Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast (Low Tide Boyz)

Welcome to episode 191 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this episode, we chat about our second trip to ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. We discuss how we’re feeling about the whole thing, how our training went, what we did differently from 2022, and what our goals are for the race. By the time this show airs, we will be in Stockholm enjoying FIKA, meeting up with friends, and trying to get on local time for the early wake up call on race day. 

We are immensely grateful for all the support of our families, friends, and listeners and look forward to another amazing day on the archipelago.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 243 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

At time of release, we are on the eve of the 2024 edition of ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship and we have a great episode to celebrate the big day. Joining us to talk about their forthcoming experience is Tracy Sesselberg and Sarah Haskell, A.K.A., Team Tracy and Sarah’s Excellent Adventure. This was a great conversation and we can’t wait to follow them on race day.

But first…

Training Update Chipper’s Knee Update

We’re replacing our training updates for the next few weeks to keep everyone up to date on the status of Chipper’s knee ligaments. No major update other than x-rays were negative and an MRI is scheduled.

Shoutout

This week’s shoutout goes out to our two newest Patrons on Patreon, Brett and Sarah. Thank you both so much for the support!

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is our friend Matt Murray (and one half of Team Landshark) for racing his first 50 miler over the weekend. Strong work dude!

Bonus shoutout to everyone that raced ÖTILLÖ Mackinac Island over the weekend. The weather looked amazing and the IG coverage was FOMO-inducing for sure!

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

Got inspired by ÖTILLÖ Mackinac Island and you're Interested in signing up for one or both of the remaining ÖTILLÖ races in North America? Then use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your race registration for Orcas Island and Austin.

Team Tracy and Sarah’s Excellent Adventure

It was great to catch up with Tracy and Sarah on the cusp of their travel to Sweden for Worlds. We got all the details about how they qualified, how they trained for the big day, and what they hope to get from the experience. This conversation had all the feels and we’re stoked for their upcoming excellent adventure.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty-three of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this episode, we sit down with Jonathan Story and Tim Ferguson of Team It Be Me Me Me and Timothy. They are a Swimrun team out of Charlotte, North Carolina and they are one of only four U.S. teams to qualify for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship this year. This is a fun one!

But first... 

Training Update

It’s race week...finally! We know we say this a lot, but we’re super stoked to be heading to Portland to race Ödyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay race for a second time. 

Stay tuned for our race report on next week’s show.

Shoutout

This week we’re shouting out Sarah and Miriam from Team PB and Bananas. They are a new team out of Petaluma, CA and happen to train at our pool. We love their enthusiasm (they definitely remind us of all the fun we had when we first got into the sport) and it’s safe to say that they are super stoked on Swimrun. Follow their adventures on Instagram as they train for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Ludington race in October.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to Jett Rosner. He posted a treadmill workout that had one of the best titles that we’ve seen in the Strava Club. His 5 mile run was called “Decent treadmill run (listened to the Low Tide Boyz Casco Bay Race Briefing!! Got hyped at the end and dropped a 6:10 last mile so the average pace was skewed).” Jett got us hyped!

Check out our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

We’ve missed a few weeks of updates so instead of looking back, in this edition we’re looking forward in time to chat about upcoming news and events.

The Ödyssey Swimrun race season starts this weekend with Casco Bay. We can’t wait to participate in the long course distance and see everyone!

In other Swimrun news from the U.S., Swimrun Georgia is back! This year’s race is scheduled for October 10. The course looks awesome and it’s a great first race for anyone who is curious about Swimrun.

On the other side of the Atlantic...ÖTILLÖ is hosting its second race of the year this weekend in Gothenburg. The start list is stacked with a ton of talented teams for the 35km World Series distance race as teams try one last time to qualify for this year’s ÖTILLÖ World Championship on September 6. 

The Västeras Swimrun recently confirmed that their race on September 4th is happening and the race is filling up fast so make sure to register if you are in Sweden or want to go to Sweden for this event.

Our friends at EX Swimrun are introducing a new Swimrun term that they hope will catch on: SWIFA (Swim Factor). Basically it’s a measure of how much swimming in relation to running a Swimrun course has. The higher the SWIFA, the more swimming a course has. They adapted the term from running and cross country skiing which uses the term STIFA to take into account elevation on a course. We think that it could be a helpful way to help people select and prepare for events.

Speaking of EX Swimrun, their EX21 Fall Edition is taking place on September 19. With a SWIFA score of 21.7%, this race is not for the faint of heart with long swims and tough trails. Also the race starts with a 6 meter cliff jump. Sounds like a ton of fun!

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us with any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Make sure to check out our latest episode of Gear Talk where the gang talks about gear considerations for this weekend’s Casco Bay race.

This is the final reminder about our Casco Bay race after-party taking place at Lone Pine Brewery starting at 5:30ish. Look for the blue LTBz flag when you get there. Hope to see you all there!

Team It Be Me Me Me and Timothy

It was great to chat with Jonathan and Tim about their Swimrun journey and their quest to qualify and race the ÖTILLÖ World Championship. It was inspiring to hear how they just put that goal out there and went and achieved it. As one of only four teams heading over from the U.S. to race the original Swimrun, they are representing the growing Swimrun scene in the U.S. In this interview, we chatted with them about how they discovered Swimrun and became partners, why they decided to try to qualify for worlds, how they are training for the big dance, and a lot more. These guys are great ambassadors for the sport and we will definitely be rooting for them next month.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 127 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swiun Podcast!

This week we have another installment in our Swimrun 101 series. In this edition, we are opening up the LTBz mailbag and answering the most recurring questions that we get in our emails and DMs. Enjoy!

The LTBz Mailbag

Are wetsuits required at every Swimrun?

Yup. As far as we know, every Swimrun requires a wetsuit. Swimskins won’t cut it. Our best thinking on this is for safety reasons including maintaining your core body temperature and added buoyancy. You can learn more about Swimrun wetsuits on our Gear Talk episode “Wetsuit Suit Out.”

You can also check out the gear guide on our website for all things Swimrun gear.

What paddles should I use?

If you’ve seen any Swimrun race content you’ll notice that almost everyone is using swim paddles as part of their race kit. Using paddles helps compensate for the drag created by swimming with shoes on. They also make you faster. Our recommendation in choosing swim paddles are to make sure that you get the right size for you. Check out our Gear Talk episode all about swim paddles to learn more…from people smarter than us.

Our favorite paddles are made by Frank Paddle. They are carbon fiber paddles that are super stiff and move a ton of water. You can check out our full review about these swim paddles on Gear Talk.

What is the consensus on wearing underwear under your wetsuit?

Like with anything Swimrun, you need to test it in practice to see what will work for you. That being said…Chris has converted a bunch of people to not wear underwear under wetsuits. Ladies typically wear a sports bra on top and/or pair it with a kangaroo top for extra storage. Check out our Gear Talk episode all about Swimrun undergarments.

Should you use a pull buoy? And if so, what size? 

YES!!! The Swimrun pull buoy is an essential piece of kit that provides a ton of flotation to keep positioned properly in the water while counteracting the drag created by swimming with shoes on. The general rule of thumb that we follow when we advise people about what pull buoy size to get it to go with the largest that you can handle to get the most buoyancy possible. Check out our review of the pull buoy that we use: The Ark Sport Keel+.

What shoes should I wear for swimrun?

This is one of the most common questions that we get. While Swimrun-specific shoes do exist and are great, we recommend that you start by looking in your current stable of shoes for trail shoes that might work for Swimrun. Any shoe that has good lugs on the bottom and drains water well are good choices. Like with anything Swimrun, testing in practice is key. Check out our deep dive into all things Swimrun shoes on Gear Talk.

Addressing the myth of blistered feet from running in wet shoes.

So the myth usually goes something like this: you get blisters from running with wet socks. This has not been our experience. If you use thin, synthetic fiber socks, you are unlikely to get blisters if your shoes fit properly. Ill-fitting shoes are more likely to cause blisters than Swimrunning. We address Swimrun socks on our Undergarments episode and on our Swimrun Gear Guide.

What to do if you can’t swim without earplugs?

For some folks, swimming without earplugs can lead to headaches, disorientation, and experience less fun in open water. Wearing ear plugs solves these problems but in Swimrun this solution is problematic because of the need to communicate with your partner during the race. We highly recommend Surf Ears which block water out but allow sounds to go in. They also have a lanyard and mini arms to keep the ear plugs in place.

How do I find a partner? 

The age old question. We’ve answered this question in a couple of previous Swimrun 101 shows all the way back on Episode 4 and again on Episode 111. If you don’t want to listen to those shows, our recommendations for finding a partner are basically to look to folks in your training group or pool and see if anyone is up for the adventure and make sure that whomever you partner with has similar goals.

Where can someone find/borrow used Swimrun gear?

We love getting this question because we want everyone to be able to find Swimrun gear so that they can get out there and try the sport. In that spirit, we created the Swimrun Swap Meet on FB so folks could sell/buy/trade Swimrun gear.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to this bonus episode of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’re back with our second live podcast ever! Joining us for a chat about the future of Swimrun in the U.S. are Lars Finanger and Dominik Leu of ÖTILLÖ. Recorded on the eve of ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Austin, this wide ranging conversation covered how Ödyssey Swimrun and ÖTILLÖ joined forces, what they think is needed to keep growing the sport, what the future holds for Swimrun around the world, and so much more! 

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to this bonus episode of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swiun Podcast!

Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay is coming up in a few weeks and we wanted to share an addendum to our 2021 Casco Bay Course Preview episode. As some of you may know, the Casco Bay course changes every year or so and we wanted to make sure that everyone had the latest and greatest intel going into this year’s edition. In this addendum, we are joined by frequent guest of the show John Stevens to walk us through the new long course that he designed.

If this is your first time racing Casco Bay we recommend that you check out our Course Preview episode for all the details about Portland Maine and the mechanics of the race. You can also check out our 2021 Casco Bay Race Report to get some more intel about the race.

2022 Short Course

If you’re racing the short course this year, check out our recent Couch to Casco episode (with John Stevens) where we discuss everything you need to know about short course with some training and gear tips thrown in.

2022 Long Course Leg-by-Leg Breakdown

The Long course clocks in at 23-ish miles total with 18 miles of running and about 5 miles of swimming over 13 run sections and 12 swim sections.

We asked John Stevens to give us a leg-by-leg breakdown of the course and he did not disappoint. Our chat with John had a lot of great insight from the guy that designed the course to help everyone be as prepared as possible for the race. We recommend listening to his breakdown with the race map and the leg-by-leg breakdown from the show notes handy so you can orient yourself with the course while listening.

(2022 North to South Route)

Run 1: Chebeague Island (1 mile)

Swim 1: Chebeague (460 yds)

Run 2: Chebeague Island (3 miles)

Swim 2: Chebeague to Little Chebeague (685 yds)

Run 3: Little Chebeague (.5 miles)

Swim 3: Little Chebeague to Long Island (685 yds)

Run 4: Long Island (1.65 miles)

Swim 4: Long Island (930 yds)

Run 5: Long Island Sandbar (81 feet)

Swim 5: Long Island to Vaill Island (380 yds)

Run 6: Vaill Island (.55 miles)

Swim 6: Vaill to Long Island (530 yds)

Run 7: Long Island (1 mile)

Swim 7: Long to Cow Island (1375 yds) * Longest swim of the day

Run 8: Cow Island (.6 miles)

Swim 8: Cow to Great Diamond (300 yds)

Run 9: Great Diamond Island (1.65 miles)

Swim 9: Great Diamond to Peaks Island (775 yds)

Run 10: Peaks Island (3.1 miles) * Longest run of the day

Swim 10: Peaks to Cushing (975 yds)

Run 11: Cushing Island (3 miles)

Swim 11: Cushing to House (800 yds)

Run 12: House Island (.75 miles)

Swim 12: House to Peaks (725 yds)

Run 13: Peaks Island finish (350 feet)

Summary

The 2022 edition of Casco Bay is going to be challenging and fun. We hope that this addendum helps you prepare for the race. If you were on the fence about signing up and this episode nudged you in the right direction, use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ to save 15% off of your registration for Casco Bay and all of Ödyssey’s 2022 events.

That’s it for this bonus episode. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 162 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

It’s Partners month and this week we have the newish team of Sarah Keiffer and Viv Mroz, a.k.a., Team Monkey Sea Monkey Run. To say that these ladies have caught the Swimrun bug is an understatement! After racing Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island with the Traverse Fitness crew, they signed up for Swimrun NC soon after, and just qualified for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. Their energy is infectious and we loved this conversation.

But first…

Training Update

No major training updates this week other than now that we know what we will be doing in early September, the rest of our training calendar will be falling into place accordingly. 

Shoutout

Our shoutout this week goes out to the 8 U.S. teams that qualified for Worlds. Our hope is that as the sport continues to grow here in the states, that more folks will put ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship on their bucket list of must-do events. Huge congrats on qualifying and happy training! 

Wisdom Nugget of the Week

“Inner peace, then outer results. Not the other way around.” - Mark Allen

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Kathryn Meinhardt. She recently posted a solid 10,000 yard swim and wore her new Löw Tide Böyz swim cap. Basically making it an automatic win but also a stout feat of endurance in its own right.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Now for the “news.”

In Sweden, Koster Swimrun announced the date of this year’s event. Or should we say dates…because this event is a three day experience with athletes arriving on Sept. 22nd to take a ferry to the Koster Islands from Strömstad, racing on the 23rd and returning home on the 24th. Included in the price are 2 nights lodging, 2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, and Kristian’s fish soup at the finish line!

Down in Portugal, Swimrun Portugal’s Azores Swimrun is scheduled for March 4th and looks to be another awesome event.

Over in France, Swimrunman’s Gorges du Verdon race is taking place on April 30th and offers 4 distance options including a 66km Ultra distance which is also an ÖTILLÖ merit race for those of you who care about that sort of thing. The Ultra distance is also considered one of the hardest Swimruns in the world for those of you who care about that sort of thing.

Finally, here in the United States, the first Swimrun of the year will be on April 22nd at Swimrun Lake James. We loved this event when we raced it in 2022 and are bummed to be missing this year’s edition. 

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us if there’s any Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Show Business

Partners month is being supported by our friends at Precision Fuel and Hydration. Did you know that they offer a free online race nutrition planning tool to help folks prepare for events? The best part is that they have a dedicated Swimrun category. Check it out and get prepared for race day. Need fuel for race day? Click on this link to save 15% off of your first order. 

Team Monkey Sea Monkey Run

Viv and Sarah are great. It seems like destiny that they found Swimrun and in this conversation we chatted about how they got started, how they trained from afar (Sarah in Colorado and Viv in NYC), and what their plans are for the future. Note: we recorded this episode before they found out that they qualified for ÖTILLÖ, so it’s extra cool to be able to release this episode so soon after Swimrun Christmas. If you’re not super stoked after listening to this conversation, go ahead and check to make sure you have a pulse. 

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 197 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have another edition of Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke of the Swimrun Labs this week. In this episode we discuss the entire Swijin Hybrid line of Women’s gear. If the name sounds familiar it is because we interviewed the co-founder of Swijin way back on Episode 180 of the show. Make sure to check out that show for all the background on this really amazing company…and listen to this one to learn more about how the gear fared in testing. 

Use code ANNIESWIJIN to get a free brief with purchse of the Swijin bra

Did Annie and Brooke love the Swijin Hybrid Sports Bra, Briefs, and Bike Shorts? The answer was an emphatic YES!!

Use code ANNIESWIJIN to get a free set of bike shorts with a purchase of the Swijin bra.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 156 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got something special for our last episode of 2022. Joining us in Studio G are Annie and Brooke from the Swimrun Labs to co-host our first ever “Gear of the Year” awards. These aren’t your usual awards and we don’t have anything close to the usual award categories. Check out the show to see what gear we loved in 2022, what gear made us go “huh?” and what gear doesn’t exist yet, but should.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 161 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

First, happy Swimrun Christmas for everyone vying for a slot to the 2023 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship!

We are officially kicking off the third edition of Partners Month, wherein we highlight one of our favorite aspects of Swimrun: teams! First up this month are Annika Westin and Marie Anderzén, A.K.A. Team Strömgren. We’ve been following these ladies in our Strava Club for a long time and we were lucky enough to finally meet them in person in Sweden last year. This was a great conversation and we can’t wait to share it with you! 

But first…

Training Update

The base building continues and Chris’s existential dread from not being able to swim for about another month is causing him anxiety. Despite that, we’re looking forward to training together more often on land until Chris finally is back in the pool/ocean.

Shoutout

Our shoutout this week goes out to the country of Switzerland. They recently cracked our top ten list for downloads by county and we’re for it. We will hopefully be “there for it” in Engadin in 2024.  

Wisdom Nugget of the Week

“Rest is honoring your body and its need to repair physically. It is also essential for recharging your emotional and spiritual batteries. It is the partner to work. When joined together these two powerful forces create magnificence in life.” - Mark Allen

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is our friend, previous guest, and Kanchō Bōy Addison. He posted a magical snow running adventure from his native Boulder and it looked…magical! Keep up the good work buddy. (Check out the Kancho Boyz interview from last year’s Partners Month on Episode 110 of the show.)

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Now for the “news.”

There’s really only one piece of news for the week and that is the results of the ÖTILLÖ Ranking Selection for this year’s Swimrun World Championship were announced today. Congratulations to everyone that qualified! For those that just missed out, don’t lose heart. We’ve heard a bunch of stories of teams getting the call/email that a slot opened up for them as late as July and August. 

In meme news, there will be a lot of memes posted on the LTBz account today so head over these for all the hilarity.

Finally, want to join us for a great tune up race for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship? Then sign up for Ödyssey Casco Bay in July 9th. For our European listeners, consider this our invitation to you to plan a trip to America and experience the best of U.S. Swimrunning. Plus, there’s a post-race party hosted by a certain team whose name ends in a “z’.”

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us if there’s any Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Show Business

Partners month is being supported by our friends at Precision Fuel and Hydration. We’ve been using their products for years and swear by them. Their website is a wealth of information on all things hydration, fueling and training and they offer free consultations with their nutritionists to help you dial in your plan for your upcoming event. Want to see what all the fuss is about? Use the code in the hyperlink to save 15% off of your first order.

Team Strömgren

It was so much fun to chat with Annika and Marie. We only got to chat with them briefly in Sweden and it was great to get their Swimrun origin story and chat about their adventures as a team. We love their enthusiasm and think that everyone will get some wisdom nuggets from their team approach.

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 166 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have a new edition of Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke of the Swimrun Labs this week. In this episode we do a deep dive into the shoe that we can’t stop recommending: the Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra Trail. We geek out on the shoe as well as talk about the other shoes in the Terrex line that we have tried and rank it all at the end with everyone’s favorite Pull Buoy Rankings.

It was unanimous that we loved this shoe. It was light and responsive, a non-issue in the water, and even allowed for prancing. Five pull buoys were awarded by everyone and we can’t recommend these shoes enough.

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 213 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this episode we are kicking off our fourth annual Partners Month where we feature one of our favorite parts of Swimrun: the partner aspect. Kicking things off this year is the father and son duo of Team Feel The Byrn, A.K.A. Axel and Gordo Byrn. If the name Gordo sounds familiar, well it should! We spoke with Gordo back in Episode 138 and he is a wealth of knowledge on all things endurance training…and parenting. This was an awesome conversation and we can wait to share it with all of you.

But first…

Brief History of LTBz’s Partners Month

In early 2021, we were sitting in Studio G talking about content when one of us came up with the idea to feature partners for Valentine’s Day. One thing led to another and Partners Month was born. (Friendly reminder: if you’re a solo Swimrunner, that’s cool too!)

In that first year, we featured Team Max Mockermann, The Adorkables, The Monks, and did a Swimrun 201 show on Team Tactics. 

In 2022, we featured Team Mr. and Mrs. B, The Kancho Boyz, a Swimrun 101 show on Partners (Redux), and our most downloaded show ever, Team Kraken Swimrun.

Last year we interviewed Team Strömgren, Team Monkey Sea Monkey Run, Team Landshark, and shared a masterclass on effective teamwork with Brad Stulberg.

This year we have a bunch of great interviews lined up to get you in the spirit for another great year of Swimrunning! 

Shoutout

Our shoutout this week goes to our newest Patron on Patreon, James N. Thank you so much for your support and we look forward to seeing you at the races!

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to our friend Lucas Desmond. He completed his first World Loppet at the Marcialonga 51 over the weekend. Have no idea what we are talking about? Marcialonga is 70km cross country ski race in Moena Italy. According to Lucas, the race was amazing and the aid stations were the best he’d ever seen! 

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

Well it’s not really show business…but it is! Swimrun Christmas is on Friday, February 2nd. Best of luck to everyone vying for a spot at the 2024 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship.

Team Feel The Byrn

It was so great to kick off Partners Month with Axel and Gordo. In this conversation we talked about their race resume, how they train for Swimrun, got a steady stream of knowledge bombs on how to raise an active family, and so much more. We’ve made it no secret that a dream of ours is to someday do a Swimrun with our kids and Gordo shared a roadmap that we will certainly follow.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode fifty-six of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We travel across the pond this week to chat with Nicola and Chelsey Bailey, the mother and daughter duo at the helm of As Keen As Mustard Events. This was a fun conversation with two amazing women trying to do their part to grow the sport of Swimrun in the UK.

More on this interview later in the show.

