World Champions Desirée Andersson and Victor Dahl

Welcome to Episode 100 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We did it! It’s hard to believe that we’ve reached 100 episodes of the show, yet here we are.

We have a very special show this week to commemorate hitting the century mark. We will take a walk down memory lane over the almost 2-year history of the show. If that wasn’t enough, we are joined on the show this week by reigning ÖTILLÖ Mixed Team World Champions and World Record holders Desirée Andersson and Victor Dahl, A.K.A. Team Envol HEAD Swimming.

There are no words to adequately express our gratitude for you listening to our super niche show...but that won’t stop us from trying.

“What Does Your Show Do?”

Rich Roll was asked this question when he was visiting Minneapolis to cover the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by some community activists. He mentioned that he wrestled with how to answer the question because it was so direct and in the moment. Hearing that struck us by how easy a question that is for us to answer. What does our show do? We get people super stoked on Swimrun!

Our Swimrun/Podcast Journey

It’s safe to say that when we started this show in January of 2020 that we did not have many expectations. We knew that we were super stoked on Swimrun and that no one we knew had heard about the sport...except from us. Given our backgrounds in digital marketing and brand building (and crucially, Chipper’s previous podcast experience), we thought that we could put out a good show, help people discover and de-mystify Swimrun, have some fun writing the first Swimrun Meme account, and we would see what happened. Our plan was to at least chronicle our Swimrun journey through March of 2020.

Our first few guests were friends that gave us the “why not” answer with a chuckle when we asked them to come on. The Swimrun Monks and Team Envol Baywatch were awesome enough to answer our DMs and come on the show in the early months. Our first “get” of a guest was Christofer Sundberg, Co-Founder of Ark Sports. While this interview probably also falls into the “why not” reasoning for coming on, Ark Sports will always have a special place in our hearts for saying yes.

When we got to Catalina for the ÖTILLÖ World Series race we began to realize that we may have started something when some “fans” came up to us on the ferry to show us their pull buoys. (Shoutout Colleen, Libby, and Tori!) The weekend just got wilder and wilder and that didn’t even take into account the race! Oh, and Chipper got quoted in a New York Times article about ÖTILLÖ Catalina. (Shoutout to our brother and forever favorite journalist, Adam Skolnick!)

We were definitely riding high after Catalina and had pretty much committed to keep doing the show and then BAM! Planet Earth got hit with a once in a generation pandemic. We weren’t sure what we were going to do at first but quickly decided that we were going to try to keep the “stoke level” high and just keep following our curiosity to learn more about the sport and the amazing people that are a part of it. Along the way, we started the Gear Talk show with Annie and Brooke from the Swimrun Labs (whom we love) so we could geek out about all things gear and help answer all the questions that we had started getting from folks getting into the sport, we launched a YouTube channel to share more info about Swimrun, and our Meme account found new levels of ridiculousness.

Well, fast forward to now, it’s safe to say that the show is a “thing.” We have tried to foster community wherever we could, we’ve made friends from all over the world, we’ve gotten better at swimming and running, and our love for the Swimrun community keeps blossoming.

So. Many. People. To. Thank.

Now for the longest shoutout segment in the history of the show.

First, no walk down the LTBz memory lane would even be possible without the seemingly undying support of our respective wives, Kristen and Susan. Their encouragement/acquiescence on our Swimrun journey has been amazing and we are truly thankful for their support.

The support that we have gotten from races and brands including ÖTILLÖ, Ödyssey Swimrun, Ark Sports, Frank Paddle, Precision Hydration and so many others has been amazing. It’s inspiring to us to see so many companies trying to grow the sport in the right way.

A giant thank you to all the show guests that agreed to come on the podcast. Thank you for your enthusiasm, candor, and perspective. A special thank you to our LTBz correspondents in the field for just agreeing to do that. We know it was super random.

Last, but definitely not least, we want to thank all our listeners and fans for tuning in. We’re constantly amazed that people actually listen and find the information useful. Obviously, that’s what we are going for but it’s still surreal to us that we’ve had over 61,000 downloads at the time of recording and the pace is only speeding up. Thank you all so much for the encouragement, for giving us feedback on how to make the show better, and for fueling us to keep trying to put together good content for you.

Our Swimrun journey continues and we can’t wait to share it with all of you!

Interview with Desirée and Victor

We are honored to have Desirée Andersson and Victor Dahl join us on the podcast for this special episode and we couldn’t think of a better team to have on. Not only do they win everything they touch, they are two of the nicest and most welcoming ambassadors of the sport. We chatted with them about how they got paired up (thank you Nicolas Remirez,) how they trained and raced to get dialed in for the World Championship, we talked about their record breaking performance in this year’s race, and what the future holds for Team Envol HEAD Swimming.

They are great and we think that you’ll enjoy this conversation.

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