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

On this week’s show we have Annie and Brooke from Swimrun Labs. We had a great chat with them about their journey in the sport and their review website.

Training was interesting this week. Chipper remains sane and Chris ran from his house to a coffee shop 37 miles away hitting all the main peaks of Marin County. You can check out the run and our strava group here. We are also ramping up our bonus episodes where we do some swimrun gear reviews, so be sure to subscribe to get those. 

Wild Swimrun hosted their first camp of 2020 in Sweden this past weekend. It looked like a great event with perfect weather and chilly water. You can learn more about the founders Mia and Fanny and Wild Swimrun on Episode 10 of our podcast and help support their efforts to grow female participation in the sport by buying some swag from our store. (100% of proceeds go towards the Wild Youth Initiative that provides scholarships for women and girls to attend a Wild Swimrun camp.)

We have two shout outs this week! First, we want to give a special shout out to Grace from St. Paul, MN for supporting us on Patreon. She’s a fan of the show and we appreciate her support to help keep the lights on.

We also wanted to give a shout out to Greg from team Boston Wet Sox. We interviewed Bronwyn and Greg on Episode 15 of the show and Greg recently sent us some great feedback and suggestions for the show that we will definitely take to heart. We love getting feedback because we are committed to growing the sport and understand our place in that process. It really helps us to make sure that we are creating content that folks will find helpful and letting us know is the best way for us to iterate to keep making the show better!

Now for this week’s interview. Annie and Brooke of Swimrun Labs are amazing ambassadors for the sport of Swimrun. Not only are they great athletes, they put out a lot of great information about Swimrun racing and gear on their website. They have competed in 9 swimruns together and qualified for the Ötillö World Championship in 2020.

Annie initially convinced Brooke to sign up for a race but Brooke pretty much taught her how to swim. They fell in love with the sport after their first race in 2016 at the Bellingham Swimrun in Washington. (Note: the race director of the event is Annie’s husband and that’s how she learned about the sport.)

They started their website in late 2019 to try to help educate people about the sport and help impart the love for the sport and differentiate the sport from triathlon. The main purpose to create the site was to create a space to help the sport grow in the “right way” and encourage everyone that comes along to help steward the sport. Given that swimrun is so different from any other type of event out there, describing that vibe and magic is really something that has to be experienced to sense. They apply a data-driven approach to the reviews to test products and help make the research digestible for people to make good decisions about their training and gear.

We chatted about their favorite races (Casco Bay and Orcas Island), race stories (listen to the show for that!) and what makes a good partner. They thought that having similar goals and temperament are the best qualities to look for. They encourage team pre-race dance routines and having as much fun as possible on the course.

You can learn more about Swimrun Labs on their website and on Instagram. Lastly, Annie and Brooke encourage everyone to sign up for a swimrun race! We second that sentiment.

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 [email protected] with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.