at home order in California and trying to balance work, family and training has been a challenge. As usual, we encourage everyone to listen to the medical and science experts about best practices and hopefully we will be past this and back to racing soon. Until then, stay safe everyone!For shout outs this week we wanted to give props to Trista Mennen. She’s been a fan of the show for a while and gave us some great feedback for improving the show and that. Follow her on Instagram here. Now for the today’s interview. We caught up with the mixed team, The Boston Wet Sox. Bronwen and Greg Dierksen are a married couple living in Boston with their 4 year-old daughter, Gwen. The couple grew up on opposite coasts but met in college at Boston University where they were both on the swim team. They've been competing in Swimrun events since the inaugural Casco Bay Islands Swimrun in 2016. Their race resume includes two trips to the Ötillö World Championships, Ötillö World Series races at the Isles of Scilly and Catalina, as well as numerous North American races in North Carolina, Virginia, Maine, and Massachusetts. Their most recent challenge involves attempting to be more than mediocre employees, athletes, and parents inside a 940 square foot apartment during quarantine.We met them on Catalina for Otillo Catalina in what feels like 3 years ago…where they placed 3rd in the mixed division and got their slot for this year’s world championship.We has a wide ranging chatted about their journey in the sport and how they got hooked on swimrun at the Ötillö World Championship in 2017. They talked about how they have progressed in the sport and how they balance training with a family (spoiler alert: they train separately.) They shared tips on being good partners and they race strategies.You can follow Bronwen and Greg’s journey 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 fourteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we chat with Nicolas Remirez of Envol Coaching about his love for the sport and training for swimrun. More on that later in the show!We will be going back to every other week show posting schedule but we want your feedback on what you want to be listening to. We can do gear reviews, deep dive on events, specific guests to interview, etc. Reach to us on social media or shoot us an email at [email protected]’re still in the middle of the #coronapocalypse but training as much as we can while trying to follow the medical and scientific advice on the best way to get past this pandemic. Chris trespassed on some trails already and has been getting re-acquainted with his bike seat and Chipper is riding the Peloton and is being good about doing dry land workouts.This week’s shout out goes to the Run for Tacos swimrun team. They are two buddies with one living in Toronto and one in Tucson. They are big fans of the meme page and they are training for their first race at Odyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island.Now on to our interview! Nicolas Remirez is a French multi-sports athlete and endurance sports coach in Stockholm, Sweden. He’s a stout athlete with an impressive resume, including racing the Ötillö World Championship 5 times, a ton of other swimrun events and triathlons, running and cycling events and most recently won Ötillö Catalina with his partner Francesc.Nicolas created Envol Coaching where he works athletes of all levels for endurance events including triathlon, 5 km runs to ultra-marathon, open water swimming, swimrun and cycling. He also started Team Envol which is an international swimrun team were athletes get training advice, community to ask questions and support at events. (There were 24 Team Envol members racing in Catalina.) In this interview we chatted with Nicolas about his endurance racing chops, his love for swimrun and his decision to go all in on the sport and start Envol Coaching and Team Envol. It was a great conversation with a lot of tangible tips for becoming a better swimrun racer both in training and on raceday.One thing that we really liked about Team Envol was are the values that they promote and expect from their team members to abide by, including promoting team spirit, to respect, protect and clean the environment, help develop the community of Team Envol swimrunners and share experiences/knowledge about swimrun. It really is a global team of folks training for their events while trying to lift up the sport as whole.We encourage everyone interested in training for Swimrun to check out Nicolas’s coaching platform at Envol Coaching and his group training group Team Envol. (Chris joined Team Envol and he’s been stoked! Well worth the price.) Nicolas is always happy to answer questions so reach out to him on facebook if you want to learn more.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 lucky thirteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we chat with the Godfather of Swimrun in the U.S., Andy Hewitt. He put on the first swimrun event in the United States and was our first Patron on Patreon. (Spoiler alert: if you support us on Patreon you’ll likely be interviewed for the show!) More on the interview later in the show.We’re still under a shelter-in-place order and we learned this week that the order is being extended until the end of April. As mentioned previously on the show, we encourage everyone to follow the guidelines of the WHO and their local authorities on what to do. While our pools and parks are closed we are keeping busy with running and other dry land activities.Speaking of which, this week’s shout out goes to Drew Sapp. He’s Co-owner of Crew Racing and Rehab and he sent us some dry land workouts for bands after we posted up on IG that we didn’t know how to use them. Thanks for that Drew!This got us thinking that we should host a bunch of these “pools are closed” workouts on our site. If anyone else has some cool dry land workouts that they want to share, send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll get that up on our site. In other news, our collab shirt fundraiser for the WILD Youth Initiative created by WILD Swimrun is still selling well! As a reminder, all proceeds from this apparel will go towards providing scholarships to help girls attend the WILD Swimrun camps. Have enough shirts (and/or pillows)? You can head over to lowtideboyz.com to donate to the WILD Youth Initiative on our homepage.Now for this week’s show! Andy Hewitt grew-up in San Diego. Rowed Crew at UC Berkeley. He then spent 28 years as an Infantry Officer in the Marine Corps where he participated in 7 wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. He did an 8-year assignment at the US State Department and spent time in Renewable Energy, Defense Contracting and worked for 10 years as a “low-grade” Hollywood actor. He’s been married for 31 years to a Super-Lawyer and has two sons. Athletically, Andy has completed 27 Marathons, 3 Ironman races, swam the English Channel, the Catalina