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out Amanda Gorman. If you don’t know who she is, Amanda quickly rose to international fame after reading a poem that she wrote at last week’s inauguration that stole the show. It was amazing and we think that everyone should check it out if you need some inspiration. The poem is called “The Hill We Climb” and you can watch and listen to it here.

Adventure Time/Training Updates

We’re keeping on keeping on with training as we try to figure out what our race calendar might look like for the Spring. (Spoiler Alert: it’s TBD) We also have an atmospheric river hitting us this week so that should be interesting.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s Feats of Endurance honoree is Leticia Wirth of Porto Alegre Brazil. She’s been putting in around 37,000 yards of swimming per week while also running a ton. We’re not sure what she’s training for but keep it up!

Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train for life and other stuff like races.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a few race updates to share this week.

ӦTILLӦ recently announced their merit races for 2021. In the US, the merit races are: Swimrun Lake James, Ӧdyssey Swimrun Casco Bay, Ӧdyssey Swimrun Orcas Island, and Swimrun North Carolina.

Registration is open for the Hero Swimrun in Brazil. The race is on April 10th and they have 3 distance options and a 1km kids race that looks like fun.

Immeln Swimrun produced by AtoBe Events is open for registration on Raceid.com. The race date is set for August 21st and the event offers three distances including a new 113km ultra distance.

Boras Swimrun has moved their 2021 race date from May 30th to the very special date of September 12th. Borås is a Swimrun put on by Swimrun legend and previous guest of the show Jonas Colting. This event is also a ӦTILLӦ merit race.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

It looks like people want hats. We’ll be mocking up a few designs and will be sharing them on IG for folks to vote on their favorite.

We mentioned earlier in the show that we’re not sure what our race schedule will look like in the Spring BUT we know what our schedule will be in the Fall. We’ve officially registered for Ӧdyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island, Casco Bay, and Austin events.

This Week’s Interview

As Keen as Mustard events caught our eye pretty much as soon as we started following Swimrun accounts when we started the podcast. Focusing on entry-level Swimrun distances, their events allow for a supportive environment for folks to experience the sport for the first time. In the process, Nicola and Chelsey have built an amazing community of athletes and have been a key part in the growth of Swimrun in the UK.

In this conversation, we chatted with Nicola and Chelsey about the origins of As Keen as Mustard events...including how they came up with the name, their vision for creating an inclusive Swimrun community, how they are managing lockdowns due to COVID-19, and their plans for the future.

We had a lot of fun with this episode and we hope that you enjoy it. You can learn more about As Keen as Mustard events on their website or on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode 272 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got nothing short of a masterpiece/masterclass episode this week. In 2022, Andy Blow joined us on Episode 118 for our Countdown to ÖTILLÖ series to share his thoughts on how to best approach fueling for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. We decided to re-release this episode since it is still solid gold advice almost three years later. What he shared was nothing short of a continuous knowledge bomb that should be mandatory listening for anyone racing Worlds in September and frankly, anyone racing a Swimrun. Full stop. 

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 260 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got another great episode for everyone this week. We reflect on the 2024 season, discussing major races we participated in, training challenges, highlights from our podcast episodes, and future plans for the 2025 swimrun season. We also extend gratitude to our supporters, families, and partners, sharing anecdotes about our experiences and teasing upcoming content and projects. Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 214 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Happy Swimrun Christmas everybody! Fresh off the news that they qualified for the 2024 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun Championship we welcome to the show our friends Pete and Jarett, A.K.A., Team MamaaBoyz. We had a fun conversation about their brief but epic Swimrun journey and we got their thoughts on the additional epicness that this year will hold in store for them.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode ninety-eight of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This week we welcome back to the show Bronwen and Greg Dierksen, A.K.A. The Dierksens, A.K.A. The Boston Wet Sox. They recently made American Swimrun history at ÖTILLÖ Malta and they joined us on the show to share their race report of their epic day.

But first... 

Training Update

This week’s update is that there is no update. #offseason #YOLO #LFGagaininmidDecember

Shoutouts

We’ve got triple shoutouts this week for our three new Patrons on Patreon. Thank you Sarah, Scott, and Brett for helping us keep the lights on. As we mentioned last week, we have a special holiday gift for our patrons as a token of our gratitude that we will be mailing out in the next few weeks.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to Jess VandenBussche from Hamilton, Canada. She recently posted one of the best strava titles that we’ve seen in a while for a 5k Personal Best that she accomplished during a race: If I Puke, I Puke. The only response that we have to that is...HELL YEAH! Strong work Jess!

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

All the news that we could find on the internet contained herein.

The Swimrun season is winding down but there were still some cool events that took place over the weekend.

Our friends at Swimrun Portugal hosted their Lagoa Swimrun and the photos looked amazing. We can’t wait to get to Portugal to race one of Bruno’s races one of these days!

To say that Hugo Tormento is on absolute fire since racing ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship where he finished third with Matthieu Poullian (You can hear all about their race on Episode 92 of the podcast) would be the understatement of the year! Hugo won ÖTILLÖ Cannes with Max Andersson, won ÖTILLÖ Malta with Adriel Young (Adriel has also had a legendary year in his own right with 9 podiums--8 wins and one second place--in 9 races this year), and then a week later (this past weekend) won Swimrun Reunion (an race on an island off of the coast of Madagascar) with Heneman Guillaume. And if that wasn’t enough, he finished 11th in the Aquathlon World Championships just two weeks after Cannes.

In other news, if you’re already planning your 2022 calendar like we are, heads up that Swimrun Costa Brava announced that next year’s race will be on April 23 and registration is open now. Over in the U.K., Mad Hatter Sports opened registration for their Hokey Cokey Swimrun that is taking place on May 21st.

Here in the U.S., Ödyssey Swimrun will be announcing their 2022 race lineup soon so make sure that you sign up for their newsletter and/or follow them on the socials for updates on that.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to tip us off if there’s any news that you would like for us to share on the show.

Updates

We still have a handful of 50k download and 100th episode stickers left. If you want some free stuff just go to lowtideboyz.com/stickers and fill out the form and we’ll put some Low Tide love in the mail to anywhere in the world. 

We have new hats and beanies arriving soon. Stay tuned for updates on new ways to show your Low Tide pride this holiday season.

The Dierksens Go to Malta

What can we say about Bronwen and Greg? They are just the best! We’re lucky to have them come back on show to share their historic experience at ÖTILLÖ Malta. Why historic? Because they are the first American team to ever win an ÖTILLÖ race. They are also the first team to ever podium an ÖTILLÖ race (Isles of Scilly in 2019.) They are great ambassadors for U.S. Swimrunning and also happen to be the nicest and most generous athletes around. They’ve contributed to a bunch of our course preview shows and whenever they dispense advice, we listen.

It was great to hear about their experience in Malta and we think that everyone will enjoy this interview.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode seventy-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We got something pretty awesome for you in this show. Unless you were living under a rock that didn’t have wifi access this past weekend, then you probably heard about the EX Swimrun’s Ark Supersprint event. This was a first of its kind event in the sport and we have the race director mastermind behind this event, Nicholas Roman, on the show to chat all about it!

We’re super stoked for this one! More on that interview later in the show.

Training Update

The irony was crushing this past weekend as we decided to go for a 2-hour Swimrun practice at a beach with notoriously low tide muck a couple of hours before low tide. Anyway, the tide was too low! On the brightside we didn’t lose any shoes in the muck. Onward and upward though.

Shoutouts

This week we are shouting out Justin Searcy. He’s been through our old catalog of shows and he slid into our DM’s with some great ear plug recommendations for Chris. Super cool of you for reaching out Justin. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Marie Anderzen. We think that it’s only fitting that this week’s winner be somebody from our Strava Club that competed in the EX Ark Supersprint event over the weekend. Great job out there Marie!

Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a lot of Swimrun news to share this week.

As we already mentioned, the sport of Swimrun saw something novel happen over the weekend. EX Swimrun hosted the ARK Supersprint Invitational. This was the world’s first Swimrun Supersprint. The course was super short: 1.2km in total distance, and consisted of two running legs of 1000m total with a 200m swim leg in the middle. Probably as a surprise to no one, Desirée Andersson, won for the Women’s side. On the Men’s side Max Andersson took first place.

Our friends at Swimrun Portugal recently announced that a new race, the Lagoa Swimrun, will be taking place on October 31st. This race looks like it hugs the southern coastline of the city of Lagoa in the Algarve region and our super extensive internet research (30 seconds on Google) showed us that this location looks to be an incredible location for a Swimrun. Registration isn’t open yet so make sure you are following them on Instagram to get details on that.

In local news, the next two Swimrun events in the U.S. look like they will definitely be happening. The Bellingham Swimrun, hosted by Quest Races and friend of the pod Brent Molsberry, is scheduled to happen on Sunday, June 6th. Get all the details on their website.

A week later, the PBR Swimrun Knox event is happening on Sunday, June 13th in Knoxville, Tennessee (in case that wasn’t obvious.) This race has long (17.2 total miles) and short course (8.2 total miles) options so something for everyone. Registration is open now so head on over to their website to learn more.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Our latest episode of Gear Talk with the Swimrun Labs is out. We reviewed the NU Orzo Swimrun Pull Buoy and we all thought it was great...or did we? Only way to find out is to check it out!

We have a couple of discounts to share with folks. Looking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration. We anticipate all the races selling out so don’t wait! 

Looking to dial in your hydration strategy? Our friends at Precision Hydration set up the discount code LOWTIDE21 for 15% off of your order. That code is good through the end of May so don’t wait if you want to stock up for the Summer. We did!

As a programing alert, we will be taking over Ödyssey Swimrun’s Instagram feed next week and frankly we’re impressed that they let us do it again! Anyway, we are going to be doing a bunch of cool stuff on there all week long (including giving away prizes) so stay tuned for that.

Interview

It was great to get to chat with Nicholas Roman, Co-Founder or EX Swimrun, about ARK Supersprint that happened over the weekend. Not only was it a cool event, it was obvious from listening to Nicholas just how super stoked he was with how it turned out. In this interview we discuss everything about this new race from how they came up with the idea, to location, to format, and ultimately, to race day. We also chatted with Nicholas about the other events that EX Swimrun has for the rest of the year. All in all, this interview was jam packed with enthusiasm for the future of Swimrun while we celebrated the birth of a new iteration of the sport.

Make sure to check out EX Swimrun’s website for photos of the Supersprint event and learn about everything else that they are cooking up. You can also follow them on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thank you for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 245 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a great one for all you gear heads out there. Gear Talk is back with our good friend, Anne Molsberry, to discuss an issue (and solution) that effects a lot of Swimrunners: the need to wear earplugs while swimming. We delve into the issue and share the solution (Surf Ears) that we have found that worked best.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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.

Shoutouts

This 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.

Updates

Our 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 Interview

As 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com 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 Updates

Just 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 Science

There 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 Swimming

This 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 Caps

blueseventy Thermal Neoprene Skull Cap

ROKA Strapless Thermal Neoprene Swimming Hood

TYR Warmwear Caps

Double up on random Silicone Caps

Earplugs:

Silicone Putty

Wetsuit:

blueseventy Thermal Reaction Wetsuit

ROKA Maverick Pro Thermal Wetsuit

Zone3 Neoprene Warmth Vest

Gloves:

AquaLung 5mm Thermocline Dive Gloves

NRS Maxim 3mm Neoprene Gloves

Booties:

blueseventy Thermal Swim Socks

Seavenger Seasnugs Socks (Brooke’s favorite)

Post-Swim:

Dryrobe Advance Long Sleeve Change Robe

Swimrun-Specific Considerations

For 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 Thoughts

So 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode 168 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have an extra-special episode this week. Joining us for our latest installment in our Swimrun 101 series is Adrian Cameron to discuss solo Swimrunning. Adrian is a super experienced Swimrunner in the solo category and we asked him to educate us (and you) about the solo category. He helps us break down what to expect during a solo Swimrun, what training and gear considerations should look like, and what races in the U.S. are good for beginners or folks new to the category. 

This episode is chock full of wisdom nuggets. Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to 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 Swimrun

1. Chaffing Abatement
2. Warmth
3. Storage Capacity
4. “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.

Head

The 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.

Feet

The 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode fifty-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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode seventy of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’re headed back to the U.K. this week (North Wales to be exact) to chat with Anna Naylor, founder of Smoc Smoc. Don’t know what Smoc Smoc is, well you’re about to get an education!

More on this interview later in the show.

Training Update

We did our first Swimrun practice of the year on Saturday! 

Went to our usual stomping grounds of Aquatic Park in San Francisco and had fun testing out the NU Orza pull buoy, Ark Sports KORP wetsuit, and Frank Paddles swim paddles in open water. (We will save our impressions for our Gear Talk show so stay tuned for that.) We did 6 runs and 4 swims with the runs increasing from 1 mile 3 and then back down with the swims staying static at around 400yds. The water was 56F (13C) so the shorter swims were just fine for our delicate bodies.

We were stoked to be back out there and it will start being a regular thing now that we are about three months away from Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay. 

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out everyone that’s headed to Boonsboro for Swimrun Maryland happening this weekend. The start list had some pretty funny team names so bonus shoutouts to: The Her-ricanes, Team Amphibilicous, Big Otter Energy, Please Bring Me My Whine, Grumpy Squared, This Tether’s For Strangling, Buoy oh Buoy, Doing This Again!, and We Put the F in Swimrfun.

Yet another race that we would love to race but alas, we’re trying to keep our happy marriages happy and Chris will be in Texas for work. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Ben Kennedy from the U.K. Not only did he post a cool looking Swimrun workout this past week, the location was extremely British sounding. Ben ran in Druridge Bay County Park and swam in Ladyburn Lake that is located in Northumberland.

Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a couple of updates to share this week.

The race reports are flying in from Swimrun Lake James. Check out a really great one by Team Adorkable on their website.

Our friends at Swimrun Portugal recently announced that it looks like everything will be a go for Swimrun Tamega Powered by HEAD Swimming due to a turn for the better in terms of the COVID situation in the Country. The race will be happening on June 6th so head out there if you’re able to. We know we would!

Finally, we heard about a cool Swimrun event happening in Ocean City, NJ in late July to honor fallen soldiers called The Ocean City Iron Soldiers Swimrun. This event is a 1.5K ocean swim followed by a 4K beach run. There is no entry fee and all donations go directly to the charity Philadelphia Treats for Troops. Make sure to check this event out if you’re in the area.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Head over to our store if you’re looking for ways to show your Low Tide Pride with a hat or shirt or both when you’re going around town and at races.

Looking new or used Swimrun gear but don’t know where to go? Check out our Swimrun Swapmeet Facebook Group to buy, sell or trade Swimrun gear.

Looking for a Swimrun challenge to do in June. Then you are in luck because Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” is happening in June. Individuals can join teams from all over the world to do as many Swimruns as possible during the month and “battle” for top honors and prizes. In case you missed our video, we have a team in the “battle” and everyone is welcomed to join if they pass the vibe check (being super stoked on Swimrun.)

This Week’s Interview

It was great to connect with Anna from Smoc Smoc. She has a super interesting origin story and her commitment to sustainability and protecting the oceans is infectious. We chatted with her about how she came up with the idea for Smoc Smoc, why she chose to keep production in the U.K. rather than outsourcing it, the magical properties of bamboo, and why she thinks that people love her products. We also chatted about her connection with two of our favorite people Mia and Fanny from Wild Swimrun. (Don’t know why they are our favorite people? Check out Episode 10 of the podcast.) Finally, we talked about what the future holds for Smoc Smoc.

You can learn more about Smoc Smoc on their website and on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode seventy-seven of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

ÖTILLÖ made its return to hosting events this past weekend on the Island of Utö...and what a triumphant return it was. The races looked super fun and the fields were stacked with a lot of the heavy hitters in the sport in attendance. We are super stoked to share our race recap with you and share a special guest race report with Helena Bjälkemo and Åsa Ehrnholm of Team Helena and Åsa. They were just the coolest and it was super fun to chat with them.

But first... 

Training Update

Our training for our Fall race schedule is going well. The intensity is picking up a bit with several rounds of fast intervals at our latest Swimrun practice and we didn’t die so that’s good. A lot of work still to do before Casco Bay but we’re having fun...so is it really work? 

Want to join us at Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay? Use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your registration. 

Shoutouts/Feats of Endurance

Blanket shoutout and Feats of Endurance awards to everyone who raced ÖTILLÖ Utö this past weekend. 

Special bonus shoutout to our friend Oscar Olsson (and previous guest of the show) for his great interviews and commentary all weekend long as part of the livesporttv.se crew.

The FOMO was real for us but it was great to see so many members of our Strava club racing.

Speaking of which, make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and connect with fellow Swimrunners as they train and race all over the world.

ÖTILLÖ Utö 2021 Recap

Swimrun season finally feels like it’s officially open with ÖTILLÖ’s first race of the year on the island of Utö. Not only was the sport of Swimrun essentially born on this island in the Stockholm Archipelago but it’s also just an amazing location for Swimrunning. 

Due to COVID restrictions the race was split up over two days with the Experience and Sprint races taking place on Saturday and the Sunday World Series distance race being broken up into three races with the Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed team races being split up over the course of the day to be in line with local rules. (We’re going to focus on the World Series distance but you can see the results for all the races over the weekend on the ÖTILLÖ website.)

The World Series distance race was 26,2k (16.3 miles) of total distance with 22,05k (13.7 miles) of mostly technical trail running and 4,150k (4,538yds) of swimming. The longest run was around 6k and the longest swim was 400m.

As we mentioned at the beginning, all three World Series races were stacked with some of the best athletes in the sport and the podiums definitely reflected that.

Women’s Team Podium:

1st Place: Team Envol Anna & Desirée (Anna Hellström and Desirée Andersson) 
2nd Place: Wild Swimrun West Coast (Therese Bergling and Evelina Järvinen)
3rd Place: ARKswimrun. (Helena Sivertsson and Kristin Larsson)

Mixed Team Podium:

1st Place: ARKswimrun (Ulrika Eriksson and Peter Oom)
2nd Place: ARK Swimrun (Marika Wagner and Alexander Koller)
3rd Place: Team Envol Switzerland (Sabina Rapelli and Alexis Charrier)

Men’s Team Podium:

1st Place: Öckerö Rörläggeri (Adriel Young and Max Andersson) 
2nd Place: Kraken Swimrun (Pontus Lindberg and George Bjälkemo)
3rd Place: ARKswimrun 1 (Lars Ekman and Fredrik Axegård)

Overall, the weather was perfect for race weekend and the vibe of the entire event was one of celebration. This event has been a long time coming for Michael, Mats, and the rest of the ÖTILLÖ team and we’re super stoked that they are back to hosting events! Congrats to everyone that raced over the weekend and we can’t wait to be at the starting line of this race at some point in the (hopefully) near future.

Special Race Report with Team Helena & Åsa

It was really fun to sit down with Helena Bjälkemo and Åsa Ehrnholm the day after they raced the World Series distance race to get their take on how it all went down. (If anyone thinks that Helena’s last name sounds familiar it is because the reigning men’s world champion and two-time guest of the show, George, is her husband.) We’ve been fans of Helena and Åsa since we started following a bunch of Swedish Swimrunners on IG and their attitude towards training, racing, and the sport is a great representation of why the Swimrun community is the best!

We spoke with Helena and Åsa about their athletic backgrounds, how they became Swimrun partners, and how they trained (or didn’t train) for Utö during the pandemic. We also chatted with them about how their Utö race went, got the lowdown on the whole vibe of the race, and what is up next for them. We loved having them on the show and think that you’ll really enjoy this interview.

You can follow Helena and Åsa on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thank you for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 160 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

On this week’s show we have an exclusive first look at the new Sunriver and Elk Lake Swimruns happening this year in Bend, Oregon with race director and adventure racing legend, Jason Magness of Bend Racing. This episode isn’t a course preview but we get into all the cool details that will make any Swimrunner check to see what flights are looking like after this interview.

But first…

Training Update

If it wasn’t official before this show, it is now! Our first race of the season will be Sunriver Swimrun on May 7th. Our training will start ramping up accordingly but for now it’s all about building that base.

Shoutout

Our shoutout this week goes out to our newest patron on Patreon, Greg. He is racing Swimrun Lake James in a few months and ÖTILLÖ Utö a few months after that. Happy training and thanks so much for the support!

Wisdom Nugget of the Week

New segment alert!!!

(Long story, short: In 2014, Mark Allen (6x Ironman World Champion) wrote a book called The Art of Competition where we published a ton of inspirational quotes coupled with amazing photography. My son recently found this book and has asked us to read it to him. My wife thinks that the quotes read like endurance fortune cookies and here we are. We’ll be sharing one each week, hope you find them thought provoking and not totally cheesy.)

“Beating an opponent at their game is tough; Beating them at yours is not.”

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is our friend Miriam. She is half of Team PB and Bananas and is training for her first marathon that is taking place in just over a month. Over the weekend she logged a 30k training run and it was her longest run ever to date. Strong work!

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Now for the “news.”

Swimrun Australia has announced that their Sydney East Swimrun will be taking place on April 29th. This race was last held in 2019 and was canceled the last few years due to COVID. We’re happy to see it back but whatever you do, do not look at the course maps. They are 100% guaranteed to give you FOMO!

Anyone want to head over to Bali for a Swimrun? (It’s a rhetorical question) The Bali Hope Swimrun is happening on September 30th. The course is 22.5km and features a boat jump start and swim to shore which is always an awesome way to start a Swimrun.

