George Bjälkemo & Pontus Lindberg of Kraken Swimrun
Welcome to episode thirty-six of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!
On the show this week we are talking with George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg of Kraken Swimrun to chat about their epic 3-day Swimrun Adventure covering the entire Stockholm Archipelago. Yes, you heard that right. A total distance of 242km while traversing 79 islands in just 42 hours! George and Pontus are also the reigning Ötillö World Champs and just super cool dudes. More on all this later in the show.
Training Update
Our training plans are ramping up now that we are just two months away from Ödyssey Swimrun Austin race on November 8, 2020. There will be lots of Swimrunning in the near future as we dial in our technique after not racing since early March.
A quick reminder that we want to see you at the race with us! We’ll be the guys in the back of the race. Need some added incentive? Use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ and save 25% of your entry.
Shout Outs
This week we’re shouting out Justin. We’ve known Justin for years and he got hooked on Swimrun at the Sprint distance race at Ötillö Catalina. He sent us some lovely feedback on the show and we really appreciate him taking the time to do that.
Feats of Endurance Weekly Award
Our award this week goes out to Nuno. He raced Swimrun Zêzere over the weekend and it did nothing to help our FOMO for not being able to be there are chatting with the race director last week.
Congrats and thanks for being part of our Strava Club community.
This Week in Swimrun
A lot of folks were riding the good vibes from the Ötillö Sprint Final 15k race in Utö and jumped into races this past weekend.
Västerås Swimrun took place in Björnön, Sweden. The race was capped at 150 participants and similar to other events in Sweden, the race started in waves of 50 athletes at a time. Apparently, they had two Djs on the course blasting beats! There were some pretty funny team names as well including “Team Cold Soups and Abrasions,” “Team Half Decent Sea Lions,” “Team Latina Lovers,” and our personal favorite “Team Chips on the Couch & Cream on the Waffle.” (Honorable mention: “Team Earth, Wind & Water”)
Breca Jersey went down on Saturday on the island of Jersey. Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands located between England and France. This 20K race looked very epic based on our in-depth Instagram research. Dare I say that this race has been added to our already very long bucket list.
Finally, Zêzere Swimrun looked like a blast on the Zêzere River in Portugal. The event had two distances: Standard (31k) and Sprint (14.7k). We had Race Director Bruno Safara on the show last week and we can’t help but root for him as he grows the sport in Portugal.
We’re pretty sure that we may have missed some events. Send us an email at lowtideboyz@gmail.com and tip us off if there’s a race that you are doing and we’ll do our best to include it.
LTBz Updates
Our latest column in Triathlete Magazine, “What’s the best ‘Full Spec’ Swimrun Kit?,” is out on the digital newsstands now! Check it out and let us know if you agree with our choices for the best top of the line kit choices in all the main categories.
We got some new merch in the works so make sure that you check out our website for the latest in LTBz apparel and stickers.
Interview
The interview this week is just epic. George Bjälkemo and Pontus Lindberg of Kraken Swimrun are reigning World Champs and elite athletes. You would think that would be enough to get them on the show. We didn’t even talk to them about that because they came on to talk about their journey traversing the entire Stockholm Archipelago.
This conversation is all about how they decided that since the Otillo World Championship wasn’t happening this year that they would embark on an “Ultra Swimrun Adventure.” And what an adventure it was! We chatted with them about how they came up with the idea, why they decided to do this, how the event almost got derailed because they couldn’t find a boat driver, and finally, we get their “race report” breakdown on how each day went. This interview covered a lot of ground (figuratively for us) and hearing from George and Pontus about this feat was a lot of fun.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of their Kraken Ultra Swimrun Adventure’s stats:
They started in Arholma at dawn on Friday 28 August and reached Landsort at dusk on Sunday 30 August, covering in tot: 242 km (150 miles), 79 islands, in 42 hrs.
Stage 1: Arholma-Landsort, 12 hrs, 80 km (16,000 m swim/ 64 km run) [49.7 miles total], 32 islands. Longest swim 1,500 m (Ålandet-Gåsö) and longest run 10,5 km (Yxlan).
Stage 2: Möja-Ornö, 15 hrs, 86 km (8,700 m swim/77,3 km run) [53.4 miles total], 22 islands.
Longest swim 1,400 m (The ”Pig swim”) and longest run 18,5 km (Ornö).
Stage 3: Ornö-Landsort, 15 hrs, 76 km (13,700 m swim/ 62,3 km run) [47.2 miles total], 25 islands Longest swim 6,130 m (Danzige Gatt) and longest run 13,8 km (Utö).
There were a lot of people and sponsors that came together to help make this adventure be successful. Here’s a shoutout to everyone that was involved:
The Boat Driver:
Pehr Westman
The Kraken Swimrun Crew:
Thomas Ogander
Pär Kristoffersson
Joakim Axelsson
Fredrik Åström
Krinstin Larsson
Annika Ericsson
Ludvig Myrenberg
Fredrik Granström
Sponsors:
HEAD Swimming
Addnature
Clif Bar Sweden
Carlys Natural
You can follow Kraken Swimrun on Instagram to get an entire visual chronicle of their journey.
Our buddy Herbert Krabel at Slowtwitch also had a great write up about this adventure, so be sure to check that out as well!
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 lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback, suggestions and/or meme suggestions. Finally, you can also support us on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.