Channel and swam around Manhattan. He has raced in 23 Swimrun events, including 5 Ötillö World Championships. He formed California Swimrun with Sean Durkin in 2015 and hosted the first race in United States on September 20th, 2015. Finally, it bears repeating that Andy was our first Patron on Patreon. In this interview we chatted about how he learned about Swimrun. How he pestered Mats and Michael to get into the World Championship with his friend Sean Durkin in 2015 and then hosted the first swimrun race in the U.S. 4 weeks later. We also chatted about how the sport is growing in the U.S. leading up to the first Ötillö race in California. We chatted about the genesis for the California Swimrun “Rules of Swimrun:”Tell everyone about swimrun!Greet everyone you see while runningStay with your teammate during runs and swimsDog in and out of the swims (Funny story about this one!)No complaining…everWe also chatted about the genesis of Ötillö Catalina and the role that Andy and California Swimrun played in getting that race to happen. The team of Sean, Natalie Foote and Andy worked really hard to help design the great course that we all raced. Finally, we chatted about Andy’s thoughts on how to best grow the sport in the U.S. while keeping the soul of the sport as it will inevitably grow in the U.S. Whether by supporting solo divisions to help introduce the sport to folks or showcasing local events, the future of the sport is about getting people to show up to the races. Andy feels that the team aspect of the sport is where the magic is. The biggest part is hosting swimrun events and the rest will take care of itself.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode twelve of the Low Tide Boyz Podcast, a Swimrun Podcast!This week’s show should really have been episode number 2 for reasons that we’ll explain later but we are thrilled to have Amber Ferreira and Aryn Marsh of Team Better Tethered Together on the show. This is our last interview that we will be releasing that we recorded while we were in Catalina for Ötillö. More forthcoming.Our top story this week again, and pretty much the top story in the world is still COVID-19. As the World continues to deal with the pandemic and more shelter at home orders are made, here in the Bay Area they have now closed most parks to vehicular traffic and outright closed others because people can’t take to heart the concept of social distancing. We encourage everyone to stay safe and keep listening to the scientists and doctors advice about what to do.We wanted to send a shoutout to Dave Dammer this week for posting the IG photo with his Ark Keel Pull Buoy on his head and tagging us. We know it’s silly but these are tough times, might as well try to get some laughs in! Keep the posts coming!We’ve gotten a little more press courtesy of Nancy Heslin for Ötillö Swimrun Magazine. You can check out that story here if you want to learn a little bit more our origin story.Our collab shirt fundraiser for the WILD Youth Initiative created by WILD Swimrun is selling well! As a reminder, all proceeds from this apparel will go towards providing scholarships to help girls attend the WILD Swimrun camps. Have enough shirts (and/or pillows)? You can head over to lowtideboyz.com to donate to the WILD Youth Initiative on our homepage.Now for this week’s show. Amber and Aryn of team Better Tethered Together met up with us in Catalina for a pre-race interview. They have been big fans of the show and it was great to have them on. It was a pretty vivid interview so we wanted to issue this warning: THERE IS TALK ABOUT POOP ON THIS EPISODE. It’s all in the context of racing Swimrun but we still wanted to warn anyone that might get the willies when hearing about that topic. We encourage people to fast forward a bit once it comes up if you’re not into it. That being said, this interview is a great story about one of the things that we love about the sport, the partner aspect. We chat about their race experience, how they see the sport of swimrun in the U.S., and their hopes for the future of the sport. We hope that you enjoy the interview.Amber is a pro-triathlete that has raced triathlon professionally for eleven years, is an Ironman champion and has raced 70 Ironman events. Aryn is an elite swimmer that met Amber In New Hampshire and started swimming together soon after that. They knew right away that they wanted to train together and agreed to become a swimrun team. Aryn first learned about Odyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay and raced the sprint race solo in 2018. They first raced together at Casco Bay in 2019.Their first race together was quite a story. They were leading the women’s race for three hours when their friendship and partnership as teammates was put to the test…the poop test, if you will. You’ll have to listen to the show to get the details but it’s a pretty amazing story of quick thinking, perseverance and the fighting spirit. It’s also about a lot of poop! They still managed to finish in third place.Despite the adversity that they faced at Casco Bay, they made it their goal to try to qualify for the Ötillö World Championship. They came to Catalina to try to podium and get their slot. (Spoiler alert: they qualified!) You can follow their journey to the World Championship at Better Tethered Together, Amber Ferreira and Aryn Marsh.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode eleven of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we chat with the legendary Jonas Colting. We were pretty star struck when we interviewed him while we were in Catalina for Ötillö but he was an awesome guest and we think that you’ll really enjoy the interview. More on this interview later in the show.Our top story this week, and pretty much the top story in the world is COVID-19. In the Bay Area, where we live, we’ve been instructed to shelter-in-place for the next three weeks and local gyms and pools have closed. In addition, a bunch of races have been getting canceled around the world. While this is always a huge letdown, be kind to your race directors and listen to the medical and public health experts and basically do what they say. We will get through this together.In other news, we’ve officially launched our collab shirt fundraiser for the WILD Youth Initiative created by WILD Swimrun. All proceeds from this apparel will go towards providing scholarships to help girls attend the WILD Swimrun camps. Have enough shirts (and/or pillows)? Head over to lowtideboyz.com to donate to the WILD Youth Initiative.Let me just start by saying that our guest today has his own Wikipedia page. We are honored and humbled to have had the one and only Jonas Colting on the show today.Jonas has won six World and European medals in triathlon and has been competing in the sport since 1991. He won the Ultraman World Championships in Hawaii twice. (For those that don’t know what that’s a 320 miles [515 kilometer for our metric system fans] three-day