John Duquette, CEO of blueseventy

Welcome to episode twenty of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!

On this week’s show we have the CEO of blueseventy, John Duquette. We had a great conversation about the brand and their expansion into swimrun.

For shout outs this week we are saying hi to Sossi! She’s a Bay Area swimmer and former triathlete that is a big fan of the show. She recently reached out to Chris to let him know that there was a swimrun team (in blueseventy Alliance swimrun wetsuits incidentally) training at Aquatic Park. While we appreciate the intel it was made funnier by two other of our friends letting us know that they saw a team out there on the same day! This week is also her birthday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOSSI!

Training continues this week with Chipper starting to ramp back up on volume and Chris keeps reliving the glory days with a lot of volume of running, cycling and cross-training. Make sure to join our strava club to follow along with our workouts and other LTBz fans.

Now for this week’s interview. We were lucky to get a chance to talk to John about the history of blueseventy and their development of their swimrun wetsuit.

John Duquette started racing triathlon in 1999 and since then has competed in multisport, running and cycling races all over the world. After working at a Seattle running store for 7 years he joined the team at blueseventy in 2007. In 2015 he was named CEO and purchased the brand in 2017. After 20 years in the endurance space he’s seen and experienced enough to tell stories well past last call in the local pub. While he still enjoys racing his mountain bike his primary focus now is making sure his two children develop a love for the outdoors and making sure his dog gets enough exercise to keep him from chewing up his running shoes.

The company was actually founded in 1993 as Ironman Wetsuits and did business under that brand name until 2006. The company rebranded as blueseventy in 2006 and John joined the team in 2007. blueseventy is a small company where everyone is an athlete and into open water swimming.

Swimrun first came onto the their attention from their distributors in Europe. They started working on a suit for 2 years before they ended up releasing their suit. Mike Orton, a former Olympic swimmer, was the chief designer of the suit that was perfect for swimming and geared for durability. The Alliance Swimrun wetsuit was the result. (You can read our swimrun gear review of the Alliance Swimrun wetsuit here.)

The next version in development will have a zipper on the front and the back, sleeves that are removable and re-attachable and better materials. They will also start working on a new performance-based suit. They are also working on additional products that are specific for swimrun like new swim paddle designs and larger pull buoys.

John and the folks at blueseventy were cool enough to set up a discount code for our fans to use for 20% off of the site. Just use the code SWIMRUN at checkout for 20% off everything on their site.

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