Team Mr. and Mrs. B

Welcome to episode lucky thirteen of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we chat with the Godfather of Swimrun in the U.S., Andy Hewitt. He put on the first swimrun event in the United States and was our first Patron on Patreon. (Spoiler alert: if you support us on Patreon you’ll likely be interviewed for the show!) More on the interview later in the show.We’re still under a shelter-in-place order and we learned this week that the order is being extended until the end of April. As mentioned previously on the show, we encourage everyone to follow the guidelines of the WHO and their local authorities on what to do. While our pools and parks are closed we are keeping busy with running and other dry land activities.Speaking of which, this week’s shout out goes to Drew Sapp. He’s Co-owner of Crew Racing and Rehab and he sent us some dry land workouts for bands after we posted up on IG that we didn’t know how to use them. Thanks for that Drew!This got us thinking that we should host a bunch of these “pools are closed” workouts on our site. If anyone else has some cool dry land workouts that they want to share, send us an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com and we’ll get that up on our site. In other news, our collab shirt fundraiser for the WILD Youth Initiative created by WILD Swimrun is still selling well! As a reminder, all proceeds from this apparel will go towards providing scholarships to help girls attend the WILD Swimrun camps. Have enough shirts (and/or pillows)? You can head over to lowtideboyz.com to donate to the WILD Youth Initiative on our homepage.Now for this week’s show! Andy Hewitt grew-up in San Diego. Rowed Crew at UC Berkeley. He then spent 28 years as an Infantry Officer in the Marine Corps where he participated in 7 wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. He did an 8-year assignment at the US State Department and spent time in Renewable Energy, Defense Contracting and worked for 10 years as a “low-grade” Hollywood actor. He’s been married for 31 years to a Super-Lawyer and has two sons. Athletically, Andy has completed 27 Marathons, 3 Ironman races, swam the English Channel, the Catalina Channel and swam around Manhattan. He has raced in 23 Swimrun events, including 5 Ötillö World Championships. He formed California Swimrun with Sean Durkin in 2015 and hosted the first race in United States on September 20th, 2015. Finally, it bears repeating that Andy was our first Patron on Patreon. In this interview we chatted about how he learned about Swimrun. How he pestered Mats and Michael to get into the World Championship with his friend Sean Durkin in 2015 and then hosted the first swimrun race in the U.S. 4 weeks later. We also chatted about how the sport is growing in the U.S. leading up to the first Ötillö race in California. We chatted about the genesis for the California Swimrun “Rules of Swimrun:”Tell everyone about swimrun!Greet everyone you see while runningStay with your teammate during runs and swimsDog in and out of the swims (Funny story about this one!)No complaining…everWe also chatted about the genesis of Ötillö Catalina and the role that Andy and California Swimrun played in getting that race to happen. The team of Sean, Natalie Foote and Andy worked really hard to help design the great course that we all raced. Finally, we chatted about Andy’s thoughts on how to best grow the sport in the U.S. while keeping the soul of the sport as it will inevitably grow in the U.S. Whether by supporting solo divisions to help introduce the sport to folks or showcasing local events, the future of the sport is about getting people to show up to the races. Andy feels that the team aspect of the sport is where the magic is. The biggest part is hosting swimrun events and the rest will take care of itself.That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com.

2 Apr 202055min

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.

26 Mars 20201h 2min

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

19 Mars 202050min

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

12 Mars 202040min

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

5 Mars 202046min

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

5 Mars 202034min

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.

27 Feb 202032min

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

20 Feb 202054min