competition.) He’s also won the Ötillö world championship three times and is the only person who has done the race every year since its inception in 2006.Jonas launched his own wetsuit company, Colting Wetsuits, in 2016 and his brand has been innovating swimrun-specific gear since the beginning.We chatted with Jonas about the origins of swimrun, which interestingly the sport wasn’t even called that until about 6 years after the original Ötillö race took place. As mentioned above, Jonas has participated in every Ötillö World Championship. He told us the story of the original race and how the sport evolved into the Ötillö that we all know and love today. The first couple of years were pretty interesting as you will hear. The gear and style of the race has been pretty consistent since 2008. The race saw exponential growth every year and Jonas gives a lot of credit to Mats and Michael for their vision for what this sport could be.We chatted about the first race in Ötillö in the U.S. and Jonas thinks that giving endurance athletes a new extreme physical challenge and a change of pace for triathletes that might be tired of doing the same races over and over. Jonas came to Catalina to support Ötillö’s expansion to the U.S. and raced the World Series distance race.Jonas started developing his own wetsuit after not being satisfied with all the options out there. He cemented his idea to start his own brand in 2015 while he was doing a charity swim from Stockholm to Gothenburg (640K or 400 miles away!!!!) and raised over $100,000. During that swim he ended up mostly swimming without a wetsuit because nothing was working. He launched his own brand, Colting Wetsuits, in 2016.We talked about the future of the sport and the hope to keep some of the grassroots feeling about the sport, including how wild and crazy the sport is. We all agreed about the values of the sport to take care about the environment and the friendliness of everyone that competes in the sport made the sport really unique. Basically a love fest about swimrun and its future.You can follow Jonas Colting and Colting Wetsuits on Instagram.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode ten of the Low Tide Boyz Podcast, a Swimrun Podcast!We’re stoked to have Mia Rohman and Fanny Kuhn on the show this week. Both our amazing athletes (Fanny is the reigning Ötillö World Champion) and they started an amazing organization called WILD Swimrun that we’re excited for you to learn more about. More on that later in the show. We’re a couple of weeks past Ötillö Catalina but we’re still reveling in that post-race glow. The folks at Ötillö recently released their race report and short film for the Catalina race and you can check those out here.We’re taking a break from swimrun to train up for the Lake Sonoma 50 miler next month but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop swimming. At least not this year. Chris (and Chipper will be following suit) finally broke up with the crappy pool and joined an outdoor 50m pool that is a major upgrade. Chris also recently joined Team Envol so that should be fun.So now to this week’s interview. We recorded this interview while we were in Catalina and we feel lucky to have been able to chat with Mia and Fanny about their journey in Swimrun and their organization, WILD Swimrun. WILD Swimrun is a place where you find everything you need to get out in nature and enjoy Swimrun. They specifically work to get more women and girls to try the sport. You’ll hear more about this in the interview but we encourage folks to check out their WILD Swimrun Club. The WILD Swimrun Club is for those who wish to compete and do it together with a group of women from around the globe. Folks can sign up and pay membership fee on their website. Part of the fee goes toward their youth initiatives that provide scholarships for teens to attend their super successful women-specific swimrun camps. Their next camp on June 2-7 in Mallorca Spain and all experience levels are welcome.We were definitely moved by their story and wanted to announce on the show that The Low Tide Boyz are going to host a fundraiser For the WILD Youth Initiative to help pay for scholarships for two teens (or more) to attend one of their camps. We’ll soon be launching a teespring store for folks that have been asking for Low Tide Boyz swag and proceeds from sales will go towards funding these scholarships. We’ll also be adding a donate button on our website. We thought that this would be a way for us to help support Mia and Fanny’s efforts and we hope that you’ll join us to help get more women and girls into the sport.Without further ado, enjoy our interview with the Co-founders of WILD Swimrun. (Note: we recorded this episode on the wharf in Avalon so we apologize if the sound is a little off)Fanny Kuhn was a collegiate swimmer and Swedish National Champion and after college she dabbled in triathlon before a friend asked her to do Ötillö Utö and they won the race! Mia started really swimming at age 38 and eventually did a swimrun in Costa Brava Spain and was hooked after that. Mia and Fanny met through a mutual friend two years ago and they both really wanted more women to experience the amazing sport of swimrun they chatted about setting up a swimrun camp for women. Their first camp sold out in 48 hours! So they hosted a second camp, that also sold out. They didn’t have a website, they just posted it on facebook. WILD Swimrun was born soon after that. (The name comes from the location of the first camp in Costa Brava which roughly translates to Wild Coast.) There’s now a WILD Swimrun Community that serves as a forum for women to share training tips and gear to help reduce the barrier to entry to the sport. They also have a WILD Swimrun Club that part of the membership fees go towards providing scholarships to get teens into the sport. Their main goal is to help the sport grow and inspire people to engage in the sport and support each other in the process.A new program that they’ve started is the WILD Youth Initiative that works to try to get young girls into the sport. They got a donation last year to provide scholarships for two teens to go to their main camp in Costa Brava. They hope to expand this program and hopefully have a camp specifically for youth in the future.Their next swimrun camp (that isn’t sold out yet) is in Mallorca on June 2-7th and they encourage all women, regardless of ability to sign up. They are excited that Ötillö is now in the US and see a bright future in the sport and hope that the community of Swimrun will continue to grow in the inclusive and welcoming way that it began. They hope to host a Swimrun camp in the US one day and help even more people enter the sport and experience nature.It was really great to have them on the this week’s show and we encourage everyone to follow them on facebook and Instagram and become part of their community.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter.