Uruguay Swimrun’s La Paloma Swimrun is fast approaching on February 5th. We love seeing events taking place in South America and are hoping to have someone from Uruguay Swimrun on the show soon to chat about the growing scene over there.

Finally, Swimrun Christmas, A.K.A. ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship ranking selection announcement day is just a week away! Best of luck to everyone vying for a slot at the O.G. Swimrun that started it all. 

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us if there’s any Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Show Business

Do you love our brand of super niche content? If so, there are two ways that you can help us get more people into the sport of Swimrun. First, take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify. These actually help new people discover the show and it allows us to justify to our wives why we need closets full of pull buoys, wetsuits and stuff. Second, consider supporting our efforts on Patreon. Your support helps us “keep the lights on” and fund the new stickers that we give away at events. Our patrons get bonus discounts on LTBz merch, access to zoom meetups, and receive random gifts from us at random times.

Jason Magness, Bend Racing

In case the name sounds familiar, we recently had Jason on the show as part of our One Water Race recap series in episode 147 with Team Bend Racing. Besides being an adventure racing legend, Jason is a race director that organizes awesome adventure races. This year, he is adding two Swimruns to his list of events. In this interview, we chatted with Jason about what inspired him to create two new events, we get an overview of both the Sunriver and Elk Lake events, and chat about why new events are so important for the growth of the sport. This was a super fun chat and we hope to see a ton of folks in Bend Oregon later this year!

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast! This week’s episode is a recap of the 2021 Ötillö, The Swimrun World Championship. We stayed up way beyond our bedtimes to watch as much as we could live and break down the 2021 edition of Otillo, The Swimrun World Championship.

The live race production that Otillo had on their Facebook was solid. They featured a mix of live-action footage, on-course interviews, and a studio production which resulted in an entertaining broadcast.

2021 Ötillö, The Swimrun World Championship Results

Here are the podiums for each division of the 2021 Ötillö, The Swimrun World Championship. For the full results head to Ötillö’s results page.

Women’s Division Race

1st Place: ARK Swimrun Helena & Kristin | 9:00:47

2nd Place: Wild Swimrun West Coast | 9:11:27 +10:40

3rd Place: Head Swimming | 9:16:27 +15:40

Mixed Division Race

1st Place: Team Envol Head Swimming | 8:14:57 (Course Record)

2nd Place: Team Envol Switzerland - HEAD | 8:32:36 +17.39

3rd Place: ARK Swimrun Marika & Alexander | 8:33:50 +18:53

Men’s Divison Race

1st Place: Team Simcoachen | 7:38:43 (Course Record)

2nd Place: ARK Swimrun Fredrik & Lars | 7:44:55 +6:12

3rd Place: ARK Swimrun France | 7:49:08 +10:25

Final Thoughts

We are even more pumped about this race. It was really inspiring to see everyone give it their all in the Stockholm Archipelago. Special shoutouts to the team from the United States who made everyone back home proud. In the mixed division that was California Swimrun and in the men’s division It Be Me Me Me and Timothy, Team Envol Baywatch, and The Swimrun Monks.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 215 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have an awesome show for everyone this week. Joining us to share their ÖTILLÖ story is Anna and Ben, A.K.A., The Kalamanders. Their unique journey to and at the 2023 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship is as inspiring as it was awesome. We totally loved this conversation and know that you will too!

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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 ALERT

No 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! 

Shoutouts

This 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 Endurance

We’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. 

Updates

Our 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 Interview

As 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

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 Update

If 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 Update

Chipper 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.)

Shoutout

This 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 Award

We 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 Updates

We 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 Interview

Our 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 toughness. 

All in all, there was a lot of knowledge being dropped on this episode. We encourage everyone to sign up for Mario’s newsletter and listen to the podcast. You can also follow Mario on Twitter and Instagram. 

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode 188 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have another edition of Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke of the Swimrun Labs this week. In this episode we (finally) discuss the Ark Sports VIGG and the brand new VIGG AIR Swimrun wetsuits. It was surprising to all of us that we haven’t given this suit proper review treatment but it was likely because Chris, in particular, has been singing its praises since 2018 and would mention the suit whenever it seemed like a natural place to bring up how awesome he thought it was. 

Does the rest of the gang agree? In short, yes!!!! It was unanimous that we all thought the VIGG suit was an amazing piece of kit and 5 pull buoys were given by everyone.

We’d like to give Ark Sports a huge thank you for sending us their new VIGG AIR suits to test and review.

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 159 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have a new edition of Gear Talk with Annie and Brooke of the Swimrun Labs this week. In this episode we share an exclusive interview with Orca Product Designer Iñigo Pereda and the gang does a deep dive into the 2023 Orca Swimrun Wetsuit line. Also, pull buoy rankings are back!

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 195 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a new show format for everyone that we’re tentatively calling ÖTILLÖ Störies wherein we share cool/interesting/inspiring stories from teams that raced the 2023 edition of ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. First up is Team Monkey Sea Monkey Run. Sarah and Viv are an American team that raced their first Swimrun only 12 months ago and found themselves with enough points to qualify for the big one! 

In this conversation we chat about how they took the news that they got in, how they trained from afar and got ready for the big day, and, of course, how the race went for them. This was an inspiring conversation that we’re stoked to share with all of you!

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 152 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

On this week’s show we have a team that we met in Sweden and instantly vibed with. Joining us in Studio G is Team dryrobe/German Sparkle Party: Fabian Eberhard and Markus Rössel. These guys are stud Swimrunners and great ambassadors for the sport. This was a super fun conversation that you won’t want to miss!

But first...

Training Update

The training update is that there is still no training update. Yay!

Shoutouts

Our shoutout this week goes to Lars Risberg. He is the lucky guy that won a set of custom LTBz-designed Frank Paddle Pro paddles last week. Congrats Lars!

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Victor Rosado. Victor is a previous winner and he’s definitely cracked the super advanced LTBz selection algorithm by posting workouts in Puerto Rico over the weekend. 

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

Speaking of dryrobe…we are super stoked to announce that they are our newest supporter. We are looking forward to working with them next year on some cool content and will be doing some fun contests so stay tuned for all that.

Team dryrobe/German Sparkle Party

It was so much fun to chat with Fabian and Markus about their Swimrun journey. As we mentioned at the outset, we met them in Sweden a few months back and felt that instant connection of Swimrunners that take the sport seriously but not themselves. In this conversation we chatted about how they found Swimrun, got a recap of their ÖTILLÖ experience and what is up next for them. We hope that you’ll enjoy this chat as much as we did.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 117 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have a super random episode for everyone this week. We’ve gone deep into the LTBz vault and found a one-off podcast that we recorded after racing our second Swimrun ever back in 2018. We’re talking about SwimrunUSA’s (now Ödyssey Swimrun) Casco Bay a.k.a., “Cole Classic.” This is a peek back in time to the primordial origins of LTBz and the race that caused us to fall in love with the sport of Swimrun.

But first... 

Training Update

Swimrun Lake James is less than a month away and we finally did our first Swimrun practice together. Short story: the water was cold AF! Like 51 degrees Fahrenheit (10.5 Celsius) cold AF! Despite that, it was great to bust some rust and start dialing in transitions and different paces as we head towards Lake James.

Shoutouts

This week we are shouting out Dan Streetman. By chance, Dan was running on the Embarcadero on Saturday morning while we were experiencing brain freeze in Aquatic Park when Dan noticed us (the only two dudes running out the water and down the street) and snapped a photo to send to his Swedish co-worker (and future guest of the show Anna) mentioning that he saw a couple of Swimrunners. Long story short, Anna recognized us and proceeded to blow Dan’s mind. Small world indeed!

Feats of Endurance

Major feats of endurance this week from Marika Wagner and Ingrid Kjellström for their completion of the 2022 Cape Epic. This race is an 8-day mountain bike stage race covering 700km (435 miles) with 17,250m (56,594ft) of climbing. So yeah…a major feat!

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Welcome to the LTBz news desk!

Hero Swimrun took place over the weekend in Rio de Janeiro and the event looked as epic as ever. Joining us to talk about how the race went is our friend and race director Fabio Iskandarian for our special segment: Race Director Reports.

In other news, Envol Swimrun recently announced that they are hosting a Swimrun camp from April 1-3 in Cap Martin in Monaco. Anyone looking to train with coach Nicolas Remires and crew and/or get an F1 driver sighting should check this camp out!

That is it for this week. Feel free to reach out and let us know if there’s anything that you’d like for us to mention on the show.

Updates

Programming alert: we’re debuting a new show format next week called “Countdown to ÖTILLÖ" where we will be chronicling our Swimrun journey to Sweden in September. We’re pretty stoked about this new monthly show and can’t wait to share it with you.

Casco Bay 2018 Race Report

We’ve gone into the LTBz vault and found a relic of our Swimrun past. Way back in 2018 we lined up at the start of SwimrunUSA’s/Ödyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay race for our second Swimrun ever. We’re not sure why we decided to record a podcast of our race experience but here we are. It was fun (and a bit weird) to look back on that momentous event that was the progenitor for this show and we figured we would share it with all of you. Enjoy the hot tub time machine trip back to 2018!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 190 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’re headed to France this week to chat with Team Surprise Nu Swimrun, A.K.A., Benjamin Dupain and David Pesquet. They are one of the top French teams heading to Stockholm for the World Championship and we caught up with them to chat about their 5-year Swimrun partnership, how they are preparing for the big day, and the importance of experience. This was a fun conversation and we can’t wait to share it with all of you. 

But first…

Training Update

Our last big week of training is in the books and we’re almost at the “hay is in the barn” stage of our training for ÖTILLÖ. After a 5-hour Swimrun practice on Friday and a 3-hour trail run on Sunday, it’s safe to say that we’re looking forward to tapering soon.

Shoutout

Our shoutout this week goes to Chip Warner. He’s our newest Patron on Patreon and also happens to be racing ÖTILLÖ, in a few weeks! Thank you so much for the support and see you in a few weeks.

Feats of Endurance

We’re giving another blanket award this week to all the teams that lined up for the second edition of the One Water Race. By the time this show airs, the winners (and finishing teams) will have touched the lighthouse door on Arholma. Amazing feats of endurance all around!

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

There are some epic events happening that will cause all Swimrun eyes to turn towards Scandinavia for the next few weeks. Let’s get right to it!

The 8th edition of the legendary Rockman Swimrun took place over the weekend and it looked extra-epic from its usual level of epicness. Conditions were challenging with cold, rough swims, technical trails, and, of course, the 4,444 step climb to Pulpit Rock.

The epic-ness continues this week with the 2nd edition of the One Water Race taking place. We’ll have more coverage about this event in a few weeks with race director, and Swimrun OG, Thomas Ogander.

Finally, there’s a small race in Sweden taking place in a few weeks that you may have heard of called ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. This will be the 17th edition of this race and the first under the watch of ÖTILLÖ’s new race director, Staffan Björklund. Make sure to check out our interview with Staffan and learn about how super stoked he is to be a part of the rich history of this epic race.

Team Surprise Nu Swimrun

It was great to catch up with Ben and David. We had met briefly after the World Championship last year (and learned that Ben was married to a Puerto Rican) and we kept track of their exploits on IG. They have a similar origin story to us so it was cool to chat about how they met, the benefits of racing with the same partner, and got all kinds of training and strategy tips from them for ÖTILLÖ. They are amazing athletes and great ambassadors for the sport.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode sixty-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’re super stoked about this week’s guest! We are headed to South America for the first time to check out the Swimrun scene in Brazil with Fabio Iskandarian. He’s the founder of Hero Swimrun and chief Swimrun Evangelist in the Rio de Janeiro area. It was great to interview him for the show and it really reaffirmed our theory that Swimrun is just a special sport that draws great people from all over the world to it. Fabio’s passion is a testament to that!

More on this interview later in the show but first...Obrigado a todos do Brasil por ouvirem este podcast.

Shoutouts

This week we’ve got dual shoutouts to our two latest Patrons on Patreon: Caleb Baity from North Carolina and Jason Hodgetts from the U.K. We really appreciate your support of the show and helping us fund our outsized international sticker mailing budget.

Adventure Time/Training Updates

The unstructured training continues...except in the pool. We are both officially being coached in the pool by Tower26 and really can’t speak highly enough about Gerry, Jim, Megan, and the rest of the crew over there. We decided that we wanted to really work on our swim fitness going into this year’s race season and well, we’re certainly doing that. 

Make sure to check out our two episodes with Tower26 coaches (Episode 32 with Gerry Rodrigues and Emma-Kate Lidbury and Episode 42 with Megan Meelgard and Jim Lubinski) to glean some swimming wisdom from them.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Bart Czarnecki from Poland. He’s been posting 3-minute ice bath swims and adding a photo with a smile. Not sure if the smile is frozen on or not but keep it up!

Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a couple of updates to share this week.

Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island, located in northern Michigan, is open for registration. Sign up for either the short or long course to check out this small island on Lake Huron. The race date is Sunday, August 29, 2021, and registration is limited to 250 teams total so you know what to do if you want to experience this race.

Speaking of Ödyssey Swimrun, today (March 4th, 7 pm, EST) they are hosting a Zoom call talk about their 2021 race season. We will be on the panel of speakers so we hope that Ödyssey won’t regret that decision! The link to the call can be found on the Ödyssey website.

In other news, Breca Swimrun has announced that they have opened all of their 2021 U.K. races for registration. They have only opened Sprint and Solo Sprint distances at the moment and plan on opening up the long course distances once the U.K. eases their COVID restrictions. Their confirmed 2021 races are Coniston on July 10th, Gower on July 31st, Loch Lomond on August 7th, and Jersey on September 4th. Head over to their website for all the latest details.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Our new “Super Stoked on Swimrun” stickers are being mailed out at a steady clip. Drop us a message on IG or send us an email with your mailing address and we’ll mail you a free sticker to anywhere in the world that accepts mail. 

The new Low Tide Boyz hats should arrive at HQ in the next few weeks. Now that their arrival is imminent, we’re taking pre-orders in our shop for those who want to be the first to rock one.

This Week’s Interview

This week’s interview is a special one. We were stoked to chat with Fabio Iskandarian of Hero Swimrun a few weeks ago and we were humbled about how stoked he was to chat with us! A stoke fest all around for sure.

We chatted with Fabio about all kinds of stuff from his athletic background, to his role in the Rio Olympics and the ITU circuit, to his entrepreneurial spirit, and ultimately, to how he found Swimrun. Fabio also talked to us about how influential (and helpful) Michael Lemmel and Mats Skott of ÖTILLÖ were in helping him create his first race and have it be the first merit race in South America. (Side note: It was so friggin cool of them to take the time to help Fabio!) (Second side note: The Swedish Consulate in Brazil also supported Fabio’s efforts to grow the sport!) Finally, we talked about the journey of Hero Swimrun as a race and how Fabio is almost single-handedly growing a vibrant Swimrun community in Rio, and his plans to keep elevating the sport.

Obviously, Hero Swimrun is on our bucket list and will definitely accept Fabrizio’s  invitation to come to race his event at some point. We encourage everyone to check out Hero Swimrun on their website or on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode seventy-one of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This episode is the latest installment in our ad hoc series: Swimrun 201-Advanced Topics in Swimrun. On this show we discuss in detail the concept of “Heads Up Racing.” Prepare for some knowledge bombs, but first....

Training Update

Chris was out of town for work this past weekend so we didn’t get a Swimrun practice in but our training for Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay has officially begun. We will be ramping up our joint training sessions and look forward to sharing our progress (such as it is) with you. Now that we are training, we are going to start working on dialing in all of the key phases of racing to make sure that we’re as ready as we can be. 

On that note, it’s time for our first knowledge bomb of the show! We reached out to our friends at Precision Hydration to share their insight on the unique aspects of hydration for Swimrun and Andy Blow, the Co-Founder of Precision Hydration and previous guest of the show back in Episode 25 offered to share his wisdom as a hydration expert and experienced Swimrunner regarding the unique hydration demands that Swimrun events present to athletes. 

If that knowledge bomb wasn’t enough, Precision Hydration set up the discount code LOWTIDE21 for 15% off of your first order. That code is good through the end of May so make sure that you place an order and help make us look good.

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out a couple of our listeners that reached out to us over the past week. First, big shoutout to Alex Linas and his partner Cam Holman for rocking the short course with a first place finish at Swimrun Lake James and then doing it again at Swimrun Maryland this past weeked. These guys are new to the sport but you wouldn’t be able to tell by these performances! Strong work guys.

Our second shoutout this week goes to Scott Turner. He’s been a fan of the show for a while and just raced his first event at Swimrun Maryland. He got second place in the Solo Long Course Category and handled all the weather that got thrown at him (including thunderstorms and hail!) with aplomb. Super proud of you and hope to see you at Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay in a few months. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is NorCal local Jonathan Pascual who recently completed a big 30km trail run in our backyard trails of Mt. Burdell and didn’t invite us! We’ll forgive him this time...

Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a lot of Swimrun news to share this week.

First, congratulations to everyone that raced Swimrun Maryland this past weekend. As far as Swimrun events go, this one checked off a lot of boxes: it was cold, there was a thunderstorm and hail at one point, and there were a lot of smiling faces at the finish line. There were also a lot of first-time Swimrunners at the race which was awesome to see.

If anyone is still on the fence about signing up for Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island we have two pieces of information for you. First, get off the fence and sign up! Second, Aaron and the rest of the Ödyssey recently hosted an info session about the race that you can check out on Youtube to help get you to comply with our first point to sign up! 

Atea Jönköping Swimrun, Presented by Speedo is set to take place on June 6th! This might be one of the first large Swimrun events to be taking place in Sweden this year and we couldn’t be happier. The event takes place in the town of Jönköping in southern Sweden has a 15km distance and a 35km distance that is also an ÖTILLÖ Merit Race. Registration is open now on Raceid.com.     

Speaking of ÖTILLÖ, they recently announced that they will begin hosting live interviews on Facebook on May 19th. The first interview will be with Co-Founder, Michael Lemmel about how the 2021 race season is developing and what participants can expect at the races. They will also be doing interviews the week before their races so that participants can ask questions and get a better understanding of what the race courses will look like and other relevant information. 

Finally, we wanted to give a huge congratulations to a long-time friend of the show and two and a half-time guest, Helen Wilkmar, on being named the CEO of Ark Sports. We are super stoked for her and super stoked for Ark. We have a special place in our heart for Ark since they were the first company to really give us the time of day and not only reply to our DM’s but agree to be interviewed way back on Episode Seven when Co-Founder (and the most interesting man in Swimrun) Christofer Sundberg came on the show. Onward and upward for Ark!

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Looking to race an Ödyssey Swimrun race this year? Use the code LOWTIDE15 for 15% off your registration. We anticipate all the races selling out so don’t wait! We’re going to be putting out a lot of Ödyssey-related content in the next few months including course preview episodes for Casco Bay, Orcas, Luddington, and Mackinac Island so stay tuned for all of that. 

Envol Coaching’s “The Big Battle” is starting in less than a month. In case you missed our video, we have a team in the “battle” and everyone on the team has been passing the vibe check (being super stoked on Swimrun) with flying colors. Our team is already half full so if you want to be a part of it, sign up soon. We’re going to try to have a lot of fun with this so even though we won’t be winning, we’re going to look good, real good!

The folks at Synergy Wetsuits were cool enough to send us a couple of their new Swimrun Wetsuits to try out and we’ve put together an overview video that you can check out on our YouTube channel. We will be doing a full review on a future Gear Talk show soon so stay tuned for that!

SWIMRUN 201: Advanced Topics in Swimrun

In this edition of Advanced topics, we dive into the concept of “Heads Up Racing.” In Swimrun, heads-up racing is super important to make sure that event participants have the best experience that they can. We get the race director's perspective from Lars Finanger on what that side of things considers when they are designing and marking the courses. We also chatted with Marcus Barton to get his perspective on heads-up racing during a Swimrun event. Add it all together and the takeaways are this: be prepared before the race, have good communication with your partner and rely on your course preparation and not on other participants, and finally, take time to reflect after the race to come up with areas of improvement for your next event.

That’s it for this edition of Advanced Topics in Swimrun. We hope that you found it useful and we would love to hear any feedback that you might have for us on topics that you’d like for us to cover and/or whether these types of episodes are helpful.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thank you for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 225 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got something for all you gear freaks out there this week! Joining us to have a deliciously niche chat about all things carbon fiber paddles is our friend and fellow obsessed Swimruner, Hugh Bowman. We’ve been fans of these paddles for years, talked about them incessantly, and in prep for this show, have pretty much tried all the paddles available now! So join us as we geek out on this particular piece of the Swimrun kit. 

But first…

A huge thank you to our friends at FORM Swim for sponsoring the show this month! The sponsorship coincided with their recently released Smart Swim 2 goggles and it was so much fun to get to test these out and share our thoughts with all of you. We are doing a giveaway for a pair of the new Form Smart Swim 2 goggles. Head over to our instagram @theLowTideBoyz to enter to win! 

Source Material for Episode: 

Be sure to check out our Paddles for Swimrun episode we did with Purplepatch Fitness coach John Stevens.  

Paddles discussed:

Frank Paddle (Blue Steel, Pro, and Pro Blue models)

ARK Sports (Carbon Blades, Carbon Rocket Blades, Blades models)

Evolvent (XTD Snakeskin model)

Roka (Pro Swim model [discontinued])

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 105 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’re kicking off 2022 with an amazing guest. On the show this week we have the uber talented endurance athlete Marika Wagner. We’re huge fans of her feats of endurance and we’re super stoked to start off the third year of the podcast with her on the show.  

