SwimRun Advice!

Do you need some SwimRun Advice?

Are you new to SwimRun? We were, once. We know what it's like! It sounds a bit strange at first, running in a wetsuit and swimming in your shoes, with no transitions for changing gear. But this exciting adventure sport is growing very quickly in popularity.

If you are wondering what this sport is all about, you should go to our page on What Is Swimrun first. It explains what the sport involves, and how it came into existence.

For inspiration, or you want to search for an event, check our race calendars for 2022, as event organizers are now setting dates. Look at our SwimRun calendar Europe 2022 and Swimrun calendar USA/World 2022. If you are an organizer, please feel free to contact us with your dates!

And if you're keen to start as soon as possible, you should definitely look at our detailed page about your first swimrun event. This is our cheat-sheet for how to get the most out of your first event - all the essentials distilled into one page.

As experienced marathon runners and triathletes we decided to try the new endurance sport of SwimRun. But good advice can be hard to find, so we've set up this website to introduce people to this exciting world of swimming and running from island to island - running in your wetsuit and swimming in your running shoes!

Swimrun racers climbing a rock face out of a swim leg

Swimrun racers climbing a rock wall

So far, we have competed in 4 SwimRun events -

in Hvar, Croatia;
Engadin in Switzerland;
Bologna in Italy,
and the full-distance Ötillö World Series race in the United Kingdom, 30 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean on the Isles of Scilly.

As the inventors of the sport, the company Ötillö from Sweden deserve a special mention. You can read about Ötillö Swimrun HERE.

SwimRun Advice

In the photo below we are on the left, with Ötillö Race Director Mats Skott on the right of the picture. This image was taken at the prize-giving after completing the Sprint distance event at Engadin, Switzerland. But don't be too impressed - we hadn't won our group, but we DID come 2nd in the raffle for some SwimRun gear!

Four swimrunners with their raffle prizes, standing on grass inside a big white tent.

Swimrun Engadin - we are on the left.

The most important page on this site is probably Race Day Advice. It's chock-full of information on pre-race preparation, and tips and tricks for during the event too. Some are borrowed from our marathon running experience; others are hard-earned gems from our SwimRun races in 4 very different environments. Click on the race day advice link to see what you can learn.

SwimRun Advice

Equipment - What do I need??

At first, we found ourselves wondering what equipment we needed, what to wear and where to find events for this new sport. Check out our swimrun equipment page to find out exactly what you will need! We even have a page dedicated to Swimrun socks reviewing some of the best on the market.

Our biggest page is probably our reviews of suitable watches - take a look at Swimrun watch reviews to find out what you should be looking for!

Choosing a suitable wetsuit is one of the biggest challenges - Mogsy even had to have a suit custom-made to her own measurements, to get a fit that would be comfortable for up to 8 hours of wear! You can read about our own wetsuits here.

Wetsuit Reviews

We have carried out a review of the best dedicated SwimRun wetsuits to help newcomers see what's available. In June 2020 the Swedish company ARK announced their incredible new suit which looks like a big leap forward in SwimRun wetsuit design and construction - at a price. Check it out at our SwimRun Wetsuit Reviews page.

BUT we've found that you don't ALWAYS have wear a wet suit. We took part in a great event in Italy, the Bologna SwimRun 2017, where it was warm enough in the Italian lakes to wear triathlon suits. It was a hot day, and we were grateful to escape from the wet suits for our 5 1/2 hour event! Read all about our Bologna race.

We have found that there is a small but significant risk of picking up SwimRun injuries during training and racing, especially in salt water events. Discover what might go wrong at our page on SwimRun Injuries. And be sure to read all the way to the bottom to find out about the most dangerous risk!

SwimRun races were originally for teams of 2 persons, but in recent years it has been possible to compete as a solo racer. In September 2020, Michal Jablonski completed a sprint distance event of 12km as a solo racer, but he took his dog Venus with him! Read more about this at Swimrun with your dog!

SwimRun Advice

Richard putting on sunscreen before a long training session

Richard before a 5 hour training stint

SwimRun World Rankings

Once you get into SwimRun, and become competitive, you may start to figure in the results of each race. If you take the sport seriously, and want to get the best results you can over a series, you may wonder how you can compare your overall results against other swimrunners.

There IS a way to see how you match up against the other regular competitors. It's called the TSR Global Ranking System.

If you compete in the "long distance" race at an event, you will score points in the TSR Global Ranking System. You can check out your World SwimRun ranking at the TSR site HERE.

SwimRun Series Organizers

SwimRun is growing around the world and we have pages with details of organizers who hold a series of SwimRun races.

USA: Odyssey SwimRun Series

USA: IGNITE SwimRun Series (now RIP IT EVENTS)

Canada: Mudskipper SwimRun Challenge

UK: Keen as Mustard SwimRun

UK/Canada/New Zealand: Breca SwimRun

Europe/USA: Otillo World Series

Canary Islands, Spain: SwimRun Canary Islands

Are you an organizer who holds various SwimRun events? Contact us and we can add you to our list of organizers, and feature your races in a dedicated web page.

But now let's get back to the basics!

You'll need to find out about all the issues involved in SwimRun before you can become competitive in races.

Look at the drop-down menu above to see the various areas we are covering, from

how to start , including a special beginners guide,

events calendars,

equipment reviews,

race reviews,

and our own personal journey.

Our most recent event was the long-distance Ötillö World Series race in the Isles of Scilly, United Kingdom, which took place on June 9th 2019. Due to the pandemic, our 2020 and 2021 races were all cancelled but we will hopefully be back taking part in events in New Zealand where we now live in 2022!

We estimated that the Isles of Scilly Swimrun would take us from 7 to 8 hours to complete, and so we incorporated a marathon into our training plan, to build up our endurance. The Marathon was in Milan, at the beginning of April. We finished at a comfortable pace, bearing in mind that we were treating this as another training session. Check out our Milan Marathon race report.

We think that training for a full marathon or a half marathon is excellent endurance work before a long-distance SwimRun event, (say, over 30km). You can read about other marathons we have personally completed.

Richard and Mogsy cross the finish line at the Honolulu marathon

SwimRun Advice

It's also good to look for dedicated swimming events or series, to focus on swimming for a short period. We entered the Barbados Open Water Festival in early November 2019, which involved 5 swims over 5 days. Read about the event - and our training.

people watching the swim entry at the second swim leg Isles of Scilly, UK

Watching swimrunners start the second swim leg, Isles of Scilly

For our most recent BIG race in 2019, in the Isles of Scilly, UK, we kept a training log. You can read about how we planned and carried out our training at SwimRun Training.

Of course, don't forget to read 'About Us' to find out who's writing this site - anyone can put up a website, but it's good to know that the authors of this site are genuine SwimRunners!

This website - SwimRun Advice - is very active, and we are updating it continuously, especially the race calendars for Europe and USA/Canada/Rest Of the World.

So do bookmark this page or add it to your RSS feed, and come back soon!