Welcome to episode eight of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!This week’s show is all about Ötillö Catalina that happened this past weekend (Feb. 29-Mar. 1).We have something special this week and have two parts to this episode. The first part will be the Low Tide Boyz report and the second part will be the race report from a Swedish Team, Team ARKsouls Addnature, that finished in second place female division. So here we go! We had an amazing and busy weekend scheduled at Catalina. We were almost journalists. We recorded 4 great interviews that we will be releasing in the coming weeks. We met some great people, made new friends, connected faces to names and just had an amazing time. It’s hard to overstate how surreal it was to get so much positive feedback for the podcast and memes. It all started on the ferry ride to Catalina from Long Beach and really didn’t stop until we left. We tried to mention all the people that we connected with while we were there but we’re sure that we missed a bunch of folks. Overall, it was an amazing weekend and we can’t wait to back next year.Episode 8: The Löw Tide Böyz Ötillö Catalina Race ReportWe thought it would be helpful for folks that are thinking about doing the race next year to give a play by play of the World Series distance (31k or running and 7.7k of swimming) race. The course was very difficult and pretty much everything that you’d want in a swimrun race and nothing that you could find in a triathlon.Leg 1: Two Harbors to Isthmus Harbor Beach (2.3 miles or 3.7 kilometers)This leg was a pretty hilly run right off of the bat.Leg 2: Isthmus Harbor Beach to Big Fisherman Cove (1640 yards or 1500 meters) Nothing too tough about this. It definitely felt nice to get in the water after cooking on the run with the wetsuits on. Leg 3: Big Fisherman Cove to Ballast Point Beach (2.9m or 4.8k)This run was pretty straight forward. A little bit of a climb from the boat ramp but then it got very runnable.Leg 4: Ballast Point Beach to Catalina Harbor Boat Ramp (440y or 400m)This was the shortest swim of the day.Leg 5: Boat Ramp to Parsons Landing (5.3m or 9.5k) This was the hardest/longest run of the day. We dropped the suits as soon as we got out of the water knowing that we had a big climb ahead…which we pretty much just hiked/death marched up. (Shout out to the Swimrun Monks and Team Baywatch for the head’s up on this section) It was very steep for the first 2 miles. There was an aid station at the top of the climb (an aid station coming out of the water would have been nice.) Once we got to the top of the climb, we were pretty exposed and it got a bit chilly with the wind but it was nice to be able to run and then had a screaming downhill to get to the next swim at Parson’s Landing.Leg 6: Parsons Landing Bay (765y or 700m) This was the hardest swim of the day. It was very exposed and there were 4-5’ waves going in and out. This was a leg were the true spirit of swimrun really shined. We quickly made a plan of attack, agreed on who would do what and went on to execute. The whole process probably took 30 seconds but it exemplified a lot of what we love about the sport, namely, seeing an obstacle, communicating on how to tackle it and then going out and doing it. Did we mention that this swim was hard?Leg 7: Parsons to Emerald Bay (1.1m or 1.9k)This run was pretty chill and just what we needed after the washing machine-style swim that we just finished. This was about the half way point of the race with some very long swims coming up.Leg 8: Emerald Bay to Howland’s Landing (1400y or 1300m)This swim was pretty straight forward but the water temperature was dropping a bit. Leg 9: Howland’s to Big Geiger Cove (1.3m or 2.2k)This run was pretty uneventful. Just climbing out of the beach to a trail and then keep heading south towards the finish area. We ran this one easy since the biggest swim of the day was up next.Leg 10: Big Geiger Cove to Lion’s Head Cove (1750y or 1600m)This swim wasn’t very technical but it was long. It was also our fastest swim of the day.Leg 11: Lion’s to Fourth of July Cove (2.2m or 3.6k)We ran this swim pretty quickly, mostly to warm up but also because we were feeling pretty good. We passed several teams on this run. We saw our friend Christofer Sundberg from Ark Sports on the run so that also gave us a lift.Leg 12: Fourth of July Cove to Isthmus Harbor Beach (875Y or 800m)This swim was fine but it was a little hard to sight. Luckily there was a watercraft that pointed us in the right direction. Leg 13: Isthmus Harbor Beach to Big Fishermen Cove (3m or 4.9k)This was the last run of the day and we definitely knew that we had the race in the bag. We also saw our first wild animal of the day: a squirrel! (Read: we saw zero bison!)Leg 14: Big Fishermen to Isthmus Harbor Beach (1530y or 1400m)We were both pretty toasted by this last swim and we just grinded it out to the beach. Chipper really carried the load to get us to the beach.Leg 15: Beach to finish lin