But first... 

Training Update

It’s back to training this week and somehow we’re already only 11 weeks out from ÖTILLÖ Catalina! While it definitely helps to have raced that course before, we also know what’s waiting for us so it’s game on as we start ramping up the training volume.

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out the country of Belgium. They recently cracked the top ten in terms of downloads by county and we’re stoked on that. Thanks for checking out the show or Hartelijk bedankt!!

Feats of Endurance

This week we have two winners of the Feats of Endurance “award.” First up is Victor Rosario for posting a workout from Puerto Rico. As mentioned before, any workout posted from Puerto Rico is an automatic selection. The other award goes to Bay area local Brian Ramirez for his Headlands run on New Years Day…where he ran by Chris on his Ninja Loop run. 

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and life.

This Week in Swimrun

This segment is on hiatus for the next few weeks while we give our news department some PTO. If you’re missing the segment music, you can check it out here.

Updates

Our first LTBz Patreon meetup is scheduled for Saturday, January 22nd at 4PM Pacific. Got gear questions? Got race questions? Got life questions? Your Swimrun community is here for it. Not in our Patreon Community yet? Head over to patreon.com/lowtideboyz to learn more.

Marika Wagner

It was so great to chat with Marika. We’ve been following her on IG pretty much since we launched the meme account and to call her endurance exploits impressive really doesn’t do justice to how versatile of an athlete she is. She calls herself an “Adventure Racer” and honestly, that’s probably the best way to describe her athletic exploits. In this interview we chatted with Marika about her endurance background, how she found Swimrun, what keeps her motivated to try new feats of endurance, and the adventures are in her future. We loved her candor and confirmed our long-standing opinion that Swimrunners are some of the best humans. We loved this conversation and know that you will too.

You can follow Marika’s endurance exploits on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 131 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This is the fourth and penultimate edition of our “Countdown to ÖTILLÖ” show where we discuss our journey to the start line of the 2022 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. It’s hard to believe that we are just two months away from the big day. Joining us on this episode to talk about all things ÖTILLÖ is returning guest, Jonas Colting. We last had Jonas on the show all the way back in episode 11 and it was great to get his perspective on ÖTILLÖ as the only individual to start every single World Championship.

But first…

We want to give a giant thank you to our supporters Ödyssey Swimrun, Frank Paddle, and Precision Fuel and Hydration for helping make this show possible. Make sure to use the code “LOWTIDE22” to save 15% off of your first order from Precision Fuel and Hydration. Use the code “LOWTIDEBOYZ” that is good for 15% off of your registration for any and all of Odyssey Swimrun’s 2022 events. Finally, Frank Paddle’s new paddles are out now! Definitely check those out if you’re interested in the latest evolution in carbon fiber swim paddle technology.

How’s the Body? How’s the Mind?

Our collective motivation is still very high and as we careen towards our date on the Archipelago we are both looking forward to sharing the day and expressing our fitness. We’ve had a bit of adversity this past month with Chris getting COVID but luckily he’s recovered well and only really missed one week of training. (In hindsight, this might be a really good thing.) Overall though, we are working the process and staying focused on what’s in front of us and not looking too far down the road.

Up next for us is Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay in a week-sh.  This race will be our last “tune-up” before ÖTILLÖ (not counting the Folsom Swimrun) and we are really looking forward to being at the start line to take on the new long course.

Jonas Colting

Jonas is awesome. Full stop! It’s almost embarrassing that we haven’t had him back on the show since Catalina. He’s a Swedish endurance legend and it was great to sit down with him to talk about the World Championship and what keeps him coming back year after year to experience the original Swimrun. This was a great conversation that somehow got us even more super stoked for the race. Much like our original conversation in 2020, this one is a continuation of our Swimrun love-fest. 

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, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode ninety of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

On the show this week we have a long-time friend of the show, Mel Bartow, on to chat. She is part of the California Swimrun crew and she recently traveled to Sweden to race ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship with her race partner, the one and only, Andy Hewitt. She shares her amazing experience with us on the show!

But first... 

Training Update

It’s race week!!!! Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island is this Sunday and we can’t wait to get up to Orcas Island and take on the super challenging long course. We’re as trained up as we’re going to get but we feel ready to take on the challenge.

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out our wives. We literally wouldn’t be able to do this show and/or travel to races without their support. We know that it’s tough on them to handle everything around the house and deal with the kids while we are out in the woods tethered together and whatnot and we are full of gratitude for their support and love.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Bas Bood from The Netherlands. He raced Swimrun Lauwersoog over the weekend and put in a really good effort out there. Strong work Bas!

Bonus winner this week is our friend Carolyn for running her first half marathon since giving birth to her beautiful daughter. Awesome job!

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

We’ve got something new for everyone this week. We’re calling it “Race Director Reports” and our first installment is with our friend and co-founder of EX Swimrun, Nicholas Roman. He joins us to talk about last weekend’s EX21 event.

In other Swimrun news, the 5th edition of the Urban Swimrun Challenge took place over the weekend in Düsseldorf, Germany. It’s cool to see this type of urban format and the race looked like it was a lot of fun.

The Folkhälsan Swimrun went off without a hitch on Saturday in Finland. This event is an ÖTILLÖ merit race and took place about 40km outside of Helsinki. Shoutout to friends of the show Nicolas Remires and “Beek” Tarayao (of Team Envol Baywatch) for winning the race! 

Finally, Backwaterman Swimrun took place in Austria. The races start and end in front of ​​Ottenstein Castle looks awesome! Shoutout to friends of the show Åsa and Henrik (A.K.A., the Swimrun Pappa) for finishing first place in the mixed team category of the 36km Marathon course. Strong work!

That’s it for this week. Be sure to tip us off if there’s any news that you would like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Our new merch is here! Check out our latest ways for you to show your Low Tide Pride in our shop!

If you’re racing Orcas Island and aren’t sure what to do kit-wise, make sure to check out our latest episode of Gear Talk with the Swimrun Labs where we discuss gear considerations and tactics for the race.

Mel Bartow’s Epic Swedish Adventure

It was awesome to get Mel’s experience of her trip to Sweden for the World Championship. Her enthusiasm for Swimrun is infectious and she got us even more stoked to try to qualify for the original Swimrun. This interview is solid gold! Enjoy.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode 241 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this episode we share our fourth race report of the year for ÖTILLÖ Casco Bay. This was our fifth time racing the long course/World Series distance. It was also our twentieth Swimrun as a team! It was an amazing weekend in Portland, all things considered, and we can’t wait to share our experience at America’s original Swimrun with all of you.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.

In this installment we talk about one of our favorite topics: pull buoys! And not just any pull buoys, but the NU Orza Swimrun Pull Buoy. He had a lot of thoughts on this one and can’t wait to share them below.

Gear Updates

Chris and Chipper tested out the Ark Sports KORP wetsuits in open water at their first Swimrun practice of the year. They both stand by their ratings in the review but they both experienced air/water pockets in the back of the suit. They also tested out the Frank Paddle carbon fiber paddles in open water and they remained as awesome as they were in the pool. They guys switched paddles (medium-sized Ark Sports Blades) halfway through the practice and the difference was night and day. The Ark Blades felt super bendy by comparison to the Frank Paddles. This got Chris thinking that perhaps using a small Frank Paddle might be equivalent to using a larger regular paddle which could help keep the stroke rate up and keep the shoulder fatigue low. 

For a full discussion on all things swim paddles, check out our Gear Talk episode “Paddles for Swimrun” with special guest John Stevens.     

New Gear First Impressions

The awesome folks at Synergy Wetsuits recently sent the crew four of their new Swimrun Wetsuit to test out. This is an entry-level suit coming in at $200 with male and female specific options. It’s great to see another entry-level/affordable option for folks new to the sport. There will be a full review of this suit coming soon so stay tuned for that.

You can see the first impressions video here to get a complete overview of the suit.

Tethered Thoughts

Chris used his old faithful Ark Sports Keel pull buoy at their Swimrun practice and he noticed after the starting that the paracord for his simple pull buoy mount had stretched. So much so that he had to wear the paracord as a sling over his shoulder to keep it from falling down below his waist. So a general reminder for everyone out there to check your gear before going out there to make sure that everything is tuned up and you won’t have to resort to random stuff to keep your Swimrun practice/adventure/race from going sideways on you.

NU ORZA Pull Buoy Gear Review

The Orza is a Swimrun-specific wetsuit that costs $50. It weighs in at 150 grams and the dimensions are 24x27x10cm. It has a unique pontoon-style shape designed for optimal positioning and comes with a thin paracord already attached for those interested in using a simple waist mount attachment. 

Swimming Impressions

Chris used the Orza in both the pool and open water and used the Ark Sports Keel for comparison. The Orza was super comfortable to use. It does have less buoyancy compared to the Keel and he was about two seconds slower using the Orza versus the Keel.

Brooke thought that the Orza was the most comfortable pull buoy that she’s used. She thought that it was a little bendy where the two pontoons connect but hasn’t experienced anything breaking off or anything like that. Overall, she thought that this pull buoy fits in between the Swimrunners Piraya and the Ark Keel. She was a little bit faster in the Piraya and Keel by about one second per hundred. (Listeners can check out the full pull buoy comparison chart on the Swimrun Labs website.)

Annie loves the Orza pull buoy. For her size, she thought that this was the perfect pull buoy for her. In pool testing, she was over a second faster per 100 compared to the Keel.

Chipper experienced similar floatation issues to Chris and wished it was a bit bigger. He was a bit worried about how low-profile it was and thought that he was going to lose it on a run. He would switch out the paracord to something a bit thicker than the one that’s included.

Transition/Running Impressions

Overall, the Orza was super easy to run with and it would stay in place nicely. Transitioning from run to swim, the Orza was pretty easy to wrangle between the legs.

Pull Buoy Rankings Rankings

Chipper: 4 Pull Buoys

Chipper thought that the Orza was a pretty safe pull buoy for folks looking to just have one pull buoy in their stable. He also thought that if a Swimrunner is more on the larger side of things (height/weight) that this pull buoy might not provide enough flotation. He liked that it included the paracord attachment and took away some of the DIY anxiety that folks might feel about cutting holes in their gear. 

Brooke: 4 Pull Buoys

Brooke thought that the shape was awesome and was super comfortable. She liked how she doesn’t feel it when she’s running. For training, she would give it 5 pull buoys. She might rate it higher overall but she hasn’t tested it in a full kit.

Chris: 4.5 Pull Buoys

Chris gave it a bunch of rankings: 5 for comfort and 5 for running and transitions. While he wouldn’t use it for racing because he would like more buoyancy he still thinks that if it provides the right amount of buoyancy for the user, then this is an excellent pull buoy and only took off .5 pull buoys because it didn’t have universal applicability.

Annie: 4.5 Pull Buoys

Annie loves this pull buoy while it is the pull buoy for her, it isn’t for everybody for all the reasons that were discussed. She loves the feeling and comfort of it while in use.

Overall Impressions

This is an amazing pull buoy and listeners can’t go wrong with the NU Orza for either a training tool in the pool or for Swimrun events if it provides enough flotation for you.

That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode ninety-five of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

The fifth edition of ÖTILLÖ Cannes took place a few weeks ago (October 16-17) and we are super stoked to share our race recap of that epic race with special guests Sabina Rapelli and Alexis Charrier of Team Envol Switzerland - HEAD. We’ve been huge fans of them since they won ÖTILLÖ Catalina in 2020. We have a lot in store for this episode so let’s get right to it!

LTBz Correspondents in the Field

We have to give a special shoutout to our friends Tobias and G Flo, A.K.A. Team Max Mockermann, for taking over our IG feed on race weekend and sharing the sights and sounds of their adventure in Cannes. They are awesome and their enthusiasm for Swimrun is 100% infectious. Thanks again guys!

ÖTILLÖ Cannes 2021 Recap

In short, it was the perfect weekend for Swimrunning in the south of France. 

ÖTILLÖ describes the race as a “true ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series course with islands to cross and lots of fantastic nature. It is challenging and fun with two big hills, single track trails, amazing views and beautiful water to swim in.” That checks off all the boxes for us! 

We got more intel for everyone thanks to our field correspondents Tobias and G Flo. They chatted with Emma and Brandon that manage logistics and operations for ÖTILLÖ to ask how the race started in Cannes and the demands on them as they put on a world class event. 

The World Series Distance Results

The World Series distance race is 44.2km (27.5 miles) of total distance with 36.1km (22.4 miles) of mixed trail/road/sand running and 8,100m (8,858yds) of swimming. The longest run was around 7.3km and the longest swim was 1,400m. The course also had 357m (1,171ft) of elevation gain which doesn’t sound like a lot but most of it is gained on the Port de Cannes run leg.

Women’s Team Podium:

1st Place: ARK Swimrun Helena & Kristin (Helena Sivertsson and Kristin Larsson) [Reigning World Champions]
2nd Place: Team Envol/Primalcoaching (Johanna Paulsson and Anna Hellström)
3rd Place: ARKsouls Addnature (Helen Wikmar and Evelina Järvinen)

Mixed Team Podium:

1st Place: Team Envol - Desirée & Victor (Desirée Andersson and Victor Hugo) [Second Place Overall!)
2nd Place: Team Envol Switzerland - HEAD (Sabina Rapelli and Alexis Charrier)
3rd Place: TC WEPPES - NUSWIMRUN (Pierre-Louis Senechal and Angèle Duhem)

Men’s Team Podium:

1st Place: ARK Swimrun France (Hugo Tormento and Max Andersson) 
2nd Place: Will and Max (Maxime Picot and William Even)
3rd Place: Team Surprise (Benjamin Dupain and David Pesquet)

Overall, the weather was perfect for race weekend and the vibe of the entire event was one of gratitude and fun. If you’re still on the fence about putting this race on your bucket list, check out the hype video for this year’s race by Rasmus Lodenius and the rest of the ÖTILLÖ media crew.

Special Race Report with Sabina and Alexis

It was really fun to sit down with Sabina and Alexis a few days after their second place finish in the World Series distance. As we mentioned at the beginning, we have been huge fans of theirs since Catalina and they have been on our list of teams that we wanted to interview for the show since then. We’re glad to finally have them on and chat about their Swimrun journey including how they met (thanks Nicolas Remires) and started racing together, how they trained and stayed motivated during COVID, their 2nd place finish at ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship, their Cannes race, and what is up next for them.

We loved this conversation and know that you will too!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thank you for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to Episode 101 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this episode, we expound upon the various ways that Swimrun teams can qualify for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. This episode is pretty self-serving since we were trying to figure this out to determine our own chances of qualifying for the World Championship and figured that we put it together for everyone before the application period opens on December 14th.

There are a total of 160 team spots available for qualification for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. The race is held on the first Monday in September every year.

To be able to participate in ÖTILLÖ you have to race in a team consisting of two persons that are at least 18 years old and able to swim. Each team member needs to have valid insurance for swimrun or sports similar to swimrun. Some other things worth noting:

Your application is final and will not be reimbursed if a team is accepted. Use your insurance if you have a medical issue and need a reimbursement.

You are allowed to change one team member of the same gender. This can’t happen until after ÖTILLÖ Engadin.

No external sales of your entry is allowed.

There are five ways to get a spot at the legendary race. We will discuss each below:

1. Podium at ÖTILLÖ World Series Distance Race

Pretty self-explanatory here

9 spots available at each event, 3 for each category (Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed)

2. Direct Qualification

9 spots per event

This is essentially like a roll-down qualification

Spots are distributed between classes according to the number of races per class 

E.g., 4 men, 3 mixed, 2 women

3. 7/24 Concept

Starting in 2017, The 7/24 concept is a guaranteed way of getting a spot at the Swimrun World Championship

You and your teammate have to race 5 World Series races & 2 Merit races in 24 months. It can be any of them and it can also be the same races two times. All you have to do is finish them. Then you apply and you will get a guaranteed spot

This way will also put you relatively high in the ranking which will allow you to apply in that category too

4. Race Directors Choice

10 spots at the race director’s discretion

Typically given throughout the year for sponsors, media and/or special circumstances

E.g., when Rich Roll/Chris Hauf qualified in 2018 it was through a director’s choice

5. Swimrun Ranking Points: (We’ll spend most of the time on this one since it’s the method that affects us)

78 Spots

The spots are distributed evenly between the classes according to the amount of applications per class

If you apply in more than one category we will select the team with the highest ranking in the respective category (Men, Women or Mixed)

Reserve lists will be made per class and are based on ranking 

Presentation of teams on the first Thursday of February. The application opens on December 14th

Important to note for Race Directors and ranking slots:

The distribution of Ranking and Directors choice Spots will be done according to the amount of applications per category (men, women and mixed) so that we have an equal percentage between the categories.

In other words, if more women teams apply than in year’s past, there will be more spots assigned to that category. Wild Swimrun has a great article on their website explaining how this works.  

How does the Swimrun Ranking system work?

It’s basically a points system. Teams register at swimrunranking.com and results are assigned points after teams either submit their finish times or they are auto-populated for ÖTILLÖ events. 

The points are distributed based on the following criteria:

The system is built using inverse property.

40% of the points are based on your overall result in the race. No matter which class you are in.

60% of the points are based on your time in relation to the average time of all finishing teams. This means that teams finishing very close together get very similar “time points” in relationship to their position and vice versa i.e. performance driven.

Races are weighted differently. The base points are multiplied by a coefficient that are as follows: ÖTILLÖ World Series Races x 1,25 (ÖTILLÖ World Series Races before 2020 had the coefficient 1,1) and ÖTILLÖ merit races x 1,0.

All teams that finish a race get ranking points.

Your points will devalue with 75% after 365 days from getting them, after 24 months they will disappear completely.

Your six (6) best points over the last 24 month period will count towards your ranking (this means that devalued points might be exchanged for more current points).

Race Entry Fee: 15,900 Swedish Krona (SEK) or about $1,738 per team

Fee includes:

Transport from Stockholm City to Pre- Race Hotel (Sunday)

Hotel accommodation (Sunday)

Dinner (Sunday)

Breakfast (Monday)

Transport to Start (Monday)

Race (Monday)

Transport of bags to Finish (Monday)

Dinner Utö (Monday)

Accommodation at Utö or Monday Night Transport to Stockholm (Monday)

Breakfast at Utö (Tuesday)

Ferry transport to Stockholm City (Tuesday)

We hope this has demystified the process a bit and wish everyone the best of luck if racing from Sandhamn to Utö is on your bucket list of activities.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 257 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got an exclusive for everyone this week. In what is likely our finest piece of “journalism” to date, we’re joined by ÖTILLÖ Race Director Staffan Björklund to announce a new ÖTILLÖ World Series event. Mark your calendars for August 9 and 10 for the brand new ÖTILLÖ Åland Swimrun taking place in Finland in the Åland Archipelago, A.K.A., Swimrun heaven. We get into all the details for this brand new event, including course design, course overviews for the World Series, Sprint, Experience, and new Kidz distance options, how to travel there for just $6 (from Stockholm), and so much more.

Huge thank you to ÖTILLÖ for letting us be the first to cover this new event.   

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode ninety-one of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a special episode for everyone this week! We just got back from the “PNW” after racing Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island Long Course on September 26th and we’ve got one hell of a race report to share chronicling all the highs and lows and highs of us racing this epic Swimrun.

Initial Thoughts

We’ve been looking forward to racing Orcas Island since it was first announced four years ago and we were finally going to take it on and we were super stoked to take on the challenge.

Orcas Island was Pretty Cool

We rented an awesome house that was literally across the street from the start/finish line and we brought with us an LTBz flag that we had made for the occasion and must have been seen by almost every participant since they ran by our house on the way to the finish line.

We co-hosted a shakeout Swimrun on the Saturday before the race and it was awesome to see so many people come out for that. We basically just ran around Cascade Lake to do a couple of swims and play at the cliff jump section of the run course. It was super fun on a beautiful day. All the credit for the shakeout goes to Trista and Amy of Team Adorkable for coming up with the idea, getting the fika, and just being awesome ambassadors for the sport. The event was co-sponsored by Ark Sports, Wild Swimrun, and Ödyssey.  

Race Day

The race was everything that we had hoped it would be: beautiful and brutal. We wouldn’t say that we set the course on fire but we kept moving forward and dug deep to get through the course. 

We finished the race in 6:33 which was good enough for 4th Place Men’s Team and 7th Overall. So that was nice!

Final Thoughts

While we didn’t have the race performance that we felt we were capable of, we learned a lot at this race and gained a ton of experience. Overall, Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island was an amazing event and we will definitely be back to race it again next year, if able.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 111 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Way back in early 2020 (Episode 4!) we released our Swimrun 101: Partners episode. For Partners month 2022 we thought that it would be fun to do a redux of that episode since we feel like we are so much more experienced–dare we say wiser–after two-plus years of doing the show and picking people's brains all along. We re-listened to the episode (we would recommend that you do as well) and shared our thoughts on what we think holds up and what we would revise or add given where we are now in our Swimrun journey. We hope you will find it useful on your Swimrun journey. Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode ninety-seven of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got our last race report for 2021 to share with everyone this week! We just got back from the Lone Star state after racing Ödyssey Swimrun Austin Long Course on November 7th and we’re super stoked to share what was a great weekend for Swimrunning. (Spoiler Alert: We had our best race to date!)

Initial Thoughts

There were a lot of thoughts going into race weekend. It was unexpectedly our last race of the year after ÖTILLÖ Catalina was postponed to March 2022. It was the first time that we would be racing the same course after having raced the inaugural Ödyssey Swimrun Austin in 2020. Being able to have an “apples to apples” comparison was definitely intriguing for us given how much improvement we had seen from race to race this year.

