SwimRun Advice!

Do you need some advice about SwimRun?

This is the biggest and best website for people new to the sport of Swimrun!

Are you getting into this new sport for the first time?  We know what it's like!  It sounds a bit strange at first, running in your 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.

RACE CALENDARS 2024

For inspiration, or if you want to search for an event, check our NEW race calendars for events in 2024:

SwimRun calendar Europe 2024

and Swimrun calendar USA/Rest of the World 2024

You can also Search for Races listed by Country Here. Just click on that link to go to our race page where events are listed by country!

If you are an event organiser, please feel free to contact us with your dates!  This year - 2024 - looks very exciting!

Advice on Swimrun

If you're keen to start as soon as possible, you should definitely look at our detailed page about your first 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!

Underwater view of a swimrun competitor swimming over a shallow sand back, in light green water.Approaching the end of a swim section!

So far, we have competed in four 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.

In 2023 injury held us back, but We have events planned for 2024.


The Garmin Swim 2 is an excellent watch for Swimrun!

Check it out at Amazon HERE!


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

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 gear!

Four swimrunners with their raffle prizes, standing on grass inside a big white tent, with the race director.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, and  others are hard-earned gems from our SwimRun races in very different environments. Click on the race day advice link to see what you can learn.

Equipment

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 swim run equipment page to find out exactly what you will need! We even have a page dedicated to socks reviewing some of the best on the market.

Our biggest page is probably our reviews of suitable watches - take a look at our affordable GPS 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.

Buy and sell swimrun kit

You can also check our buy-and-sell kit page to look for a bargain, if you're looking to buy or sell equipment, including wetsuits, watches etc.

Wetsuit Reviews

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

Mogsy's favourite wetsuit is the Colting Women's suit pictured below - click here for more information and the best price!

BUT we've found that you don't ALWAYS have to wear a wetsuit. We took part in a great event in Italy, south of Bologna, 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 wetsuits for our 5.5 hour event!  Read all about our Bologna race.

We have found that there is a small but significant risk of picking up injuries during training and racing, especially in salt water events. Discover what might go wrong at our page on Swim and Run 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 story!

A man in a red triathlon suit and sunglasses, standing at the side of a road, rubbing sunscreen into his right arm, with blue sky in the background.Richard before a 5 hour training stint

Swim Run Series Organisers

This new sport is growing in popularity around the world, and we have pages with details of organisers who hold a series of races. For example;

USA:  Odyssey Series

USA:  IGNITE Series (now RIP IT EVENTS)

Canada:  Mudskipper Challenge

UK:  Keen as Mustard Events

and Swimrunrun Coniston

Europe/USA:  Otillo World Series

Canary Islands, Spain:  Canary Islands

Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira; Portugal Series

Australia - Swimrun Australia

Blue sky Endurance

Italy - The Swimrun Italy series

But you can also check our event calendars for Europe 2024 as well as for the USA/Rest of World 2024, OR you can search by country here!

Are you an organiser who holds one or more events?  Contact us and we can add you to our list of organisers, and feature your races in a dedicated web page for your organisation.

But now let's get back to the basics!

You'll need to find out about all the issues involved in Swim Run 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.

Training

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 2019. 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.

A man and woman cross the finish line at the Honolulu Marathon, holding their hands up.Richard and Mogsy cross the finish line at the Honolulu marathon

Swim Training

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 November 2019, which involved 5 swims over 5 days. Read about the event - and our training.

A small group of people sitting on a sand bank by blue water, watching the competitors in a swimrun race at the second swim leg at the Isles of Scilly, UK.Watching swimrunners start the second swim leg, Isles of Scilly

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

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 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!


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