Welcome to episode nine of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!Team ARKsouls Addnature Ötillö Race ReportThis week’s show is all about Ötillö Catalina that happened this past weekend (Feb. 29-Mar. 1).We have something special this week and have two parts to this episode. The first part will be the Low Tide Boyz report and the second part will be the race report from a Swedish Team, Team ARKsouls Addnature, that finished in second place female division. Now for an actual race report! (Note: This interview was reported a couple of hours after the race on the beach in Avalon and we were pretty tired but it was great to get their view on the World Series race.) (Note 2: Our guests were extremely humble so it was hard to get some straight answers from them.)We interviewed Isabella Hedberg and Helen Wikmar of Team ARKsouls Addnature.Isabella and Helen are a top international women’s team out of Sweden and have been competing together for about a year. They’ve competed in many swimrun events together, including the Ötillö World Championships in 2019. They got 3rd place FYI. They were the 2nd Place Women’s team at the first ever Ötillö Catalina. They thought that the race went well (obviously). There were highs and lows but they have a tactic that they use at all their races to pace and try to get stronger and stronger as the race goes on. They kept passing teams throughout the race and passed the third place team with about 500m left in the last swim.Unlike a lot of swimrun events that they’ve raced in Europe where they are usually alone for long periods, there were a lot of teams bunched up and more competitive than they were used to. There was way less chitchat on the course as well.They felt that the course was well suited for their strengths. The Parsons Landing Bay swim was what they thought was the most interesting swim. Helen admitted that she was a bit scared going into those waves. Overall, they had a great race and would recommend this race to anyone. While Catalina was a great race, they felt that it was hard to compare to other Ötillö events because every race is so different. It was great to get the international perspective from Isabella and Helen. You can follow them on Instagram here and here.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode seven of the Low Tide Boyz,a Swimrun Podcast!We are beyond thrilled to have Christofer Sundberg, a swimrunner and Co-founder of Ark Sports on the show this week. More on this later!We’re just a few days away from the Ötillö Catalina race and we’re ready for some fun! Our training went as well as could be expected but we’re definitely stoked to finally race an Ötillö event and meet so many people that have become fans of the show.We also wanted to give a special shout out to @westcoastswimrun, @swimrunlabs and @this_is_trista for sharing DIY pro-tips for pull buoys and swim paddles. We love getting and sharing this content so tag us and we’ll make sure to spread the word.Now back to this week’s interview! This is the first time that we’ve had a gear and apparel manufacturer on the show and we think that you’ll enjoy this interview about Christopher’s personal journey and how swimrun literally changed his life for the better. He worked in the video game space since 92 and started his own company, Avalanche Studios in 2003. He co-founded Ark Sports with Dennis Blomberg and Daniel Sand in 2017. Ark Sports is a title sponsor of Ötillö and they just recently announced their entrance into the U.S. market. You can read the press release here. After a near-drowning accident as a child and a slew of swimming schools later, Christofer signed up for a swimrun event in 2014 and was hooked on the sport ever since. It was only a few years later that he co-founded Ark Sports. As swimrun became his obsession, he learned that Dennis and Daniel were leaving Head Swimming in Sweden and they started getting their heads together in 2017 with the idea of why there wasn’t any swimrun equipment being manufacturered in Sweden using feedback from the athletes. After they developed their first prototype suits and the two teams that wore the new suits won the World Championship that year! The men’s team of Jesper Svensson and Daniel Hansson won AND broke the world record and the women’s team of Kristin Larsson and Annika Ericsson won by over 45 minutes over the next women’s team. Overnight the Ark Sports became “a company.”Every product that Ark Sports goes through many levels of iteration and they are working to try to be as environmentally-friendly as they can, including the use of Yamamoto limestone-based neoprene. There is still a long way to go but Ark is constantly looking into new materials that could work for swimrun. For example, the Ark Pontoon pull buoy and hand paddles are made from recycled plastic and manufactured in Sweden.When Ark got the opportunity to become a partner of the Ötillö Series, things really took off for the brand. Now they offer a wetsuit rental program at every race in the series where folks can rent a suit and then buy one at a reduced price if they end up loving the suit. This is a great way to reduce the barrier to entry to the sport. (Note: the rental program at the Catalina race is fully subscribed!)Looking to the future, Christofer wants to grow Ark Sports to take on triathlon and the OCR markets and position the brand to grow both in endurance sports and with lifestyle products. A lot of people want to be associated with the brand and their personal touch when they meet with athletes has developed a lot of trust with their users and it’s become a cool brand to be wearing. (We agree!)If you are going to be in Catalina for the race, make sure to stop by to meet the Ark Sports crew and check out their line of products and pick up a pull buoy or three.