With all this in mind, we were super stoked to go back to Pace Bend Park and spend some quality time with our Swimrun Community.

LTBz Shakeout Swimrun (Austin Edition)

It was great to be back in Pace Bend and get there early enough to host a Shakeout Swimrun on Saturday for everyone that was already in town. Over 35 people showed up and we had a ton of fun Swimrunning part of the course and taking a bunch of jumps at the cliff jump area. We ended the shakeout with some fika (minus the coffee) in honor of Team Adorkable that was racing in North Carolina the same weekend.

Race Day

It was cold and super foggy on race morning. So foggy that Ödyssey made the very prudent call to push the start time for the long course from 7:00am to 7:45am. Once the race started we knew that we were going to have a good day. We really didn’t know how good of a day we were having until the out and back section of Run 4 and saw that there was only one team (and two solo athletes: Adrian and Josh) ahead of us. We figured out that we were pretty solidly in second place and spent the rest of the race making sure that we consolidated that position and weren’t passed. As we neared the last swim of the day a volunteer told us that we were three minutes back from the first place team. At that point, we were just racing the clock since it looked like a sub three hour finishing time looked possible. 

We crossed the finish line and got confirmation from the Voice of Swimrun himself that we finished in second place. (We were only 0:03:43 behind the winning team of Vincent and Justin, A.K.A. Team Eggplant Emoji.)

Obviously, this was our first Swimrun podium haha!

Our race stats: finish time: 2:56:43. Good for 2nd place Overall, 2nd place Men's team. (84 teams registered)

Given that the field wasn’t as deep as in 2020 due to a bunch of teams racing at Swimrun NC the same weekend, we thought that calibrating our improvement would be a more accurate measure of our development as a team. We finished last year’s race in 3:30:16. Our 2021 finishing time was 0:33:33 faster! Another comparison was our overall pace: this year our overall average pace was 10:38/mi. In 2020 our overall pace was 12:21 per mile. A difference of 1:43/mi.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, we are overjoyed with our race result and the progress that we have made all year. There are a lot of people to thank for all that progress and you know who you are. We are also so appreciative for all the congratulatory notes from our worldwide Swimrun community. We’re looking forward to a break from training and then get back to our Swimrun journey at ÖTILLÖ Catalina in March.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 224 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We've got a great course preview for everyone this week. Joining us from Cape Cod to talk about Swimrun Cape Cod are New England Endurance Events Race Directors Kathleen Wheeler and Andy Scherding. This event is taking place on Sept. 21st in Wellfleet, Massachusetts and it’s going to be awesome! You don’t have to take our word for it, just listen to our conversation with Kathleen and Andy later in the show!

Special welcome for anyone that is new to the show and the sport of Swimrun. We think that we’ll have a bunch of folks that will be registered for Swimrun Cape Cod so we wanted to encourage everyone to head over to our website where we have a ton of resources to help new Swimrunners get to the start line feeling prepared and stoked for the adventure. You can also DM or email us anytime with your questions.

But first…

This episode is brought to you by our friends at FORM Swim. They recently released their new Smart Swim 2 goggles and these things are a game changer!  

Training Update

Training for ÖTILLÖ Whistler has begun. We’re about 100 days out from the big day and stoke levels are reasonably high already! Lots of swimming and running in various permutations over the next few months. #LFG

Shoutout/Feats of Endurance Combo

We’re doing a combo shoutout this week to all of our Swimrun and Swimrun-adjacent friends who ran the 128th Edition of the Boston Marathon this past Monday. We might have missed some of you but big shoutouts to Sarah Monk, Keith Lindquist, Kanoa King, Phil Saenkov, Lily Kriv, and Danny “Da Monsta” Divinov. Bit blanket shoutout to everyone else that towed the line.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

We’re going to be doing an AMA-style show in the next few weeks so DM/email/messenger pigeon us with all your burning Swimrun questions. If we don’t know the answer, don’t worry because we probably know who does.

Swimrun Cape Cod

It was great to chat with Kathleen and Andy. We have been in contact with them since they announced the race last year and I was literally in Boston last year the day before what was supposed to have been the inaugural edition of the race when it was canceled because of BLEEPING Hurricane Lee. (Rest assured that Andy and Kathleen had insured the race so every participant that wanted one, got full reimbursement of the registration fee.) That did not deter them from keeping it on their robust race calendar and, at time of this podcast’s release, have virtually sold out both distance offerings. In this conversation we get the entire story of how a Swimrun race was born and the labor of love that it took to create an event that is at once uniquely New England and very much a Swimrunners dream course.

Registration might be sold out but if not, we highly encourage you to not wait and sign up for Swimrun Cape Cod.

And as a bonus, the race was recently featured in Outside Magazine. Check it out!

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 249 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got another race recap for everyone this week. Joining us to talk about their experience at the 2024 Coniston Swimrun are long time supporters of the show and our friends, Hannah and Nick Mathers, AKA Team Stumble Til You Crawl. The finished in 3rd place mixed team at this event that took place north of Manchester in the U.K. Be prepared to be both surprised and not surprised by how cool the event was!

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 228 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a new addition to our Swimrun 101 Series this week. In this episode we discuss the state of the Swimrun shoe in 2024, share our thoughts in choosing the right Swimrun shoe for your next race, and give our rankings on the current shoes that are out there.

Note, you can watch this episode on YouTube.

First, The State of the Swimrun Shoe in 2024

• Lots of great options…probably starting with what you already have
• While most trail run shoes will work, there are some specific features that make a shoe better or worse for Swimrun that we will be discussing later
• We wish there were more specific Swimrun shoes but here we are.

Second, Things to Consider for Choosing a Shoe For your next Swimrun

• Start with a trail shoe since most swimruns take place on trails so you’ll want something with lugs on the sole
• Look for uppers that will drain well
• Do the bucket test
• Bonus tip: Pair your shoe with thin/moisture wicking socks to prevent blisters/chaffing/hot spots/etc. We like Swiftwick & CEP

Next, it’s time for some shoe show and tell

• Some of the shoes that we’ve used or will be using
  • VJ Maxx Ultra 2
  • Hoka Tecton X
  • Hoka Speedgoat
  • Hoka Zinal
  • Vivobarefoot Hydra ESC (The only actual Swimrun Shoe on the list)
  • Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra (no longer in production) (LTBz shoe of the year for 2022 and 2023)
  • Brand spanking new Adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra (with a carbon plate)

Finally, our rankings on the best Swimrun shoes available for 2024 (so far)

Long Races: Hoka Tecton X, VJ Maxx 2

Technical Terrain: Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra, VJs

Overall Winner: Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 229 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a brand new show format for everyone this week. This “Yet To Be Named Show Format” is definitely not going to be called “Coaches Corner” but definitely features our first guest, Coach Liz Gilden. She’s a former pro triathlete, a fellow Swimrun kool-aid drinker and half of Team #batmansparents, the official meteorologist of The Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast, and endurance coach. In this show we pepper her with all the coaching questions that people send us.

Want to help us name this show format? DM us your ideas and you’re the winner, we send you an official LTBz drip package with shirt, hat, and other stuff.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 212 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this week’s episode we dive into our long bucket list of Swimrun events that we want to participate in and take you with us (figuratively) to the Gulf of Morbihan and present to you the award winning Swimrun Troll Enez. Co-race directors Laura, Renan, and Jocelyn join to tell us all about this amazing event.

But first…

Training Update

We’re STILL in the “building consistency” stage of training and STILL trying to be better at incorporating strength work earlier in the year. So far so good. There’s a decent amount of trail running in our future before Swimrun season kicks off for us so that will be fun.

Shoutout

This week’s shoutout goes to friend of the show, David Trehane. He’s the race director for the new Studland Swimrun in the U.K. and this race looks epic! The race is taking place on June 15th and it’s filling up fast so don’t wait and sign up.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to our friends The Kancho Boyz for finishing their 6-day bike ride in Thailand over the weekend. It was apparently crazy hot and humid but fun was still had by all.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

Are you a fan of the show? Do you appreciate our unique brand of super niche content? Then please consider taking a moment to help new people find the show by leaving a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice. 

Swimrun Troll Enez

It was super fun to chat with Laura, Renan, and Jocelyn about their labor of love, the Troll Enez Swimrun. As we mentioned at the start of the show, this race has been on our radar for a while and it’s only moved up our bucket list after this conversation. We chatted about the history of the race, got a course overview, and got their take on why Swimrun is taking off in France. Chris was literally dreaming about this race after recording the interview.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 165 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This week we have another installment in our Swimrun 101 series. In the episode we share our thoughts on Swimrun training…thoughts formed from our many conversations with coaches, athletes, and our own training and racing experience. For this episode we break up our discussion on Swimrun training into three distinct training categories: physical fitness, fueling and hydration, and mental preparation.

Why are we doing this? 

We’ve noticed in our own training what has helped us show up to the start lines confident for the challenges (known and unknown) and we’ve developed a pattern or rhythm to our training, with the help of our coach, to get prepared. We obviously don’t know or claim to know all there is to know about endurance training but we’d had a lot of guests on the show that do. Make sure to check the show to get hyperlinks to our interviews to the coaches and experts that we’ll be alluding to during this episode. 

Anyway, we hope that you find our musings on training helpful.

Physical Fitness

Swim Training 

We’ve found that building a giant base of swim fitness leads to better race experiences and that the base helps increase your run fitness in the process. We think that de-coupling your swimming so that it is something that is always happening in the background at least 2-4 times per week will get you more than ready for any Swimrun outside of something like the One Water Race.

There are a ton of resources out there to improve your swimming but at the very least any organized Masters Swim group will help get you on the path.

Run Training

When it comes to training for the run portion of any Swimrun, we’ve found that getting specific to both the distance and terrain in your training is the best approach. If your upcoming race is super hilly, then you know what to do. Remember that a Swimrun that has 17 miles of running doesn’t mean that you need to be able to bang out 17 miles in one shot before race day. Since the run sections are broken up, you’re usually able to get by with shorter runs in the lead up. Obviously, the fitter you are on the run, the “easier” the race will feel and the more fun you’ll have out there.

Strength/Cross-Training

We all know that we need to do more strength/stretching/yoga/cross-training. Our approach is to start small and try to be ultra consistent. Keep nailing the fundamentals and you’ll soon build the habit and see the results on race day. 

Swimrun Training

Nothing simulates Swimrun better than a good’ole Swimrun practice. When you’re new to the sport these sessions are integral for you to learn the technique of Swimrun and work on all the little things that take up time during a race such as dealing with the tether, cabbing down, etc. 

We’ve found that as we have gotten more experienced in the sport these sessions are less about making sure that we have all the mechanics down and more about working on intensity and pace. We definitely do less Swimrun practices that we used to but we’ve developed the muscle memory for what works for us.

Previous LTBz episodes about Swimrun training:

Mike Olzinski (EP 3 and EP 108)

Nicolas Remires (EP 14 and EP 126)

Nate Helming (EP 17)

Mario Fraioli (EP 30)

Gerry Rodrigues (EP 32)

Coach Jim Lube & Megan AMA

Ville Enburgh

John Stevens (EP 46 and EP 124)

Joe Friel (EP 115)

Fueling and Hydration

Gut Training

Just like anything else in Swimrun, you need to adapt to the unique challenges that these events can present. One of the biggest is fueling and hydration. Practicing what you will do on race day and having a nutrition plan in place is instrumental to maximizing your race performance on race day. Just as one would plan how they would tackle a difficult Swimrun course, you should also plan what you will do fueling wise. 

This is definitely a place where we feel that we have learned a ton as a team. We feel so lucky to have been able to work with Precision Fuel and Hydration and it’s no coincidence that our race performances have improved as a result. We highly recommend checking out all the free information that they offer and start working on your fueling and hydration training for your next Swimrun. 

Practicing Race Day fueling During Swimrun Training Sessions

This is a moving target that practice is key to nailing your strategy on race day. Just as you wouldn’t show up at a Swimrun without at least going through the paces a few times in your gear, practicing your strategy for race day is just as important.

Note that this is a moving target and as you get fitter, your fueling needs will evolve. 

Previous LTBz episodes about Fueling and Hydration:

Andy Blow (EP 25 and EP 118)

Abby Coleman (EP 120)

Mental Preparation 

Getting ready for the adventure of Swimrun isn’t just about being physically ready for the challenge, it is also about being mentally prepared for what lies ahead.

Get Aligned on Goals

Swimruns are great adventures that will test your body and mind. Whether you are racing solo or as part of team, getting aligned on what your goals are is key. Susie Moonan recommends that athletes be able to answer the question of “why?” Why are you doing this race is a great way to crystallize what you're hoping to get from the experience and this will help you if/when you hit a low point during a race. 

Be Realistic 

What does success look like? Or what should it look like? If you can go into a Swimrun with clear expectation on what success looks like you will be way more likely to find what you’re looking for in the sport. Swimrunning well is its own skill so don’t expect to be an expert at it your first time out. 

It has taken us years to get to the point where we feel like we know what we are doing…and we still take wrong turns sometimes.

Embrace the Ambiguity 

Similar to being realistic, embracing the nature of Swimrun is also key to having a successful race. Distances aren’t exact, aid stations may not be where you thought they were, and the weather can change rapidly. At risk of sounding totally tautological The more prepared you are for the randomness that you will experience during a race, the less of a mental challenge it will be when random things happen.

Previous LTBz episodes on the Mental Side of Things:

Susie Moonan (EP 54 and EP 122)

Brad Stulberg (EP 88 and EP 164)

Summary

So in summary, we think Swimrun training should look something like this:

1. swim consistently at varying intensities;
2. plan your run workouts to simulate the type of terrain and course that you will be racing;
3. do enough Swimrun practices so that you are comfortable with your gear and the mechanics of Swimrun transitions;
4. train your gut and start practicing your race day fueling and hydration well before race day; and
5. think about why you’re racing Swimrun and line up your goals and expectations accordingly.

This is our best thinking on what Swimrun training, on a straight-forward level, should consist of. That being said, we highly, highly recommend that listeners interested in taking their performance to the next level to look into coaching resources such as Envol Swimrun, Tower 26, Simcoachen, Purple Patch, and TOT Endurance.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to Gear Talk with our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.

In this episode, the gang talks through the various gear considerations for the upcoming Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island race in beautiful Orcas Island, Washington. This is the first time that they will all be racing the same event since Casco Bay 2018. Annie and Brooke share their wealth of knowledge of the course as previous participants to help Chipper and Chris dial in their race kit for their first time racing Orcas. 

That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the 

Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode 200 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

!!Takeover alert!! 

To celebrate this milestone episode of the show, Kristen and Susan A.K.A., The Low Tide Wivez, take over the mics to talk about whatever the hell they want…and possibly Swimrun.

(Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that tuned in to the show, saw our videos, liked our memes, slid into our DMs and emails and generally put up with our brand of super niche content. It means the world to us to have your support and encouragement on this journey.)

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 139 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This is the final installment of our “Countdown to ÖTILLÖ” show where we discuss our journey to the start line of the 2022 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. Well, the race is finally here. When this show is released we will already be in Sweden drinking Fika and finding slippery rocks to run on before heading to Djurönäset for the pre-race briefing. We have a lot of people to thank that helped us get to this point and we want to share some of the amazing pro-tips that we have received in the course of these Countdown episodes and over the years.

But first…

We want to give one final giant thank you to our supporters Ödyssey Swimrun, Frank Paddle, and Precision Fuel and Hydration for helping make this show possible. Make sure to use the code “LOWTIDE22” to save 15% off of your first order from Precision Fuel and Hydration. Use the code “LOWTIDEBOYZ” that is good for 15% off of your registration for any and all of Odyssey Swimrun’s 2022 events. Finally, Frank Paddle’s new paddles are out now! Definitely check those out if you’re interested in the latest evolution in carbon fiber swim paddle technology.

How’s the Body? How’s the Mind?

Safe to say that we both feel ready physically and mentally for the race. We are looking forward to sharing the adventure on the Archipelago and it is wild that the race is here after so many months!

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PRO-TIPS

We are blessed to have been able to have so many great guests on the show to share with us their insight about the World Championship and we wanted to summarize some of the best tips that we got for everyone racing…or considering trying to quality. We’ve added hyperlinks to the shows mentioned in case anyone wants to listen to the complete interviews. Let’s get to it!

Oscar Olsson: Episode 85

• On the longer runs, you know you’re getting to a swim leg when the gravel road ends. (Good time to start cabbing up)
• Take a gel before starting the pig swim
• Strobe lights at the first swim and the pig swim
• Also, “take a fucking gel!”
• Get moving after the pig swim to warm up and shake off the hard swim
• Tether on the long runs
• Definitely cab down for the ORNÖ run
• The last swim before UTÖ can be tricky, spend an extra five seconds to get a sense of the current before going in

Marika Wagner: Episode 105

• Enjoy the sunrise on the first swim

Diane Sadik: Episode 112

• Eat every 30 minutes
• Switch up leading swims early on to stay warm

The Swimrun Monks: Episode 122 

• Eat a lot.

Jenny Ramstedt: Episode 112

• If you have a chance, running the island of ORNÖ outside of race is a good idea to get a sense of what the terrain will be like (knowledge is power pro tip)

Anna Lundberg: Episode 118

• Namdö cutoff is the one to pay attention to
• Get your suit on and organized before going to the breakfast on race morning

Bill Lankford: Episode 109

• Bring a bag/luggage with wheels for your stuff because carrying a bag the day after the race will be tough

Jonas and Lars Ekman: Episode 116

• Visualize minimizing your transitions to save time on race day
• Do the race before you think you’re ready for it
• Pace your swims in the first third of the race and try to find feet to draft off of

Ville Engberg: Episode 119

• Watch out for the swim after the pig swim because that one is usually cold
• Try to find a good pack to swim with early on
• Don’t worry about not running on the first few islands

Nicolas Remires: Episode 126

• Don’t try to memorize every leg. Instead think about the race in terms of five sections and learn the features of each section from aid-station/cut-off.

Andy Blow: Episode 118

• Don’t go to the breakfast on race morning. It’s a mess. Instead bring whatever food you will eat with you so you don’t have to deal with that.

Jonas Colting: Episode 131

• Don’t worry about doing a warm-up run before the race. Relax on the ferry and avoid the anxious energy: Use the first run as the warmup.
• Do work and get through the swims

Susie Moonan: Episode 122

• Take a moment to look at your partner and be present during the race
• When you feel low, Remember why you are doing the race and focus on the belief that you can do this!

See you out there!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 268 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Partners month continues with yet another great story of siblings coming together to do cool stuff! Joining us to talk about their Swimrun partnership is Team H20, A.K.A. Halie and Hunter Olsen. In this conversation we talked about what it’s like to race with your sibling, whether it fills their parents with joy, racing ÖTILLÖ before they were “ready,” and so much more.  

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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 Update

Air 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 Outs

This 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 Award

Our 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 Swimrun

We 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com and tip us off if there’s a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.

LTBz Updates

Ödyssey 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. 

Interview

Now 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode 164 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Partners month concludes with something extra special for everyone. Joining us in Studio G for a masterclass on effective teamwork and the power of shared purpose is none other than Brad Stulberg. Brad researches, writes, and coaches on the characteristics that underlie sustainable excellence. No gimmicks or “hacks.” Just what works. So let’s get right to it!

In this masterclass Brad discusses his 5 tenets of effective teamwork that Swimrun teams can use to develop amazing partnershings: 

1. Drop the ego
2. Make good decisions
3. Play to your strengths
4. Appreciate what frustrates you
5. Trust + tension = Productive Cohesion

Brad’s book, The Practice of Groundedness, is available now and his forthcoming book, Master of Change, will be published this September. You can follow Brad on Instagram and Twitter.

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty-nine of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

On the show this week we have our course preview for Ödyssey Swimrun Ludington. We're joined by special guests Aaron Palaian and John Stevens from the Ödyssey crew to talk us through their newest race and share some great training tips for this unique course. Trust us, this race sounds like it's going to be dope!

PURE MICHIGAN MAKES FOR PURE SWIMRUNNING

Much Like Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island, Ludington offers Swimrunners an opportunity to explore a very cool part of the state of Michigan. Aaron shared with us how he settled on the coast of Lake Michigan to host a Swimrun and why Ludington will be an awesome venue for athletes and families.

Travelling to Ludington is pretty straightforward with several airport options. Lodging is also straightforward as Ludington has a lot of options.

SAND IS YOUR FRIEND (or at least keep telling yourself that)

We are lucky to have the only person to have actually ran and swam on the course, John Stevens, to walk us through each leg of the race for both the long and short course. The short course meets up with the long course at Swim 4 (of the long course) and follows the same course to the finish line so we will only mention Run 1 of the short course separately.

The long course clocks in at 19.33 miles with 16.2 miles of running and 3.13 miles of swimming with 1,500ft of elevation gain. The short course is 10.68 miles long with 8.55 miles of running and 2.13 miles of swimming with 750ft of elevation gain.

Both courses feature a variety of terrains that should make for a super fun event. As you listen to the leg by leg breakdown, we recommend looking at the course map to help orient yourself and visualize what you will experience on race day.

