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

This week we have Shane Chaplin on the show. If you don’t know who Shane is, well you should. He’s an Australian living in Sweden who’s witnessed the early days of ÖTILLÖ, he’s sailed the world, skied all over the world as well, raced the XTERRA World Championship, he’s a marine biologist (that works at a bank), and last but not least, he’s a Swimrunner. 

More on this super interesting interview later in the show.

Training Update

We’re getting super close to race day and we’re dialing in where we can before Ödyssey Swimrun Austin on November 8th. It’s officially tapered time so we apologize in advance to everyone that we may be grumpy towards.

Shout Out

We’re doing a group shout out this week to everyone that joined us for our first Instagram Live event with Odyssey Swimrun’s Lars Finanger. It was great to see so many people on IG and we hope that folks found the Q&A useful. It was especially nice to see some of our friends from Sweden jump on to say hi!

Feats of Endurance Weekly Award

This week’s winner is Tom A. from Amsterdam. He’s been a member of our Strava Club for a while and we’ve been taking notes on where to train for Swimrun if we ever find ourselves in The Netherlands.

This Week in Swimrun

We have a short report this week.

There were no races this week because of COVID. Races in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and North Carolina were all scheduled but ended up being canceled or postponed. So be safe, wear masks, and practice social distance people!

Swimrunners all over the world got the email this week from ÖTILLÖ with the sad news that their season is over. Given the COVID situation in Europe, their Malta race was canceled. In the same email, they also listed their tentative schedule for 2021. You can see that schedule on their website. Notably, for folks in the U.S., Ötillö Catalina is scheduled for November 20-21, 2021. We’re not sure when registration will open but we’ll make sure to let everyone know when we know.

We’re sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at [email protected] and tip us off if there’s are a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.

LTBz Updates

Our latest column in Triathlete Magazine, What to Expect at Your First Swimrun Race, is out in the digital newsstands now! Check it out and give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.

Finally, head over to our website to pick up some cool Löw Tide Böyz shirts and stickers and show your Low Tide Pride in the streets. 

Interview

Now for this week’s interview. We’ve wanted to get Shane on the show since he first slid into our DM’s and dropped some knowledge bombs on us. He’s a super interesting guy who’s been all over the world…happens to be Michael Lemmel’s neighbor. 

We covered a lot of ground in this interview. We chatted about the early days of Ötillö and how the original race developed over the years. What it’s like to be Michael Lemmel’s sometimes Swimrun race partner. His thoughts about orienteering as a key aspect of training. How he thinks that Swimrunners in the U.S. should train on super technical to better compete in races in Europe. His thoughts on what swim paddles should look like. And so much more!

Shane shared his thoughts on how Swimrun is changing the way people train for open water (OW) swimming. This part of the interview was so rich that we asked him for some notes to share with everyone.

• OW swimmers with good natural buoyancy and/or kick driven stroke are relatively penalized compared to the pack in Swimrun mode. This is because the buoy conveys little extra buoyancy benefit and the legs are immobilized. Or if you do try and kick your legs, you will go backward.
• Conversely, sinky-leg swimmers and those with more upper body power get a relative boost.
• Swimmers with over-glide or dead spots will be relatively penalized because they can’t use their legs to iron out the dead spots. So, don’t worry about fast or slow cadence. Focus on ironing out dead-spots.
• Other elements of the bad technique can be masked over in Swimrun mode. Particularly any actions which would normally result in the legs sinking (push-down during the catch phase, breath-holding underwater, and head lift during breathing).
• Braking actions with the hand paddles (upward glide), will be magnified and penalized - which is why some people aren’t faster with paddles at first.
• Swimrun swimming is flatter – i.e. less rotation. It, therefore, favors swingers and those with flexible shoulders. You need to try and generate rotation a bit more from the core because the legs are out of action.
• Paddles – most paddles on the market have way too much area out around the fingertips. This puts unnecessary strain on the forearm muscles and the elbow joints and burns energy in these muscles unnecessarily. There’s a real niche still waiting to be filled by paddles that have the center of the area further back in the hand, which transfers the load to the lats (and pec) muscles instead. This is where the real power lays. If you’re stuck with the existing offering, try and get your hand as far forward a possible on your paddle. Fingers hanging over the front edge even. Drill holes and mount new straps with gay abandon!
• Warning – controversial statement! In alpine skiing, there’s a saying which goes: “a good ski racer is always a good skier, whereas a good skier isn’t always a good ski racer.” This is because ski racers have great technique. They can carve ice. The same goes for swimming – a fast open-water swimmer will normally be a good Swimrun swimmer, whereas the specialized Swimrun swimmers will often struggle without the toys. So, don’t neglect your gearless open water swimming in the offseason. It will give you an edge. It will also give you something else to do. As you get closer to Swimrun competition season then go over to pure Swimrun gear and power sessions. The extra muscles will also help your open-water and beach gigs.

Listeners can follow Shane 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 review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at [email protected] with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.