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode six of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!We are releasing another episode this week to give our listeners yet another Ötillö Catalina course preview and some more deep diving into swimrun-specific race gear. On this week’s show we chat with the Huntington Beach-based swimrun team Kawika and Blake, A.K.A. Team Baywatch, to discuss the world series course and all things gear with two veterans of the sport. Before getting into the interview, we want to give a special shoutout to our first Patron on Patreon, Andy Hewitt of California Swimrun. He’s basically the Godfather of swimrun in the U.S. and it means the world to us to have both his blessing and support for two average dads that are trying to help grow the sport. We look forward to interviewing him soon for the show.Now right to this week’s special episode! We are stoked to have Team Baywatch on the show this week. Not only are they super experienced and have raced a ton together, they are also total gear heads and share all their wealth of knowledge with our listeners. As if that wasn’t enough, they have been working with Andy Hewitt and the Ötillö folks to test out the Catalina course and have previewed the course several times already and they’ll share there knowledge with us.Kawika found swimrun in 2016 and was hooked after his first race in San Diego. His first partner at that race was not hooked. Kawika then asked his friend Blake to partner up and the rest was history. Their first race together was the California Swimrun in 2017 and then signed up for Odyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay long course event the same year. Since then they have competed at a ton of Swimrun races in the States and internationally and raced the Ötillö World Championships in 2019.They chat about the Ötillö Catalina course on the show and provide a much of gems of wisdom for folks racing the World Series distance. They also chatted a lot about swimrun-specific gear. Everything from what type of swimcap to don to what shoes have worked best for them and everything in between.Besides dropping serious gear knowledge, Kawika and Blake gave us a series of “pro-tips” that were so good that we needed to list them for everyone:Wear goggles that you can easily grab and clear during the swim while wearing swim paddles.Make sure you test out whatever swimrun wetsuit you plan on racing in to make sure that it doesn’t cause hot spots or chaffing.Use 4 inch wide KT or Rocktape on your neck to help prevent chaffing from the wetsuit.Timing chips can cause some chaffing so wearing tall compression socks can help with that.We really appreciate Kawika and Blake for sharing their experiences with for our listeners and we look forward to having them back on the show in the future.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode five of the Low Tide Boyz, a swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we chat with the San Diego-based swimrun team Sean and Phillip A.K.A., The Swimrun Monks. But first…we wanted to thank everyone that’s been listening to the show and reaching out with questions and feedback. It has been great to see and even though there are people way more experienced than us we’ll keep trying to answer everyone’s questions. We also wanted to give a special shout out to Pepe And Florian from Sweden for being fans of the show and basically becoming our unofficial Swedish pronunciation coaches and meme suggesters.We’ve hit some adversity in training with our collective kids being sick and Chris traveling for work but we’re still getting some good training in. We finally got in a swimrun practice in Aquatic Park in San Francisco which was fun. We practiced transitions and swimming with a tether, which is always good to do before race day on Otillio Catalina. Speaking of Catalina, our guests on the show today helped design the course with the race directors. The Swimrun Monks, Sean and Phillip are pretty bad ass athletes in their own rights and came together in 2019 to race together. Both had interesting journeys to get to Swimrun and were introduced to the sport by Andy Hewitt and Sean Durkin. They raced the Ötillö World Championship in 2019 and have a stacked race schedule in 2020 as they gear up to hopefully race the World Championship again.The Monks talked about what Ötillö races are like in Europe and how big of a deal it was that they were coming to the United States to put on their first event in Catalina. They also helped Andy Hewitt to design the race course and even put in an 11 hour “training day” when they went from Two Harbors to Avalon to see if that was possible. The official race course will start and end in Two Harbors and The Monks run us through what the course will be like. The water will be clean and clear and the running legs will be all on trails with some good elevation. They talked about race strategy and how to work together with their partner to have a successful race day.We talked about finding and training together with a partner. The Monks train together 3-4 times per week and are always trying to get in some swimrun-specific training at least once a week. We geeked out about swimrun gear and talked about shoes (Hoka Speedgoat Evos are their current shows of choice), pull buoys (of course we chatted about buoys), wetsuits (they are fans of synergy wetsuits), shin floaties, etc. Finally, we chatted about how San Diego is a great place to train for swimrun and the cool crew that meets up to do workouts.We really appreciated the guys coming on the show and look forward to seeing them at the start of some of our races this year…and then seeing them at the finish line since we’ll be way behind them on the course!That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode four of the Low Tide Boyz, a swimrun podcast!On this week’s show we chat about finding a swimrun partner. We’ve received a lot of requests for this show from our fans so…here it is. Since swimrun is primarily a team sport, we thought that it would be a to try to cover all the details around finding a partner since the sport is so young in the US.As you