Annotated Leg By Leg Breakdown

LONG COURSE

Run 1 (1.45mi)

• “Urban running” through the downtown Ludington
• There will be some sidewalk traffic involved

Swim 1 (650m/711yd)

• Coldest swim of the day (Mid to upper 50 degrees Fahrenheit) 
• Pretty straight forward swim along the beach

Run 2 (2.15mi)

• First half is on roads
• Back half of the run is a paved trail through the woods

Swim 2 (565m/618yd)

• The lake is really dark

Run 3 (2.05m)

• Last run on the roads for a while
• Sand dune climb at the end of the run

Swim 3 (400m/437yd)

• “Steven’s Lake”
• Swimming though an old quarry

Run 4 (3.75mi)

• Aid station at the start of the run
• Running on trails and then on sand towards the end

SHORT COURSE Run 1 (1.75mi)

• This first run is a doozy
• There are some wooden platforms at the start that can be very slippery when wet
• There are some sand trails towards the middle
• A “crazy” sand dune climb at the end of the run

Swim 4 (1,365m/1,493yd)

• You swim under a bridge near the start
• It’s a pretty shallow swim on the second half

Run 5 (.40mi)

• Straight up a 200 meter sand dune at the start of the run
• “Embrace the suck.” -- John Stevens

Swim 5 (200m/219yd)

• Nice and short!

Run 6 (3.25mi)

• This run has it all! It goes from woods to sand to the ocean
• Lots of sand here
• You’ll run through some shallow pools
• Awesome climb at the end over a ridge that will give you a cool view of the Big Sable Point Lighthouse

Swim 6 (250m/273yd)

• This swim is around the Big Sable Point Lighthouse
• This swim might be cancelled if the conditions are too gnarly
• Ödyssey will make the call on race day

Run 7 (3.0mi)

• Dirt road run
• It’s exposed so it could be hot if the sun is out
• Definitely hit the aid station at the start of the run

Swim 7 (1,610m/1,761yd)

• This swim is down river so it should be pretty fast
• Near the end of the swim you go under a low bridge that can be a little nerve racking

Run 8 (.15mi)

• Sweet little beach run to the finish line

DO IT FOR THE ICE CREAM!

John Stevens shared a couple key workout sessions that will help athletes prepare for the demands of the Ludington course. He recommends some high tempo running mixed with some hill work such as a running workout consisting of 6-8x 30 second hard uphill into an extended 4-5 minute tempo effort. The swims are pretty straight forward so being comfortable with the distance and being able to apply some power will serve athletes well.

As far as a key Swimrun workout, John recommends doing a couple of rounds consisting of a 300yd swim at race effort with a fast transition into a hard 1-2 minute uphill and then settle into some race effort tempo running for a 1 mile.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

This race looks great and we give major kudos to Aaron, John and the rest of the Ödyssey crew for finding such an awesome location to host a Swimrun. All the different types of terrain that this event offers is very unique and will make for a great adventure for everyone that will toe the line. Huge thanks for Aaron and John for taking the time to help us put this course preview together. 

These episodes are an iterative process so please let us know what you think about this evolving format.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 172 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this show we are doing a course preview of the only U.K. ÖTILLÖ Merit race: The Precision Fuel and Hydration Hokey Cokey Swimrun Roseland. We seem to have backed into a cool theme for this month so we’re just going to go with it. We asked Mad Hatter Sports Race Director, and former guest of the show, John Yelland to help us give you a comprehensive course preview of the race. Spoiler alert: it’s a great one!

Let’s get right to it!

Intro to Mad Hatter Sports and The Hokey Cokey Swimrun

John was cool enough to share everything we needed to know about the event. His intro description of what athletes can expect on the course seemed very accurate as well: “holes, stones, trees, stumps, and steps.”

Getting to Cornwall and the Roseland Peninsula

John shared with us how to best get to Cornwall and it’s important to note that the area books up fast in the Summer so lock in your travel plans early. The base of operations is in Mevagissey and that town is about 250 miles from London-area airports.

The Race

The stats on the Roseland Swimrun is 36km with 28km of running and 8km of swimming over 21 total swim legs. The race has a SWIFA score of 23% which is pretty cool as well. (This is EX Swimrun’s term for percentage of swimming in a Swimrun. Check out Episode 72 and 129 to hear all about it)

John shared his leg by leg breakdown which, along with the online course map, really paints a solid picture of the adventure that awaits Swimrunners. As before, there’s no sugar-coating that the race is a challenge…and that’s why we like it!

Our Thoughts

This event is everything that is great about Swimrun. It was designed to offer a challenging experience, while taking advantage of the natural beauty and terrain of the Cornwall region. We love the attention that was paid to make this adventure what it is and think that this is a worthy ÖTILLÖ Merit race for those seeking to quality for The Swimrun World Championship.

Make sure to check out the Mad Hatter Sports website and use the code LTB20 which is good for 20% off any of their Swimrun events.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any questions, feedback, and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode ninety-three of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This week we have Stirling Miles and Lolo Armstrong, A.K.A., Team Run For Tacos, on the show. They share their inspiring Swimrun journey of training, traveling, and racing their first Swimrun at Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island a few weeks back. We loved chatting with them and their story will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

But first... 

Training Update

Ödyssey Swimrun Austin is four weeks away. We’re starting to pump up the volume on our training and did a 2 hour-plus Swimrun on Saturday to start dialing things in again.

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out Lindsey Ludwick from Virginia. Thanks for being a fan of the show and for wearing your Tie-dye hoodie with pride. Hope to meet you in person at a race soon!

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to Robb Damman and his buddy Yanni for their 8 hour, 30.33 mile point to point Swimrun adventure in Durham County, North Carolina this past Saturday. They called the route “SCRAMP the Falls” and while we don’t know what that means, it’s still an impressive feat!

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

All the news that we could find on the internet contained herein.

It’s race week for ÖTILLÖ Cannes. Best of luck to everyone racing and remember to ignore the paparazzi. We’ll be putting out Cannes memes all week so make sure to follow us on IG to witness the ridiculousness. If that wasn’t enough, we will have some bonus race coverage thanks to our friends G Flo and Tobias from Team Max Mockermann who will be our “LTBz Correspondents in the Field” taking over our IG stories to share all the sights and sounds of Cannes. And it THAT wasn’t enough, we will also be releasing a Cannes Race Recap episode in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that!

This past weekend, Swimrun Cyprus held their annual race on the island. We loved seeing all the photos on IG and the event looked fantastic.

Gravity Race hosted the 6th edition of their Annecy Swimrun over the weekend. According to their website, they had 700 athletes participating in their three distance formats. Can’t blame the athletes for wanting to race because the Lac D’annecy is a pretty majestic location for a Swimrun.

If you’re looking for something to do on October 24, we recommend that you check out Swimrun Cote D’azur. We learned about this part of France from our friends Laurene and Irina, A.K.A., The Swimrun Mermaids, and they convinced us that it’s an amazing location for a Swimrun. (I foresee planning a double Swimrun vacation in the South of France with ÖTILLÖ Cannes one weekend and this race the following.)

Finally, it’s never too early to start planning for 2022 and Bauer Swimrun recently opened registration for their May 1st event in ​​Småland, Sweden.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to tip us off if there’s any news that you would like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Programming alert: If you’re racing or thinking about racing Swimrun NC in November, make sure to check out our course preview episode that will drop next week.

Speaking about course previews, if you’re racing Ödyssey Swimrun Austin (it’s on the same day as Swimrun NC) make sure to check out our course preview episode to get you super stoked...and ready for race day. 

Team Run For Tacos

Chatting with Stirling and Lolo about their Swimrun journey was so great! They shared their origin story and how one video changed the course of the endurance lives of two long-time best friends and got them to the start line of Ödyssey Swimrun Orcas Island. Their story is what Swimrun is all about and we can’t wait to see them again at another race.

You can follow the adventures of Team Run For Tacos on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 167 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got something special for everyone this week. We are sharing a course preview for the Bali Hope Swimrun that is taking place from September 27-30 in Indonesia. If you’re like us and thought “you had us at Bali” then you're going to love our conversation with race founder Tom Hickman.

But first…

Training Update

Training is starting to ramp up and Chris is about to start swimming again! We also recently made a pact, after a particularly wet and wild trail run on Sunday, that our weekend long runs/Swimrun trainings would be non-negotiable and would take place rain or shine. #nodogging

Shoutout

This week we’re shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon, Daniel Kernell. We really, really appreciate your support!

Speaking of Patreon, we recently hosted our first Patron meetup of the year and we had a great time chatting with everyone. Thank you all so much for taking the time to join us. It definitely got us super energized to keep putting out Swimrun content for everyone!  And Dave, make sure you’re keeping your fingers pointing towards the bottom of the pool during your pull phase.

We also have a bonus shoutout to Marc Stettler. About a month ago we gave a shoutout to the Country of Switzerland for making it into the top 10 in terms of downloads. Marc reached out to let us know that he was likely personally responsible for this since he downloaded our entire back catalog of episodes so that he could binge listen to the show. Strong work and bless you!

Wisdom Nugget of the Week

“The only zen that you find on the top of mountains is the zen you bring up there.” - Robert Pirsig 

Feats of Endurance

We haven’t had this segment in several weeks so we have a list of recognitions to give out. In no particular order:

• Miriam Fendler for running her first marathon
• The Maestro Twins for racing the Transcape Swimrun in Australia
• Roxy Visser for swimming 11k yards from Rottnest Island to Perth (Western Australia)
• Bronwen and Greg Deirksen for posting workouts from Puerto Rico
• Derek Rosner for posting workouts from Puerto Rico

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Now for the “news.”

We will keep this edition short because we have a great course preview coming up.

There have been a couple of new race announcements in the past few weeks!

Mönacö Swimrun (tip of the hat for the double umlaut) recently launched and plans on hosting their first race in the Principality of Monaco in 2024.

Swimrun Whistler also recently announced their inaugural Swimrun scheduled for July 16th in British Columbia, Canada. Registration is open now. Also, Yay! More Swimruns in the Western Hemisphere!! 

Over in the Canary Islands, Swimrun Series Canarias have opened registration for their Tenerife Swimrun (May 6th) and their Gran Canaria Swimrun (June 10th). Both these races look spectacular! 

If only we lived in Europe and/or had unlimited sources of income!

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us if there’s any Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Show Business

Stay tuned for some upcoming YouTube videos on Swimrun Training and a comprehensive DIY for our Pull Buoy Simple Mount setup. Make sure you’re subscribed to our channel and, if not, smash that subscribe button.

Bali Hope Swimrun Course Preview with Tom Hickman

The Bali Hope Swimrun is a unique event. Taking place on the island of Lembongan in Bali, this small event is big on its community impact and reverence for the beauty of the region. It’s also SouthEast Asia’s original Swimrun. 

It was great to chat with Tom to get the origin story for this race as well as get an overview of the race weekend, the course, and the charitable impact that it makes. It is so cool that events like these exist and we encourage everyone to check out the Bali Hope Swimrun website and consider adding this race to your bucket list. (It’s already on ours!)

Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 149 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

It is done! We just got back from Ödyssey Swimrun Austin for our fifth and final race of the year and on this episode we are sharing our recap of one of our favorite events on the U.S. circuit. This was our third time racing Austin and it’s become a tradition to close out our year in Pace Bend Park. The positive Swimrun vibes were omnipresent all weekend and it’s safe to say that fun was had by all.

We finished this year’s Long Course in 3:14:16 which was good enough for 2nd Place Men’s Team (16 minutes behind 1st Place) and 6th Overall (including Long Course Solo athletes.)

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 154 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This week we have the second of our three “year in review” episodes to look back on what has been by all accounts an epic year of Swimrunning. Joining us this week to talk about their amazing year are the American super team of Marcus Barton and Kawika Tarayao, A.K.A. Team Envol Spam Fika.

In this conversation we chat about how Beek and Marcus teamed up (spoiler alert: Nicolas Remires was involved,) how they trained while in different time zones, their diabolical race schedule leading to (and through) ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship, their awesome performance yielding a top ten finish at the World Championship, and what the future holds for them. It was so cool to see their development as a team throughout the year and we had a blast cheering them on. We expect continued excellence from Marcus and Beek as they take on 2023 with the same enthusiasm.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 231 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a great one for everyone this week. Joining us to talk about their experience on the ÖTILLÖ Whistler course are Lars Finanger and Marcus Barton. They recently went up to scope out the course (and make some changes) and we brought them on to share all the fresh intel with all of you. Get your notepads out for this one.

Note: that you can now watch the show on Youtube, if you’re so inclined.

But first…

Training Update

It’s race week for us! We’re stoked to be racing Quest Racing’s Bellingham Swimrun this weekend. (Registration is still open so if you’re waiting until the last minute, now is your time to shine.) It’s been an interesting training cycle since Chipper started a new job that requires him to go into “an office” a few days a week and we haven’t done our usual training together for our key (read: hard) sessions. We also have different coaches for the first time in a long time. Despite all that, stoke level is sky high!

Shoutout

Our shoutout this week goes out to all of our supporters on Patreon. We are super grateful for your support and hope to see you out at the races soon!  

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to everyone that raced Swimrun Portugal’s Swimrun Tâmega and We Swimrun’s Tal-Y-Llyn Swimrun. Both events looked amazing. 

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

Interested in joining us at an ÖTILLÖ race in North America? Then use the code 

LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your race registration for any and all 2024 events. We’ll be lining up at Whistler, Casco Bay and Austin this year. Hope to see you out there!

ÖTILLÖ Whistler Update with Marcus and Lars

It was great to have Marcus and Lars back on the show. Lars had some technical difficulties so we got a recording from him with his intel for the race. (INSERT VIDEO CLIP HERE)

Luckily, Mr. Low Tide Boy 2020 himself was able to join us (for the 5th time) and he walked/Swimran us through the Whistler course and gave us a great update on the changes from our previous course preview episode with Dale Tiessen. It was so helpful to have literally the most experienced Swimrunner in America share his tips for approaching the course and what his gear considerations for the event. As we said at the opening, get your notepad out for this one.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 103 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Welcome to the second edition of our annual LTBz Fireside Chat. In this episode, we look back at our year and discuss the state of the show, our racing journey, and look forward to what’s coming up in 2022.

Huge thank you to all our listeners, Patreon supporters, sponsors, and friends and family for pushing us to try to produce the best show that we can and keep us super stoked on our labor of love.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode sixty-eight of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

On this week’s show, we’re taking another trip across the pond to Southern England to chat with Vinicius Vecchiatti and Sarah King of Söuthsea Swimrun. It was great to hear about how they are sharing their love for Swimrun and building community in Portsmouth, England. 

More on this interview later in the show.

It’s Race Week!

Swimrun season in the U.S. is officially kicking off this weekend at Swimrun Lake James in North Carolina. Best of luck to everyone racing either the short or long courses and remember to thank all the volunteers out there.

Shoutouts

This week we are shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon, Ryan Smith. Thank you so much for the support to help us keep the “lights on” and keep pumping out good content for everyone. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is last week’s honorable mention, Mike McMillian. He’s been crushing it in the gym and everywhere else apparently with a cool “Swim the Bridge - Double Crossing” workout that looked pretty awesome.

Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a couple of updates to share this week.

As we mentioned earlier, Swimrun season officially kicks off in the U.S. with Swimrun Lake James this weekend. This event is an ÖTILLÖ Merit Race (which means that Long Course teams will earn points towards qualifying for entry into the World Championship selection lottery.) Check out our recent podcast episode with Race Director Kristen Jeno if you want to learn more about the history of this race and get a mini-course preview.

Speaking of Lake James, Wild Swimrun ambassador and our friend Trista Mennen is hosting a meet-and-greet on Friday, April 23 at 4 pm at Fonta Flora during packet pickup for Lake James for anyone who wants to learn more about Wild Swimrun. If you don’t know about Wild Swimrun (then you need to listen to more of our podcast episodes) they are a group of women who support women athletes to discover the sport of Swimrun. If you are a female, support a female, or just generally interested in what we do, come to say hi. 

For our German listeners, Swimrun Rheinsberg recently opened registration for their June 20th event. This race looks like it has it all: a kids race and super sprint, sprint, and long course distances. Get all the details on their website. This race is also part of the Deutschland Swimrun Cup consisting of ten races across Germany taking place throughout the year. Some of their urban Swimruns look--in a word--DOPE!

In other event news, Envol Coaching announced their new “The Big Battle” virtual event this week. Individuals can join teams from all over the world to do as many Swimruns as possible in the month of June and “battle” for top honors and prizes. The registration fee is $13. You can find all the rules on the Envol Website. If you want to take part, feel free to join Team LTBz when you register. Teams are capped at 30 members so join us before we hit our cap. 

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

We have some upcoming programming alerts for everyone. We have some cool shows coming up in the next few weeks including a special guest race report from Swimrun Lake James, our full review of Frank Paddle’s carbon fiber swim paddles, the next installment in our “Advanced Topics in Swimrun” series, and other cool stuff. 

Stay tuned for all of that! 

This Week’s Interview

It was a blast chatting with Sarah and Vini from Söuthsea Swimrun. We always love learning about people that are super stoked on Swimrun since they are our people. We especially love when they are doing their part to build community in their locales to share their love for the sport and encourage others to try it. 

We chatted with Sarah and Vini about how they discovered Swimrun and their journey to start the Söuthsea Swimrun club. We talked about how they handled COVID restrictions and managed to have safe weekly Swimrun practices all year. We also chatted about what they think the future holds for their club and for Swimrun in the U.K.

You can learn more about Söuthsea Swimrun on their website and follow them on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode 235 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a great show for everyone this week. We’ve brought back our fan-favorite Countdown to ÖTILLÖ format from the LTBz vault to discuss our upcoming ÖTILLÖ Whistler race. In this edition, we discuss our training, what gear we’re planning on using, nutrition, hydration and race strategy, and so much more. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone in Canada and can’t wait to race!

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 120 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This episode is the latest installment in our ad hoc series: Swimrun 201-Advanced Topics in Swimrun. In this show, we discuss what to do when things go south/sideways/bad during a race. We’re joined by Senior Sports Scientist Abby Coleman from Precision Fuel and Hydration who shares with us the latest and greatest information on the common pitfalls that Swimrunners could face during a race and what to do about it. Get your notepads out for this one!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 181 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a great show for everyone this week. Joining us just a few days after ÖTILLÖ Utö is the new ÖTILLÖ race director, Staffan Björklund. We had a wide ranging conversation about his stout adventure racing and Swimrun roots, his love for the sport and what the future holds as he begins to write the next chapter in the storied history of ÖTILLÖ.

But first…

Training Update

Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay is just a few weeks away and stoke levels are very high for our first race of the year. We had a big week of training with some long swims, long runs, and Monday Swimruns. Only another week or so of giving it the gas before we start tapering. 

Shoutout

This week we are shouting out our three new LTBz Patrons on Patreon. Thank you Liza, Mike and Tom. We really appreciate your support of our brand of super niche content!

Wisdom Nugget of the Week

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. — Seneca

Feats of Endurance

This week we are giving a blanket award to everyone that Swimran over the weekend. There were events all over Europe, including ÖTILLÖ Utö, Swimrun Côte de Vermille, Sjöloppet Swimrun, Love Swimrun Llanberis, Tal-Y-Llyn Swimrun, and the Långholmen Swimrun.

Bonus award for Pete Jervis for racing the “Wales Double:” Swimrun Llanberis on Saturday and Tal-Y-Llyn Swimrun on Sunday. Strong work!

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

If you’re racing Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay in a few weeks–or just love hearing the sound of our voices–make sure to check out our bonus course preview episode that is out now! Spoiler alert: we got confirmation that the 2023 courses will be the same as 2022 so we will be re-sharing a leg by leg breakdown by the one and only John Stevens.

Staffan Björklund, ÖTILLÖ Race Director

It was really great to chat with Staffan just a few days after Utö, his first official event as the new race director for ÖTILLÖ. In this conversation we talked about Michael and Mats’s legacy and their impact on him, his vast Swimrun experience and love for the sport, ÖTILLÖ’s plans for the future, and so much more. We appreciated his candor and it’s safe to say that he’s super stoked on Swimrun just like the rest of us. 

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode eighty-five of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship less than a month away! To get everyone hyped for the race, we asked our friend and previous guest of the show Oscar Olsson to walk us through the legendary 75km course. This episode is a masterclass and super helpful for anything racing the World Championship or just curious about what teams will face on September 6. Get your notepads out for this one!

But first... 

Training Update

For the first time in a long time we had a chill week of training now that Casco Bay is in the rear view mirror. We’ll be starting to ramp up soon for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island race and we foresee a lot of running up (and down) hills in our future.

Shoutout

This week we’re shouting out Henry Loveless who let us know that he did his first Swimrun over the weekend in Finland at the Strömfors Swimrun. He started listening to the show to get ready and we got him super stoked! (Mission Accomplished!) Congrats Henry and thanks for listening. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to Drew Wilson. This guy biked 105 miles (with 7,000ft of elevation) in Taos County New Mexico over the weekend...on a tri bike. Impressive on multiple levels. Strong work dude!

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Lots of updates this week so let’s get right to it!

Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island is fast approaching! The race is on August 29 and we already are experiencing FOMO. Lucky for us, we will have two LTBz Field Correspondents (Trista and Amy from Team Adorkable) “covering” the event for us and they will be sharing all the weekend festivities on our IG stories and we’ll be doing a race recap episode with them as well so stay tuned for that.

Another race that is giving us FOMO is Swimrun Georgia. This race is taking place on October 10 and we recommend that everyone who is in the general area of Georgia or in the United States to register! Programming note: are hoping to interview the race director Tony Hammet before the race so stay tuned for that.

