John Yelland, Mad Hatter Sports

Welcome to episode 123 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

We have a great show for everyone this week. Joining us in Studio G is John Yelland, one of the founders of Mad Hatter Sports and organizer of the upcoming Hokey Cokey Swimrun taking place on May 21st in Cornwall, UK. This was a great interview filled with lots of laughs, a feel-good origin story, and, of course, Swimrun content.

But first...

Training Update

We are back at it after taking a light break the week after Swimrun Lake James. We are now upping the swim volume, the run volume, and, well, just a lot more volume all around as we barrel towards ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship in September.

Want to learn more about our ÖTILLÖ build? Check out our Countdown to ÖTILLÖ episodes.

Next up for us is Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay on July 17th. Based on our calculations, it is 9 weeks away!

Shoutouts

We haven’t given out any shoutouts the last few weeks so here’s an outsized shoutout for our new Patrons on Patreon. Thank you Nick and Hannah M., Jeff H., and Dave D. for supporting our brand of super niche content and helping to fund our random sticker giveaway. (BTW, another giveaway is coming soon!)

We also want to give a special shoutout to a fellow Bay Area Swimrunner Jonathan Pascual. He was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 paraganglioma cancer, a rare and aggressive form of cancer and he began chemotherapy and radiation last week. If anyone wants to help him and his family cover some of their upcoming medical expenses, his friends have set up a gofundme page to accept donations.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s winner is Abby Rose. She’s been crushing some major open water swims lately including the 5 Cove’s of Death swim in Aquatic Park (5 loops around the perimeter of historic cold water home of the Dolphin and South End Rowing Clubs…and training ground of the Löw Tide Böyz), then a casual 4-hour, 12,000yd-ish swim, and she even swam in the green waters of Foster City. Strong work out there Abby!

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 got a long one for everyone today so buckle in.

Swimrun season is open all over the world and we have a few weeks of races to catch up on!

Here in the states, Swimrun Maryland took place on Sunday, May 8 at Greenbrier State Park. We were told that the water was chilly but good times were had by all.

In Europe, there were a couple of races this past weekend, including Swimrun Portugal’s Lagoa Swimrun which looked ridiculously epic and the Anjou Swimrun which also looked amazing.

But that is not all, in the last few weeks since our last TWIS update, there have been a bunch of awesome Swimruns, including Swimrun Costa Brava and Swimrunman Gorges du Verdon. Both of these events looked world class and so was the podiums that featured a lot of former guests of the show including, Victor Dahl, Alexis Charrier, Hugo Tormento, Desirée Andersson, and Sabina Rapelli. (Sabina was even bitten by a dog during the ultra distance course at Swimrunman and still won the Women’s division and came in 3rd overall!)

In the bummer news department, like super bummer news, Breca Swimrun has announced that they are canceling all of their events in the UK and New Zealand for 2022. This news might not come as a total surprise given the messages that have been coming out from them but it’s still a bummer.

But all hope is not lost! 3D Events (based in Cambridge, UK) announced that they have been working behind the scenes and will be putting on the Jersey Swimrun on September 3rd, 2022. A lot of folks might be racing another event in a Scandinavian country around that time but we’re stoked that the Jersey Swimrun will go on!

Finally, ÖTILLÖ is just a week away from kicking off their 2022 season with their Swimrun Utö event. Both the Sprint and World Series distances have new courses so it should be a fun adventure for everyone.

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 have some discounts for everyone!!

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.

John Yelland, Mad Hatter Sports

It was great to chat with John. In this conversation we covered a wide range of topics including the origin story for Mad Hatter Sports, how Swimrun came onto their radar, the Swimrun scene in the UK, and a lot more. We seriously need to make a trip to the UK at some point to check out his events!

You can learn more about Mad Hatter Sports on their website.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at 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