SwimRun Endurance Podcast

Today on the SwimRunEndurance podcast we welcome Amy Margolis and David Wilson. Amy is the author of the blog: Tri, Trail, Tabata and Train. An excellent documentary style blog. They live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest but have been traveling across the country this year with their dog Mira — training, racing and documenting their adventures.

They are both athletes, mostly endurance athletes, and proud to be able to say that. She was once overweight and out of shape and did not take care of herself or her body. All that changed and she went from couch to Kona in 15 years.

Today they talk about their journey across the country, their many adventures, the sport of SwimRun and whats up next in 2019.

The couples motto is “It’s not about the race, it’s about our journey” (But we do love racing). Welcome Amy and David.

After being inspired by ÖTILLÖ, the iconic island to island swimrun in Sweden’s Stockholm Archipelago, two long standing multisport event producers, the late Jeff Cole and Lars Finanger, teamed up to bring the sport to North American soil with the 2016 Casco Bay Islands SwimRun outside of Portland, Maine. Now entering its third year, the aim remains the same; to offer athletes best-in-class epic races in epic places. SwimRun Casco Bay Islands is the only event in the US holding true to the spirit of island-to-island racing. SwimRun Casco Bay Islands is an official MERIT Race for ÖTILLÖ SwimRun World Championship ranking points.

Today we are blessed to be joined by Lars Finanger. Lars is an extraordinary human being — 3 time Division 3 baseball Conference Champions, 3 time Ironman Hawaii finisher, 3 time XTERRA World Championship finisher, former pro card holder in Triathlon and Cycling with 10 Ironman finishes under his belt and a personal best time of 9 hours and 2 minutes at Ironman Cozumel. He’s been a brand director at Triathlete and Inside Triathlon Magazine group, Associate Publisher at Slowtwitch.com, Managing Director at Valhalla Sports Group and race director of many prestigious events including ITU San Diego, SuperFrog and currently SwimRun USA. We are pleased to have this husband, father and sport visionary with us today to talk about the sport of SwimRun.

This week on the SwimRun Endurance Podcast we are joined by Team USA member, Susan Haag. The 52 year-old attorney from Jacksonville Florida started running and cycling in 1987 and began her career in triathlon in 1990. An avid practitioner of the Galloway method of running and pace marathons, she has run every distance from 5k to 100k and in all completed 111 iron distance triathlons and over 200 marathons. The first woman in history to complete 100 ironman distance triathlons, the only woman in the 300 Century Club at USA Triathlon, an Ultraman Florida Finisher in 2014 and a finisher of the 6 day 150 Moab run, Susan blazes a trail in all of her accomplishments. She has been active for years in triathlon as a race consultant, ambassador, representative of the State of Florida USA Triathlon Board of Governors and a sitting member of the ITU Women Committee. Most recently she has turned her attention to SwimRun and is an ambassador to the IGNITE SwimRun race series. Welcome Susan!

This week on the SwimRun Endurance Podcast we are joined by the founder of Breca SwimRun,Ben de Rivaz. Ben founded Breca in 2015 and draws on his experience in endurance sports - in events including 50-100 mile ultra marathons, multi-sport adventure races, Ironman triathlon, the OMM, the ÖTILLÖ and the Mongol Derby - when designing the Breca Swimrun courses. Breca is a character from the Old English epic poem Beowulf. In a seven-day swimming race across icy, windswept seas Breca is victorious over the eponymous hero; a defeat that Beowulf only acknowledges as he had stopped to fight sea monsters during the match. The author amalgamates British and Scandinavian cultures in the poem. The story takes place in 6th century Denmark and Sweden and is culturally Scandinavian, but the poem is written in Old English and was composed in England. This is the approach Breca has brought to Swimrun: creating exceptional swimrun experiences with a distinctly British flavour whilst paying tribute to the sport's Scandinavian origins. Whilst sea monsters will be lacking from our races, the events will nevertheless be a true test of strength and endurance against the challenges of open-water and trail.

This week on the SwimRun Endurance Podcast we are joined by Kristen Jeno and Brian Bohrer, founders of the beautiful and challenging SwimRun Lake James. Brian and Kristen are not simply passionate endurance athletes but amazing people.