Up in Canada, Swimrun Victoria took place over the weekend. Lots of smiling faces at this event that offered 27km Long Course and 13km Short Course options.

Over in Europe, all eyes are on ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship on September 6. That’s not all that is going on across the pond. ÖTILLÖ’s Final 15k sprint race is taking place on September 4 which looks like a ton of fun!

Finally, Swimrunman Laffrey is happening this weekend in France. This race offers a bunch of distance options including an ÖTILLÖ Merit race distance that features a legendary/brutal vertical kilometer final run to the finish line. There’s also a kids Swimrun which is awesome! This is yet another race that’s on our bucket list. Sigh!

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us with any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay Race Report episode. Spoiler Alert: we had a good race and a lot of fun.

Chris recently co-hosted the morning shakeout podcast with Mario Fraioli for the quarterly “Ask Mario Anything” series. A lot of great insight about marathon and ultramarathon training, nutrition, and the importance of taking breaks that is worth a listen.

Finally, we are going to be restocking the LTBz store soon so stay tuned for new ways to show your Löw Tide Pride.

ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship Course Walkthrough 

We are super lucky to have someone like Oscar Olsson come back on the show to walk us through the legendary ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship course. He knows the course like the back of his hand and he drops some major pro-tips that are good for everyone from first-timers to experienced teams racing on September 6. Basically, he gives us a masterclass on strategy for the 75km. He’s a great ambassador for the sport who clearly loves Swimrun and wants to help grow the sport. You definitely want your note pad out for this one!

Oscar’s World Championship Solid Gold Pro-Tips:

• With 24 runs and 23 swims, working to keep your transitions short and crisp will save you a ton of time over the day
• Don’t worry about jockeying for position on the first run in Sandhamn because the beach before the first swim is very wide and there’s plenty of space
• Take advantage of non-technical sections on the runs to find some pace
• Plan on cabbing down on the three long runs on the course unless the temperature is very cold to make sure that you’re not losing too much electrolytes that will affect your speed towards the end of the race
• Always take a gel before the Pig Swim
• Most athletes will be cold after the Pig Swim so try to keep moving to get the body temperature up
• Take energy before the swim that takes you to Ornö because there isn’t an energy station until about 8-9km into the long 20km run
• Cab down for the Ornö run
• In training, make sure do a long Swimrun session that ends with a 15km run so simulate what the long run on Ornö will feel like
• Make sure to notice the current direction 

You can follow Oscar Olsson on Instagram and definitely check out Livesporttv.se for awesome Swimrun content!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 133 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got our second race report of 2022 to share with everyone this week! We just got back from Portland Maine after racing the sixth edition of Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay and we’re super stoked to share all the details of our third pilgrimage to the original U.S. Swimrun.

It was a great weekend from the moment we arrived and it was amazing to meet so many new Swimrunners and reconnect with old ones at our LTBz Patreon lunch, Ödyssey’s bib pickup, on the ferry to the race start, and at our post-race party. 

The race itself was another level up for us. Our goal was to focus on keeping a steady effort throughout and be mindful of our nutrition and hydration on what ended up being a pretty warm and muggy day on the islands. We’re happy to report that we felt like we achieved our goal and had a ton of fun out on the course.

Our finishing time was 4:34:52, which was good for 5th place overall, 4th place mens team. Probably a better measure of our improvement was that our finishing time was a little over a half hour faster than our 2021 finishing time of 5:10.

This event was a blast and we plan on continuing our annual pilgrimage to Portland for this race next year. A huge shoutout to Lars, Aaron, John and Brent of the Ödyssey team for putting on a great event and for setting the vibe tone right from the start of the weekend all the way until the last finisher crossed the finish line.

Congrats to everyone that toed the line and hope to see you all again next year!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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:

1. Wear goggles that you can easily grab and clear during the swim while wearing swim paddles.
2. 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.
3. Use 4 inch wide KT or Rocktape on your neck to help prevent chaffing from the wetsuit.
4. 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com. 

Welcome to episode 116 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have a great show for everyone this week. Joining us in Studio G are brothers Lars and Jonas Ekman, A.K.A., Team Bröderna Bäver (The Beaver Brothers.) We’ve known about this team since we first started watching Rasmus’s ÖTILLÖ hype movies and noticed these two tall, fast and generously mustachioed guys that we perennially on the podium. It was super fun to get to chat with them.

But first... 

Training Update

We have an extended training update this week. The Böyz split up this weekend and engaged in separate feats of endurance (Chipper was in Catalina for the “Catalina Swimrun Challenge” and Chris ran the LA Marathon as part of a charity team with fellow Swimrunner and Kancho Boy, John) and we are sharing our “race reports” to each other for the first time here.

(Also, Swimrun Lake James is 4 weeks away) 

Shoutouts/Feats of Endurance

This week we’re doing a combo feat of endurance/shout out to everyone that came out to Catalina this past weekend and made it such a memorable event. This shoutout includes several first timers, several sherpas, some photographers, videographers, ice cream eaters, water stop volunteers, bike supporters, and generally amazing people.

So, in no particular order: Marcus, Beek, Trista, Amy, Anna, Matt, Ben, Alison, the Maestro twins Fatima and Roxan, Lindsey, Elisabeth, Greg, Bronwen, and Gwen, Chipper, Kristen, Charlie, Sonny, Liza, Tony, Laura, Abby, Kerianne, Mike, Christine (water and COKE!!) at ATWATER , and Sabrina. 

Extra-special shoutout to Christine for offering coke at her water stop. It was a game changer that late in the day, and so unexpected and appreciated.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Welcome to the LTBz news desk. We’re keeping it short this week because he have a packed show…and we didn’t have enough time to scour instagram for event updates.

Swimrun Maryland has announced that this year’s event will take place on Sunday, May 8 at Greenbrier State Park. This race has short (9.5 miles total with 1.6 miles of swimming) and long course (18.8 miles total with 2.4 miles of swimming) distances with solo and team options available for both. 

Over in France, the 2022 edition of the Anjou Swimrun is going down on May 7th. This is the 4th running of this local race and if you’ve never been to Angers or this region of western France, put it on your list!

That is it for this week. Feel free to reach out and let us know if there’s anything that you’d like for us to mention on the show.

Updates

The awesome folks at Precision Fuel and Hydration have set up the discount code LOWTIDE22 that’s good for 15% off of your first order. 

Our friends at Ödyssey Swimrun gave us the code “LOWTIDEBOYZ” that is good for 15% off of your registration for any and all of their 2022 events. 

Team Bröderna Bäver

Lars and Jonas are brothers, excellent athletes, and elite Swimrunners. They have done a ton of racing together and it was great to get to meet and catch up with them about their Swimrun journey and their team dynamics as siblings. We talked about a lot of stuff in this interview and even managed to get more pro tips to add to our running list for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. Chipper has even been inspired to grow a righteous mustache for the race in their honor. (Chris would as well, but his wife won’t let him.) This interview was a lot of fun and proved once again that Swimrunners are some of the best folks out there. Enjoy!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 219 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a great one for everyone this week! Joining us from England to talk about the inaugural Studland Swimrun is race director David Trehane. This race is a labor of love by someone who loves Swimrun as much as we do. We do a deep dive on the newest event to hit the U.K. Swimrun calendar with a course overview/tourism bureau advertisement and so much more.

But first…

Training Update

Haven’t shared a training update in a while. Besides continuing to train, perhaps the biggest announcement to share is that we are pivoting from racing ÖTILLÖ Engadin to ÖTILLÖ Whistler this summer.

Shoutout

This week’s shoutout goes to our newest Patron on Patreon: Aaron M. Thank you so much for the support and hope to see you at a race in the near future!

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is our friend Sarah Fergot for racing the Marin Ultra Challenge “MUC” 50 Miler in the heavenly Marin Headlands over the weekend. This was after attending a riveting talent show the night before for our children’s school so bonus points for that.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

We have a new piece of content for you all racing ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. We have assembled all our ÖTILLÖ-related episodes and content in one easy place on lowtideboyz.com. From our in depth course previews, to ÖTILLÖ-specific fueling and gear convos to our very own race reports you can find it all in one easy place. 

Studland Swimrun Course Preview

It was great to have a proper natter with David. He’s a long-time Swimrunner, first-time race director, and an all-around great guy. In this conversation we talked about the genesis for the Studland Swimrun, did a course preview, and so much more. This was a stellar conversation and this race is 100% on our bucket list and should be on yours as well.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 247 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a heartwarming episode for everyone this week. Joining us to share their ÖTILLÖ journey is Team Mamaa Boyz: Jarett and Pete. You might remember them from Episode 214 of the show where we interviewed them right after they found out that they qualified for ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship and we asked them to come back to close the circle on their journey. If you’re not inspired after listening to this conversation, listen to it again.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to Gear Talk: 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 Impressions

Ark Sports Kangaroo Review

Chris 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 Review

Some 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 Impressions

Friend 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 Seavenger

According 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 Impressions

Brooke 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 Impressions

Chipper 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 into. 

Annie wasn’t able to run in the SeaSnugs but she commutes to work on a bike and used the socks under her cycling shoes and they worked amazingly! Also, they are way cheaper than cycling-specific options.

Chris’s Pull Buoy Ranking

Chris gave the SeaSnugs 2 pull buoys. They were fine in the swim but they weren’t fun on the run and they weren’t for him.

Annie’s Pull Buoy Ranking

While Annie wasn’t able to test the SeaSnugs in a Swimrun and abstained from giving it a pull buoy ranking on that front. She did have two categorical rankings for the socks.

She gave them 4 pull buoys for non-Swimrun applications such as cycling in the Pacific Northwest.

She also gave them 5 pull buoys if your Swimrun partner uses them and swears by them.

Chipper’s Pull Buoy Ranking

Chipper gave the SeaSnugs 2.5 pull buoys. They weren’t for him. He does see an application for them but he wasn’t a fan of how hot his feet got and the seams were problematic. Side note: these socks are a great hack for cycling in cold and/or rainy weather.

Brooke’s Pull Buoy Ranking

Maybe not surprisingly, Brooke gave the SeaSnugs 4.5 pull buoys. She loves them on the run and the swim and has had zero issues using them. She took away ½ a pull buoy acknowledging that the seams could cause issues for folks.

Overall Impressions

It’s one of the best qualities of Swimrun that there’s no one way to do anything. This even includes the choice of socks. While these socks might not be for everyone, it was fun trying out the SeaSnugs to try to understand why Brooke was so into them. 

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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode 155 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This is our third annual “Fireside Chat” where we take a look back at 2022 and look forward to 2023. This year has been epic on so many levels and we are filled with gratitude for the love and support of our families, friends, Patreon members, brand sponsors, and fans of the show. Our brand of super niche content will continue unabated in 2023. Thanks again for your support all year!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 237 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We’ve got a great episode for everyone this week. Joining to talk about all things swimming is the founder of Effortless Swimming: Brenton Ford. If you’re not following their IG account for the wealth of swim tips that they share, you will by then of this conversation!

But first…

Training Update

With ÖTILLÖ Whistler in our rear view mirror, we have a couple of races coming up in quick succession with the Folsom Swimrun in a week and ÖTILLÖ Casco Bay in three-ish weeks. We’ll be training through Folsom and getting in some longer swims to get ready for the ocean swims in Maine.

Shoutout/Feats of Endurance

This week we are doing a combo to highlight everyone that raced Rockman over the weekend. Once again this epic race didn’t disappoint. For those who don’t know, this year’s edition of the race was 51 kms in distance with 6 kms of swimming in chilly fjord waters and 45 kms of “extreme” trail running. Oh, and there is almost 12,000’ of elevation gain on the course! Literally everyone that lined up for that race is a legend in our book.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

Show Business

Interested in joining us in Casco Bay or signing up for another ÖTILLÖ race in North America? Then use the code LOWTIDE15 to save 15% on your race registration for all their remaining 2024 events.

Interested in getting a pair of FORM Smart Swim 1 or Smart Swim 2 goggles? Send us a DM or email and we’ll give you a code for 15% off.

Effortless Swimming with Brenton Ford

It was great to chat with Brenton. We’ve watched so many of his videos and it was great to chat with him about his coaching philosophy, the importance of a strong core, and get his thoughts on what key Swimrun-specific swim sessions could look like. 

Learn more at effortlessswimming.com.