know by now, there’s are three team categories for swimrun events: Women’s, Men’s and Mixed. (Some races will also have solo categories.)There are several initial considerations in selecting a swimrun partner. These include the following:Overall endurance/fitnessSimilar swim/running pacesComplementary personalitiesSimilar training/race goalsAbility to train togetherBeing ready for adventureThe take home message being that finding the right partner will be give and take of a lot of factors and your team’s ability to work together towards a common goal (whether that goal is qualifying for a World Championship, just having a great adventure or something in between) will be determined by how well you communicate your goals with your partner. Talking with your partner (or prospective partner) about your goals will be the best way to have your first experience in the sport be a positive one. Given that the races are all challenging in their own ways, finding someone that is up for the challenge/adversity will help ensure that you’ll have a great race, regardless of your finishing time.So where can you find a partner if you’re the only person that you know that knows about swimrun? We think that there are several sources that make the most sense to access. These include your current workout buddies, swim/running/tri clubs, masters programs and gym/boot camps. It’s likely that someone else may have heard about the sport and just needed the impetus to get into the sport. There are also some great online resources to learn about the sport and find a partner. Otillo and Odyssey Swimrum have some great videos that feature their events and the sports beautifully. There are also several Facebook groups, online forums and Instagram accounts where folks can go to look for partners and discover events in their area. Finally, races and race directors are great resources to find partners.Swimrun Facebook Groups:Swimrun International CommunityOFFICIAL Swimrun Forum - World of Swimrun (WoS)The Swimrun ExperienceIt’s really hard to overstate how welcoming the sport of swimrun is. There are swimrun groups popping up all over the US as well as new races. We encourage everyone to find and support your local race. This will be the best way to help grow the sport and maybe find your perfect race partner! That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Welcome to episode three of the Low Tide Boyz, a swimrun podcast!On this week’s show we chat about ramping up our training for Catalina and our swim build workout plan that was written by this show’s special guest, Michael Olzinski. More about him later.We started swimming at a great outdoor Olympic-sized pool that is a huge upgrade from our current crappy 25 yard pool at our crappy gym. Long course swimming has been a great addition to our training given that swimrun is all about swimming long. We’ve started dialing up the swim volume and have been putting in some diabolical sets, curtesy of today’s guest!We’ve gotten some great feedback about our Swimrun 101 episode so thank you for that. It was also brought to our attention that we didn’t talk about socks and what to wear under a wetsuit. For both of these it comes down to personal preference and we recommend testing whatever you’re going to use before the race. We are lucky to have Michael Olzinski on the show this week. He’s a multisport coach with Purple Patch Fitness. He’s a stout athlete in his own right, has a ton of coaching certifications and he’s joining us to chat about swimrun training. Mike first heard about swimrun when some of Purple Patch’s international athletes started asking for training plans to their races.We chatted with Mike about how to best train for swimrun, focusing on the Otillo Catalina course…since that’s what we have coming up. Acknowledging that training for these events are really an experiment in training and while there are some analogies to events like super league triathlon, where there are multiple short sets of swimming, biking and running. The overarching idea though is that swimrun athletes have to be just that, athletes. As much as swimrun is a swimming and running sport, there’s a lot of room for strength training to handle the impact on your legs and shoulders from all the transitions. This is especially true for newer athletes to the sport. Mike also recommends combining running and swimming often and mix it up to develop the adaptation for transitioning back and forth.Courses like Otillo’s Catalina World Series race be aerobic event but it will have a lot of spikes and drops in effort levels and, as such, training should have a lot of fartleks thrown in to simulate the spikes in effort that athletes will experience during a race. For swim workouts, Mike is a big fan of doing deck ups at the pool. These are great for getting the body adapted to transitioning from swimming to running. Mike also recommends that during swimming sets, that it’s not necessary to do all your swims with paddles and buoy. Use paddles and buoy mostly for key sets in the water. Adding an ankle strap is also great. Mike recommends trying some fartlek swimming in open water and using swim strokes to count off the sets, such as 30 hard and 30 recovery, then 20 hard and 30 recovery and so forth. Finally, Mike recommends doing a lot of strength and core work to help with maintaining proper posture during long endurance efforts in the water and on land. Mike thinks that everyone should be doing deadlifts. Full stop!You can find Mike on Instagram, on the Purple Patch platform and at the Nth Degree Athletic Club.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at [email protected].