Brian Bohrer is an experienced coach and race director who among other events directs the IRONMAN 70.3 North Carolina. Brian’s fitness journey began while he was a bakery owner, and the moment that he’d realized that his health had taken a turn for the worse. It started with walking and mountain biking and turned into a full-blown passion for endurance sports—no longer just something that he does, but a lifestyle that he lives. A finisher of multiple 8 full distance Ironman events, numerous half ironman races, a 100 miler, multiple 50 milers, 2 100k’s, marathons including a Boston Qualification and countless Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons, and 5Ks and 10Ks.

Kristen Smith Jeno is also an experienced race director and has competed in SwimRun events in various parts of the world. After graduating with a degree in Exercise Physiology she moved to Wilmington and started a company and coaching career with Without Limits. She coaches triathletes, cyclists, master swimmers, runners (trail, road, and ultra), swim runners, and open water swimming for close to 10 years now. She’s completed an Ironman, several 70.3s, marathons, half marathons, 50K, OtillO World Championships (finishing 8th), Casco Bay SwimRun twice (finishing 4th and 2nd), Hanging Rock SwimRun (finishing 3rd and 1st), and SwimRun Georgia.

We talk with them about the creation of SwimRun Lake James, how they imagined the course, how the sponsors helped the event, anhy changes for the 2019 race and what is on their bucket list coming up.

This week on the SwimRun Endurance Podcast Episode 4, an interview with co-founder of IGNITE SwimRun, Danny Serpico. In addition to leading logistics and marketing for IGNITE SwimRun, he is the owner and race director of Rip It Events, a mid-atlantic region multi-sport and running race production company and co-owner of Triathlean, a triathlon fitness based company in Columbia, Maryland. Danny is a certified USA Triathlon Race Director with over 12 years experience directing large scale events in the endurance racing, non-profit and federal spaces.

We talk to Danny about how IGNITE got started, the races on the schedule including the first race of the season IGNITE SwimRun Maryland and the season close at the IGNITE SwimRun National Championship at Richmond Virginia. We also learn more about the sponsors of the IGNITE series and how the series connects to the international scene - today and the vision for tomorrow.

Intro music "Darknight" by Wacko on #SoundCloud

On Episode 3 of the SwimRun Endurance podcast we are joined by Herbert Krabel. He was born and raised in Southern Germany but now has lived more than half of his life in the USA.

He was previously the marketing director for Litespeed and Quintana Roo, but the last 10 years he has worked for the big triathlon and endurance sport website slowtwitch.com. Most of those years as editor-in-chief but he recently stepped away from that position and now only works as a part time editor and writer for the site.

He is mostly now a stay-at-home dad, but he also devotes a lot of time as a race director to the now 3-year old SwimRun NC. This ÖtillÖ merit race at Hanging Rock State Park in North Carolina has again sold out and we wanted to chat with Herbert about the SwimRun North Carolina race and the sport of SwimRun in general.

This week on the SwimRun Endurance Podcast Episode 2, an interview with Marcus Barton, member of Team Orca and last weekend’s winner of the 2018 SwimRun Lake James and SwimRun Georgia. We are thrilled to have Marcus join us from Myrtle Beach South Carolina where he prepares for this weekends XTERRA event. Marcus is an accomplished endurance racer having won numerous XTERRA events, an XTERRA Regional Champion and XTERRA National and World Championship Qualifier, USAT Triathlon Off-road All American, the Top American in Division at the ITU Cross World Championships, winner of numerous SwimRun events and 1st American Team Finisher at the prestigious Otillo World Championship in 2015.

We tackle topics ranging from Team Orca’s back to back wins at Swim Run Lake James and Swim Run Georgia, the difference between amateur and professional US and European swimrun athletes, the XTERRA series, the future of SwimRun and Marcus’ experience at SwimRun Casco Bay, RockMan and the Otillo World Championship.

Intro music "Darknight" by Wacko on #SoundCloud

This episode of the SwimRun Endurance podcast takes place in the beautiful Lake James State Park, site of this years inaugural SwimRun Lake James.

The podcast opens with some commentary from one of the race winning team mates of Team Orca, Marcus Barton. Marcus will be on the podcast in a few weeks with a full report.

After that we get right into the race report, a full run down on what went well (and not so well) with gear and complete transiton by transion guide to the course.

Intro music "Darknight" by Wacko on #SoundCloud