Enjoy!

~~~

That’s it for this week’s show. 

If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star rating and review since that’s the best way for people to discover the show and the sport of Swimrun. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube. Check out our website for Swimrun resources including gear guides, tips, how-to videos and so much more. Also make sure to check out our meme page @thelowtideboyz on Instagram. If you have any suggestions for the show or questions for us, send us a dm or an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode sixty-seven of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

On the show this week we have the one and only Aaron Palaian from Ödyssey Swimrun. He has a super interesting back story and we discuss everything from his roots in endurance sports to Orcas and Bears in Alaska to driving cross country flying the Swimrun flag and so much more. 

More on this interview later in the show.

Training Update

Training continues as usual and we’re definitely getting the itch to start Swimrunning again. 

Shoutouts

We are shouting out the Country of Taiwan this week. They recently climbed into the top ten for downloads by country and we loved seeing that! It still blows our minds the people listen to our show from all over the world and we’re full of gratitude for letting us into your ears.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is our friend Sarah Fergot. We’re pretty sure that she’s won this award before but her Marin High 5 Unsupported (solo) 50 mile FKT with 12,103ft (3,689m) of climbing over the weekend is pretty much an automatic award. She’s awesome and this feat is definitely amazing!

Make sure to join the LTBz Strava Club and get inspired by your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a couple of updates to share this week.

Torpedo Swimrun held their Cape race over the weekend in Cape Town, South Africa. The course looked epic as it hugged the coastline and had a beach finish. We’re working on getting the folks from Torpedo on the podcast to talk about the growing Swimrun scene in South Africa so stay tuned for that.

ÖTILLÖ announced this week that they are moving the date of ÖTILLÖ SWIMRUN UTÖ to June 19-20 from the original date due to uncertainty around Swedish restrictions around hosting events. ÖTILLÖ also announced that they have opened registration for Isles of Scilly 2022 and encourage participants to book their accommodations early since there are a limited number of beds there and they are booked up to a year in advance.

In the weekly bummer department, Swimrun Costa Brava by HEAD announced last Friday that they had to cancel their event that was slated to take place on April 17th due to COVID restrictions put in place by the Catalonian government. No rescheduled date has been announced.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

A huge thanks to everyone that attended our Encore Premiere of All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions with special quests Carl Eneroth, George Bjälkemo, and Pontus Lindberg over the weekend. If you missed the Premiere, the film is available for rent or purchase at alltheway.se and all the proceeds go towards The Archipelago Foundation that helps preserve the Stockholm Archipelago that birthed the sport of Swimrun.

This Week’s Interview

It was really fun to have Aaron Palaian on the show. He’s the final person for us to interview from the Ödyssey Swimrun crew. He’s the COO/jack of all trades with a ton of experience in race directing, photography, marketing, and web design. He shared his super interesting origin story and how he found Swimrun. We covered everything from him getting into endurance sports to “impress the ladies,” how he became a uber-successful triathlon race director, how he created some epic Ultra Triathlons like Alaskaman, and how Lars moved to Texas and started to win all of Aaron’s races. We also chatted about the two new races on the Ödyssey race calendar: Luddington and Mackinac Island. Finally, we went into how Ödyssey is working to make Swimrun accessible for everyone that wants to try it.

There’s a lot of good stuff in this interview! You can learn more about Aaron on his website and follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can 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 Buoy

By 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 Test

We 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 Review

Swim 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 Review

Running 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 Rankings

Chipper: 4.5 Pull Buoys

Chipper 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 Buoys

Chris 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 the water. 

Swimrun Labs’s Rankings

Annie: 4.5 Pull Buoys

Annie thought that the Keel is a super powerful pull buoy, that looks cool and increases performance. She docked it .5 pull buoys because of those slightly overdesigned elements that could lead to some discomfort for certain body types.

Brooke: 4 Pull Buoys

Brooke agreed with Annie’s take on the Keel. She arrived at 4 pull buoys by docking .5 pull buoy lost for being overdesigned and another .5 for the cost of the Keel. It’s a little cost prohibitive for people getting first into swimrun when you include shipping from Sweden. All that being said, the performance gains offered by the Keel in the water are undeniable.

Overall Impressions

Overall, we would definitely recommend the Arksports Keel Pull Buoy. It’s pricey but it checks off all the boxes for what a swimrun pull buoy should provide. While it might be slightly overdesigned and not as comfortable as it could be, it’s still an amazing piece of swimming technology. Not only will it literally make you faster in the water, you’re supporting a great brand that is synonymous with the sport of swimrun.

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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com

. 

Welcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs review show!

In this episode, we break down all the different training aids that you can use to take your Swimrun training/racing to the next level.

Before we get into that discussion, we have a few gear updates.

GEAR UPDATES

Just a few gear updates this week.

Brooke finally tried some HOKA ONE ONE shoes (Speedgoats) and she’s really liking them as an alternative to her usual INOV-8 shoes that she uses.

Chipper finally pulled the trigger and ordered a Red Original Pro-Change Robe for those chilly mornings on the pool deck. That leaves Chris as the only member of the group just using a towel.

SWIMRUN TRAINING TOOLS DISCUSSION

Since it’s still the off-season, we thought that it would be good to talk about what people can do now to come back stronger for the (hopefully) upcoming Swimrun season.

We all recommend that if you’re planning on trying to improve this off-season that you get an understanding of your fitness metrics. Whether that’s heart rate zones or RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion), understanding where you are at will help you get to where you want to go. Chris used to use songs to calibrate what zone he was in. For example, if he could sign Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart” while on the bike it meant that he was riding his bike in zone 2. If he couldn’t belt out the lyrics, it meant he was above where he wanted to be.

Overall, we recommend that athletes have a plan for what they want to work on. Having a purpose for each session will help keep you focused on your progress. Along with purpose, since this is a gear show, we thought that we would list some of the types of training tools that you can use to take your performance to the next level. 

Strength Tools

Stretch cords, therabands and/or stretch bands are a cheap and effective way to add some resistance to your routine to add more strength that will help you become more injury-proof and, uhm, stronger. Check out the Swimrun Labs page of training tips for using stretch bands.

Bosu Balls or other products that create unstable or wobbly surfaces are also great for working on the smaller muscles to prevent injury.

There are also swimming-specific stretch cords that have paddles built in that are perfect for warm-ups before swims.

You can also check out Episode 17 of the Podcast with Strength and Running Coach, Nate Helming for more training tips.

Run Tools

Not a lot of tools here, just vary your stimulus by running hills or terrain that you’re not used to. Try different shoes, maybe load up a backpack with some water bottles, or work on downhill running. Don’t have a hill in your area? Maybe there is a bridge that you can do hill repeats on. Basically, where there is a will, there’s a way. 

You can also check out Episode 30 of Podcast with Running Coach, Mario Fraioli for great insight on how to vary your workouts while you prepare for a particular race.

Swim Tools

Swimming has the most training aids by far. Here we break down the tools that we use. As we mentioned above but especially with swimming, having a training plan or focus for each swim will help you improve.

“Essentials”

Pool Pull Buoy

Ankle Strap

Snorkel

Swim Fins

Swim Paddles

Depending on what you're trying to work on in the pool, these essentials can really help you work on your technique to become a better/faster swimmer. Just like strength or running, adding external resistance will help make you stronger. Note: if you’re new to ankle straps make sure that you pair it with a pull buoy because it will cause significant drag. Wearing an ankle strap can also simulate the resistance of swimming in shoes.

“Nice to Have”

Multiple Sizes of Swim Paddles

Kick board

Neoprene SIM shorts

Swim bands/stretch cords

These Swim toys are nice to have to mix things up and create new stimuli. If you’re Brooke, you can get a kettlebell and walk the bottom of the pool while holding it. (Just remember to drop it and get to the surface to breathe.

“Baller Status”

Dry robe 

Garmin Swim 2 watch (underwater wrist-based heart rate)

Garmin HRM-Swim Heart Rate Monitor (to pair with your existing GPS watch) 

Dry robes are pricey but they are super comfy and easy to change underneath. There are several brands out there including Red Original, Dry Robe, and Smoc Smoc. Here’s a video with a review of all the dry robe styles out there.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

We hope this episode gives you some ideas on gear that you can get to help make 2021 your best Swimrun season yet. Let us know if you’re using a product that you love that we didn’t mention and think that we should. Stay safe and happy training!

That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram and on Twitter. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode nine of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!

Team ARKsouls Addnature Ötillö Race Report

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. 

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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com. 

Swimrun Adventure Gear Essentials

Welcome to Gear Talk: The Löw Tide Böyz and Swimrun Labs review show!

In this episode, we chat about all the things you should consider when planning, executing, and experiencing an epic Swimrun Adventure.

Before we get into that, we have some gear updates.

GEAR UPDATES

Just a few gear updates this week.

Chipper went nuts and bought an ARK Sports VIGG and KORP suit during their one day sale back in December. (Chris bought a KORP because #FOMO) Chipper also got a new Michael Phelps pool snorkel that was a huge improvement on his old one.

In the cold Pacific Northwest, Annie and Brooke have found some new gear that makes the cold water temps slightly more bearable. Brooke got a red original Dry Robe (three-quarter sleeve) that she absolutely loves! She also got the NRS Maxim 3mm gloves that have been essential for some of the super cold swims that she’s been doing. Annie recently got some NRS Hydroskin 1.5 Wetsocks and they have been amazing in cold water.

SWIMRUN ADVENTURE GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

A good place to start is with planning the route. Using existing maps from Google, Strava routes, All Trails, CalTOPO, or Foot Path. (Annie loves Foot Path)

Below are some of the general things to keep in mind when planning for a Swimrun Adventure:

• Duration of Adventure
  • Most Swimrun events are 80% running and 20% swimming so keep that in mind when planning the course.
• Location (remoteness, access to potable water, cell phone reception, the familiarity of trails/course/water currents)
• Time of year (water/air temperature, is it hunting or fishing season, marina/busy waterways)
• Don’t go alone
• What are you going to do nutrition-wise? Static aid station (like a car), mobile aid station (friend in a car), or stashing nutrition somewhere on the course.

GEAR CONSIDERATIONS

Gear should mirror whatever you would wear for any given Swimrun race taking into account all the things that you would for the race (water temp., terrain, nutrition/fueling demands.) We would also recommend using a brightly colored swim cap and use a Swim Buoy for visibility and some storage. Making sure that you have some waterproof protection for items like a phone or keys. Consider printing out maps in case there isn’t cell reception. Annie recommends using Rite in the Rain brand printer paper to make your maps.

You may need to take on much more water and nutrition depending on the duration and remoteness of the adventure. Try to eat more real food if you’re planning a long adventure. We would also recommend some type of water filtration option in case there is good access to freshwater such as the Katadyn BeFree Water Filter.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

We hope this episode gives you some insight into how to plan and execute an epic Swimrun adventure with your mates. Have fun and tag us in your photos.

That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram and on Twitter. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode sixty-two of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We know that we always say that we’re always super stoked about our guests but it’s just true. This week is no exception. On the show this week we have Carl Eneroth, the filmmaker behind the forthcoming documentary All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. This film chronicles the journey of George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg as they prepare for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship. But this film is so much more than that, it’s really a window into the sport of Swimrun and why it’s awesome. 

The free online premiere of the film is scheduled for March 24th and we highly, highly encourage anyone who loves Swimrun to check it out. We also encourage anyone who loves someone who loves Swimrun to check it out as well.

More on this interview later in the show.

Shoutouts/Feats of Endurance

This week we’re doing a combo shoutout and awarding our friend, and the previous guest of the show way back on episode twenty-eight, Adam Skolnick. He completed David Goggins’s 4x4x48 over the weekend and did great! As big proponents of “unnecessary” feats of endurance, Adam really stepped out of his comfort zone, put himself out there, and got it done. Strong work brother!

We had a few other folks in our Strava club take on the challenge so congrats to Ben and Tony and anyone else that we might have missed.

Make sure to join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a couple of updates to share this week.

ÖTILLÖ Swimrun announced some changes to their 2021 race schedule due to the ever-changing COVID situation. ÖTILLÖ Malta has been postponed to November 2021 and unfortunately, ÖTILLÖ Isles of Scilly has been postponed to 2022. 

The third edition of Swimrun del Bilancino is taking place on June 13 in Barberino di Mugello in the Tuscany region of Italy. The race offers two distances (SPRINT with 4km swim and 18km run and PROMO with 1.5km swim and 10km run) and did we mention that it’s in Tuscany! Thank you to race director Paul Bernier for bringing this race to our attention. (In case the name Mugello rings a bell to fans of F1, it’s the location of the circuit by the same name and the test track for Ferrari.)

In other race news, the Trans Cape Swimrun took place over the weekend in Western Australia. The race was completely sold out and photos on Instagram showed an epic day for racing with really cool terrain and, of course, a ton of smiling faces. 

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

This Week’s Interview

 is a saying that this week’s guest Carl Eneroth mentioned to us and we think that it perfectly embodies the spirit of Swimrun. It means “Team before self” and Carl found a way to capture that spirit in his film, All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. In the film, Carl shows the magic of the sport in a way in a multi-layered way that we haven’t seen presented before. Following George and Pontus (two world-class humans, athletes, and previous guests on the show) as they train for the 2018 and 2019 ÖTILLÖ World Championship, the film interlaces interviews from previous winners and giants of the sport with race footage and successfully makes the case that Swimrun is a hero’s pursuit.

In this interview, we chatted with Carl about how he got into filmmaking and how he discovered Swimrun and what was the spark that led him to want to make a documentary about the sport. We discussed some of the central themes of the film including the magnetic Swimrun community, the joy of moving through nature, the insights into what it takes to Swimrun at a high level, and, of course, collectively agree that George and Pontus are awesome.

We encourage everyone to sign up on the film’s website to watch the free premiere on March 24th at 8PM CET (11AM Pacific.) If you haven’t already drank the Kool Aid on Swimrun before watching it, you’ll start drinking it during this film.

You can learn more about Carl and his film company, The Stockholm Social Innovation Lab on their website. 

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Welcome to episode 102 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This week we have the 3-time ÖTILLÖ World Champion Adriel Young on the show. For those who don’t know Adriel, he’s a Swimrunner whose legend is being written as we speak…and also happens to be one of the nicest guys in the sport. We caught up with him at the start of his holiday and had a great chat.

But first... 

Training Update

The end of the off-season is nigh! It’s almost time to start getting back to work for our build to ÖTILLÖ Catalina and we predict a lot of steep hill work in our near future.

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out our newest member on Patreon, Molly Erker. Thank you so much for the support. We really, really, really appreciate it!

Speaking of Patreon…we are going to start beefing up our engagement on that platform for our super fans. Starting in a few weeks we will start hosting quarterly virtual meetups on Zoom, set up webinars with coaches, race directors and other personalities in the Swimrun space, give phat discounts on LTBz swag, and do random giveaways throughout the year. Really we’re just trying to give back more to the folks that help us keep the lights on. Want some of that action? Go to patreon.com/lowtideboyz to learn more.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to Simrranvier Rana from Thailand. Sim is our first Strava Club member from Thailand and he’s planning on doing his first Swimrun next year.

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and life.

This Week In Swimrun

We have a short update this week.

A friendly reminder that the registration window is now open for teams seeking to race ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship. Best of luck to everyone trying to qualify for the original Swimrun.

Don’t know what we’re talking about? Check out our podcast episode all about qualifying for ÖTILLÖ.

In other news, Ödyssey Swimrun has released their list of 2022 events and dates. Casco Bay will be held on July 17th about a month earlier than in previous years. Mackinac Island will take place on August 28th. Orcas Island is happening on September 18th. Closing out the year, Austin will take place on November 6th. Unfortunately, the Luddington event is not going to have a second edition in 2022. Registration is opening soon, so make sure that you’ve signed up for the Ödyssey newsletter to stay on top of the early bird registration prices.  

That’s it for this week. Make sure to tip us off if there is any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

Our new headwear is here! Head over to our shop to see our new hats and beanies. They won’t arrive in time for Christmas but that’s ok.

Our latest episode of Gear Talk is out! In this show, The Swimrun Labs and us review the Ark Sports Keel s pull buoy. Check it out to find out why we think that there’s not much “s” about it!

Adriel Young

We are super stoked to have 3-time World Champion Adriel Young on the show. There are too many superlatives that we could use to describe Adriel so we’ll just say that he’s pretty cool. We had a lot of fun chatting with him about his epic 2021 Swimrun season, his Swimrun “training,” why Oscar Olsson is such a legend (this is definitely a “game recognize game” situation), and why this year’s World Championship was so special. We keep saying this of pretty much all our guests but it’s true, Adriel is a great ambassador for the sport and we love his energy and enthusiasm for Swimrun.

You can follow Adriel on Instagram.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 115 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

This week’s episode is one for the books! Friend of the pod, Bill Lankford (from Team Mr. and Mrs. B,) suggested that we do an episode helping “older” folks get into endurance events and Swimrunning in particular. We couldn’t think of a better person to ask to come on the show than the legendary endurance Coach Joe Friel. This is a seriously great conversation and we’re blessed to have Coach Friel on the show!

But first... 

Training Update

Swimrun Lake James is 5 weeks away! Chipper will be rust busting this weekend in Catalina while Chris will be just trying to not bust during the LA Marathon. 

Shoutouts

This week we’re shouting out our newest Patron on Patreon, Brooke Fallon. Thank you for supporting our podcast journey! Stay Fearless!

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Leung from Indonesia. Posted a ride over the weekend and it’s just so cool that we have folks in our Strava Club living in Indonesia.

Join in on the fun and sign up for our LTBz Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns, life, and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Welcome to the LTBz news desk.

Down under in Australia, The 26km Trans Cape Swimrun took place this past weekend. So great to see this event grow the last few years as well as seeing more Australians getting into the sport of Swimrun.

In case you’re looking for a cool race plan in a few weeks…Hero Swimrun is going down on March 26th in Rio de Janeiro. If you can get there, go! (Programming alert, Fabio Iskandarian of Hero Swimrun will be joining us at the news desk in a few weeks for our special/random segment, Race Director Reports.)

Finally, our friends at Wild Swimrun announced the date for this year’s Utö Swimrun Camp. This year’s camp will be on the weekend of May 14th. Make sure you follow them on Instagram for more details about the camp or sign up at raceid.com.

Shameless plug time: we are raising money to help fund scholarships for women and girls to be able to participate in Wild Swimrun through their Wild Youth Initiative. We’ve already funded two scholarships but we would like to keep it going. If you’re interested in contributing to that, just go to our website and scroll to the bottom of the homepage or click the link in the show notes.

That is it for this week. Feel free to reach out and let us know if there’s anything that you’d like for us to mention on the show.

Updates

We gots discount codes! 

The awesome folks at Precision Fuel and Hydration have set up the discount code LOWTIDE22 that’s good for 15% off of your first order. Trust us, try out their hydration powder and gels.

Our friends at Ödyssey Swimrun gave us the code “LOWTIDEBOYZ” that is good for 15% off of your registration for any and all of their 2022 events. Hope to see you all at their first race of the season this July in Casco Bay Maine.

Legendary Coach Joe Friel

It was a very Wayne’s World moment to interview Coach Joe Friel. That moment was made even more so by how welcoming he was and how generous he was with his time. In this conversation, we focused on the topic of training for older adults and peppered him with listener questions. Despite Chris almost ruining the interview at the end, this interview was a lot of fun and somehow raised our already ridiculously high opinion of Coach Friel. Get your notepads out for this one! 

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris

Welcome to episode 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com. 

Welcome to episode sixty-five of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

In this episode, we chat with the race director of Swimrun Lake James, Kristen Jeno. This year’s race is coming up on April 24th and we have the origin story and a mini-course preview for everyone to listen to.

More on this interview later in the show.

Shoutouts

We have a major shoutout this week to our friends G Flo and Tobias of Team Max Mockermann (and guest on Episode 57 of the Podcast) for sending us a custom LTBz blanket for Christmas. It took over three months for the blanket to arrive from Germany but we were super stoked to receive it and we’re full of gratitude for them making the effort. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award(s) go to Stirling and Lolo of Team Run for Tacos. They held a fundraising event a few weekends ago on Strava and have a Swimrun in their sights for 2021. Keep up the great work guys!

Don’t know what we’re talking about? Join us on Strava and cheer on your fellow Swimrunners as they train all over the world and win free stickers and other cool stuff.

This Week in Swimrun (Powered by Raceid.com)

We have a couple of updates to share this week.

It looks like Swimrunning events in Portugal are back! Swimrun Portugal (check out our interview with race director Bruno Safara on Episode 35 of the podcast) recently announced that the Tamega Swimrun powered by Head Swimming is happening. The race is scheduled for June 6th and offers two distance options. Registration is open on raceid.com.

In more of a bummer, the Anjou Swimrun in Angers France announced that they are postponing their 2021 event to 2022. They will be emailing all registered participants with their defer and refund options.

The premiere for the film All the Way:The Making of Swimrun Champions was a resounding success last week. Anyone interested in seeing the film has until April 5 to be able to watch it for free at alltheway.se. In related news, we are working on hosting an encore premiere for U.S. swimrunners. We’ll be sharing news about that as soon as we have the date and special guests confirmed.

That’s it for this week. Feel free to email us to tip us off to any events or Swimrun news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

We have a major update to share! With the help of some generous donations (looking at you Trista and Lori), we’ve managed to raise enough funds to sponsor a second young woman to attend a Wild Swimrun camp as part of their Wild Youth Initiative. We love everything that Wild Swimrun is about and we’re so happy to play a very small part in helping introduce the sport to more women. If you want to learn more about Wild Swimrun, check out our interview with Co-founders Mia and Fanny on Episode 10 of the podcast.

The new LTBz hats are here and all the pre-orders have been mailed out! Head over to our store to order one if you’re feeling some FOMO. Use code “NEWLID” to save $10 off any order of $50 or more!

This Week’s Interview

This week’s interview checks off a lot of boxes. We got to chat with a trailblazing race director, learned about the history of Swimrun Lake James, and got a mini-course preview before the sold-out April 24th race. 

It was great to connect with Kristen Jeno to chat with her about all these topics before the kickoff of the 2021 U.S. Swimrun race calendar. In this interview, we discussed her athletic background and her discovery of Swimrun. (BTW, her first race was the World Championship!) We chatted about her race director background and how she developed her concept to host a Swimrun in Lake James, North Carolina. We got a bird’s eye view of this year’s racecourse from and discussed what the future holds for Swimrunning.

You can learn more about Swimrun Lake James on their website.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can 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 Update

We 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 Outs

This 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 Award

This week’s award is going out to Rob from San Anselmo. He’s been putting some work in! Congrats.

New Segment Alert

Starting 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 Updates

Our 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!

Interview

Caroline 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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined. 

Welcome to episode sixty-four of the Low Tide Boyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Welcome to the inaugural LTBz Go To the Movies episode where we review the film All the Way: The Making of Swimrun Champions. This film chronicles the journey of George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg as they prepare for the ÖTILLÖ World Championship. But this film is so much more than that, it’s really a window into the sport of Swimrun and why it’s awesome. 

It tells the story of Swimrun in a way that can appeal to everyone. The film’s director, Carl Eneroth, shares his discovery and journey in Swimrun and uses his perspective to uncover the magic of the sport and, specifically, the World Championship. The film premiered on March 24th.

We were lucky enough to get access to an early version of the film and were blown away by how great it was. George and Pontus were worthy subjects for the film and their humility and commitment to each other showcases some of the best aspects of the sport of Swimrun. The other main character in the film, the Stockholm Archipelago where the sport was born 15 years ago, is both mysterious and enticing for anyone who is predisposed to Swimrun. With the help of ÖTILLÖ, Carl was able to infuse the film with amazing race footage produced by Rasmus Lodenius (learn more about Rasmus on Episode 39 of the podcast) that leaves the audience with a great sense of the magic of the sport.

All in all, we both thought that the film was a great way to showcase the sport Swimrun and George and Pontus are easy heroes to care and root for. We recommend this film to everyone who might be interested in Swimrun and if you’ve already drank the kool-aid on the sport this film is sure to keep that flame burning bright. 

You can learn more about the film at alltheway.se and rent it through that page. All proceeds from rentals and purchases will go to Skärgårdsstiftelsen (The Archipelago Foundation) that has been working since 1959 to preserve and develop the archipelago from Arholma to Landsort. 

We have been lucky enough to interview many of the swimrunners in All the Way. Here are a list and corresponding episode number if you want to dive in deeper!

Mats Skott, Otillo | Episode 16

Erica Rosebaum | Episdoe 22

Daniel Hanson (in Engadin Course Preview) | Episode 24

Kraken Ultra Swimrun w/ George & Pontus | Episode 36

Rasmus Lodenius | Episode 39

Annika Erickson | Episode 55 

Carl Eneroth, Director All the Way | Episode 62

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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Ark Sports KORP Wetsuit Review

Welcome to Gear Talk! As always, this show is co-hosted by our friends Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs.

In this episode we do a deep dive into the Ark Sports KORP Wetsuit. This suit has gotten a lot of attention lately due to Ark deeply discounting the suit by 50% for a week that caused the corner of the internet that cares about Swimrun to freak out. We know that a lot of people purchased these suits so we breakdown all of our thoughts on this amazing piece of kit.

But first, we are unveiling a new segment...

Untethered Thoughts

We got a great email from Jasper from Belgium with some feedback about our winter open water swimming AND our swim paddles episodes. We really appreciated him taking the time to write to us and that inspired us to create this segment.

Jasper (who has a PhD in physiology) wrote to us to clear up that the reason that people tend to pee more when it’s cold is that kidneys are flushing fluid out in order to release pressure from your system to send blood to your core to keep your organs warm. Hence, you can get more dehydrated in cold water so make sure that you’re on top of your hydration all the time, but definitely during cold events.

Jasper also had some feedback on some swim paddle testing that he did and had some interesting findings. He found that if he shortened the distance from the tip of the swim paddle to the tip of his fingers that this made his swim times be faster with less shoulder strain. It totally makes sense that if you shorten the lever arm (length of the arm with paddles) that this reduces the torque on the shoulder. If your paddles have extra holes for straps, try to moving them so that your fingertips are closer to the edge of the paddles and see if that works for you. 

Thank you again Jasper!

Reach out to us if you have anything that you’d like to share with us to be part of this new segment. 

New Gear First Impressions

We have two items to discuss this week. 

Chipper and Chris got the NU Orza Pull Buoy courtesy of The Swimrun Labs. This pull buoy is comparable in size with the new Ark Sport Keel s and comes with a pre-drilled hole and a yellow paracord for mounting. We’re excited to check it out and do a full review on a future episode.

Chipper and Chris also got a special delivery from Frank Paddle a few weeks back with two sets of carbon fiber swim paddles to test. Their first impressions are that these things are incredible! A full review will be coming out soon. If you want to learn more about these paddles in the meantime, check out episode 50 of the podcast with Frank Paddle’s founder, Fredrik Bengtsson.

Finally, Annie was recently contacted by a couple of companies that are designing Swimrun-specific undergarments for women. Handful (that’s the name of the company) sent over some prototypes for the ladies to test and Innovenia reached out for some customer feedback. Here is the survey link for the Innovenia research. 

Announcements

Chipper and Chris were in the garage where most of the show ideas seem to be born and they came up with the idea to create a “Swimrun Swapmeet” on FB. This is a forum for people that are looking for Swimrun gear to buy, sell or trade. So if anyone got one of the KORP suits on faith but the sizing didn’t work out, we have a place for you to try to trade it. Join the Swimru Swap Meet today! 

The Wetsuit Details from Ark Sports

Ark Sports describes the KORP as “the optimal all-round” wetsuit. Their website states that “the suit is designed to cover the whole spectra of swimrun races, from shorter sprints to longer full-day adventures. This suit is designed for the athlete who prefers a lightweight and flexible suit where comfort is key.”

The KORP is Ark’s entry-level option but the suit is packed with tech. The suit has the following features:

• Premium Yamamoto LIMESTONE neoprene
• Low weight
• Scratch-resistant surface
• Running+
• Master buoyancy belt - 3 mm
• Anti-leak neck
• UltraFlex inner liner
• Back pocket with zipper closure
• Separate arm sleeves included

A medium-size suit weighs in at a ridiculously light 550 grams (19.4 ounces).

Running Impressions

Running in the KORP is a dream! This “Gen2” wetsuit (a wetsuit little to no neoprene below the waist) like the rest of the Ark Sports suits designed by Daniel Sand, is optimized for running. You can learn more about Daniel on episode 53 of the podcast. The bottom of the suit uses Ark’s Running + fabric that is great to run in and comparable to the Running ++ fabric that Ark uses on the UTÖ and the VIGG. The neoprene on the top of the suit is thin and comfortable to run in.

Chipper and Chris took the KORP on a hilly trail run. Cabbing up and down was not a problem at all. Chris thought that the neckline wasn’t as comfortable as the VIGG suit.

Swimming Impressions

Chris and Chipper tested a suit in the pool. They both thought that the suit was comfortable to swim in. There was some water that got in through the neck closure and pooled in the lower back but that might be mitigated by making sure that the neckline is sealed right. More testing is required.

Brooke tested the suit in open water and did have an issue with the neck seal and had some water pool in her lower back while swimming. She didn’t have any discomfort with the neck closure that Chris and Chipper experienced.

This suit felt a little more durable than other Ark Suits that we’ve tested. (Check out our review of the Ark Sports ORNÖ)

Transition Impressions

The KORP cabs down and up easily and transitions shouldn’t be an issue with this suit. We did have some questions about the placement of the zipper on the back pocket. We thought that it could have been better to either move the zipper to one side or the other or stick to the flap pockets that other Ark suits employ.

Pull Buoy Rankings Rankings

Brooke 4 Pull Buoys

Brooke thought that there is some room for improvement with the suit. She plans on racing in the suit this year. She knocked off some points for the neckline seal issues and for Ark’s “no returns” policy.

Chipper 4.5 Pull Buoys

Chipper thought that for the price point, this suit is good for everyone from beginners to advanced. The suit is durable, comes with separate arm sleeves, and versatile enough to be used in most races.

Chris 4 Pull Buoys

Chris gave the KORP 4 pull buoys but wants to give it 4.5 buoys if he can solve the neckline discomfort. Overall, this is an amazing suit that checks off a lot of boxes. He plans on training in it and maybe racing in it depending on the event.

Overall Impressions

If you’re looking for an entry-level wetsuit to use in a variety of training and racing conditions then look no further than the Ark Sport KORP. This suit packs in a lot of tech for the price point and won’t be obsolete anytime soon.

That’s it for this week’s Gear Talk show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions, and/or meme ideas. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.