Swimrun 101We got some great feedback from listeners that they wanted a primer on Swimrun. So this week we’ve released a special episode to cover all the basics about Swimrun. What is Swimrun?A Swimrun is a multiple-stage competition which involves participants running and swimming over a race course or loop-course that involves at least two transitions between the swim and run stages of the race. All equipment used by participants has to be carried all the way to the finish line. (Thanks Wikipedia!)When was it invented?The sport was invented in 2002 in Sweden when 4 friends made a bet at a bar about who could get from the Island of Utö to the Island of Sandhamn (more that 75 kilometers away across 26 islands) using just their “4 limbs.” It took them more than 24 hours to complete the distance and the rest is history!Who is it for?This sport is really for everyone. Having an endurance background is very helpful but not required. Swim experience is definitely required and comfort in open water is a must. In general though endurance swimmers, trail runners, etc. are well suited for these type of adventures. Similar to how Spartan races or other OCR events are great ways for Crossfitters to use their fitness in different ways, Swimrun offers endurance athletes a way for them to use their training in more of an adventure setting.The sport is very welcoming and chill while still creating challenging experiences for participants. We definitely encourage folks to find their local races and support the race directors that are trying to grow the sport in the US. You can see a list of events on our website.How does it work?The whole point of the sport is to get from A to B as quickly as possible. The sport allows for things like hand paddles, pull buoys and fins to be used on the swim to help get this accomplished. We will discuss equipment for swimrun later in the show notes. The sport is mostly team based and there are four categories at most events.Solo: Kind of the anti-team category. More events are offering this option to help grow the sport and encourage participation from people who may not have access to a partner or couldn’t get one in time for an event. (We don’t recommend this, we think that one of the things that makes this sport special is the team aspect of it.)Men’s, Women’s and Mixed Teams: These are all self-explanatory.These categories compete on a course that’s either short, long or very long. The courses are either a loop course or point-to-point with alternating legs of running and swimming. Each race will have its unique challenges, whether elevation on the run, “swim-heavy” or “run-heavy” courses, participants can essentially select what suits their strengths or try something outside of their comfort zone.Race strategy for each event will be different and teams need to make sure that they have planned for such things as pacing, nutrition and water currents. The longer the course, the more race strategy will play a role in having a successful event.Partner selection is also important. You want to make sure that you and your partner are pretty compatible pace-wise. Since the sport requires that teams be tethered together on the swim, a gross mismatch of swim ability might be problematic. What equipment is required?There is definitely gear that is required for the sport. Whatever you bring to a race must be carried at all times by the teams. We will outline the key gear below:Wetsuit: There are Swimrun specific wetsuits that are designed for running and swimming. There are a bunch of companies in the space that are making these types of wetsuits, and similar to triathlon or open water swimming wetsuits, each brand will have its own take on sizing, cut and neoprene thickness.Pull Buoy: Our favorite swimrun accessory! Most are DIY’d to make sure that you can carry it while running with most efficiency. You can now buy pull buoys that are already set up for swimrun but we recommend that new athletes to the sport make their own. We see this as a rite of passage in the sport.Tether: Yes, a tether. As mentioned above, during the swim legs of an event partners are expected to be connected via a 3ish meter tether so that they remain in contact. This takes some getting used to so we recommend practicing in open water with your partner. More on this later. The tether is made of paracord and also be easily DIY’d.Shoes: Yes, you swim with shoes on. They make swimrun specific shoes but in general you want shoes that have good drainage and some decent tread on the soles since most of the run courses will be on trails. Paddles: The last piece of a swimrunner’s arsenal in the water are hand paddles. Paddles in conjunction with a pull buoy are the most helpful things to get through the swim legs of an event quickly.Multisport Watch: This isn’t mandatory but it’s helpful to know distances and the like. We like watches like the Garmin Fenix 5 that have a multi-sport setting specific for swimrun.Personal Flotation D

Welcome to the first official episode of The Low Tide Boyz, a swimrun podcast!We (Chipper and Chris) will be covering a bunch of topics related to Swimrun from upcoming events and news, new gear and product reviews as well as our own journey in training and racing in this growing sport. We hope that folks will join us on our journey and that we will inspire everybody to sign up for Swimrun events in their area.By way of background, we are an endurance team out of Northern California. We’ve been training together and racing endurance events for years and raced our first Swimrun event in 2018. This year our “A” race will be Ötillö Catalina (World Series course) and our “a” race will be Odyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island long course. We might try to do some more events…if our wives give us clearance. Our upcoming Catalina race in late February will consist of 30k run and 7.6k swim or 18ish miles of running and 4ish miles of swimming. This will be our first hilly Swimrun race with over 4,000’ of climbing on the course so we are excited about that!We’re about to really start “training” and we will be chronicling our built for Catalina on the show. We are hoping to have a good race, but have no delusions about winning anything, we’re just looking forward to working hard and experiencing an official Ötillö race. That disclaimer aside, we will be doing a pretty heavy swim build for this event and will be doing a diabolical swim program that will likely render us unable to do high fives…so we will see how that goes.Our guest this week is Kelly O’Mara. Kelly is a writer and reporter in Northern California. She is also a professional triathlete. She’s the co-host of her own podcast called If We Were Riding (available everywhere) and is an all-around awesome human being. She joined us on the podcast to talk about her own journey in discovering and racing Swimrun and about how she thinks that the sport could/should grow in the US.Kelly first heard about Swimrun from a friend at Triathlete Magazine who had done the Ötillö World Championship and she just heard a lot of buzz about those events. So she signed up for Casco Bay/ Cole Classic Swimrun event in Portland, Maine put on by Odyssey SwimRun in 2018 and returned to race in 2019. We hung out with her on the ferry in 2018 and that’s where she first met Chipper. (Chris and Kelly used to go on training rides together in Marin back in the day.)Kelly sees 2020 as “the year of Swimrun” and thinks that there will be many more events coming online as folks learn about the sport. We agree! It will be interesting to see what happens now that Ötillö has their first event in the US and the growing trend of endurance athletes compete in a variety of things to get a variety of experiences.If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. If you want to drop us a line then email us at [email protected].

We are the Low Tide Boyz, a SwimRun team based in Northern California. Our podcast is a window into the sport of SwimRun that we want to grow in the U.S. We’ll share our love for sport while chronicling our own training and racing adventures, interview race directors, athletes and other folks in the space and try to have a lot of fun in the process. Follow along at lowtideboyz.com and subscribe where ever you consume your favorite podcasts.