Thor Hesselberg
Welcome to episode twenty-six of the Low Tide Boyz, a Swimrun Podcast!
On this week’s show we have Thor Hesselberg, endurance athlete and race director of Rockman Swimrun. We have a fun chat with him about the Swimrun scene in Norway and talk about his truly epic race. More on that later.
We wanted to give everyone a quick reminder that we have some discount codes from former guests that are still good. You can use the code SWIMRUN at blueseventy.com for 20% off your order. Check out our chat with the CEO of Blueseventy John Duquette. You can also use the code LOWTIDEBOYZ at precisionhydration.com for 15% off your order. If you missed the episode with Andy Blow the co-founder of Precision Hydration that is one not to miss! Support these great companies and make us look good in the process!
We have dual shout outs again this week! First, we wanted to give a big congrats to Amber Ferreira (of Team Better Tethered Together) for crushing her Everesting attempt on June 20th. For those who don’t know what that is, she cycled the total elevation of Mt. Everest (29,029 feet) in one ride. Check out her Strava file to see her stats for the ride.
Second, we wanted to give a special shout out Rob Sainsbury, who has been a supporter from day 1. Rob (so_aero on Instagram) wrote a post about swimrun on the VJ Shoe blog. Thanks for spreading the good word about swimrun and the Low Tide Boyz!
Our training has definitely picked up now that our pool is open and we will be embarking on some local Swimrun adventures in the coming weeks. Make sure to join our Strava Club to see us bite off more than we can chew.
If you are racing Ötillö Engadin be sure to take a listen to that episode as well as the show notes on our site for a pretty detailed course preview.
Now for this week’s interview with Thor Hesselberg. An endurance athlete that focused on extreme triathlons and naturally found out about Swimrun in his travels and instantly fell in love with the concept.
Thor became involved in Rockman when members of his swim club in Norway were putting together the first edition of the event. He volunteered by hosting a pre-race BBQ and volunteering during the fjord crossing swim. The rest is Swimrun history.
We chatted about how Rockman has evolved over the years and the rationale for all the awesome hype videos to showcase the event. (You can check out their hype videos here.) We discussed how he grew the race to now being one of the most recognizable Swimrun events in the world.
We also chatted about how he sees the sport of Swimrun evolving and his thoughts on how to keep growing the sport the right way. He feels that the sport needs to stay honest to the original spirit of Swimrun and keep leaving no footprint or environmental impact.
Finally, we chatted about the mythology around Rockman (and the 4,444 step climb at the middle of the race) and the experience that awaits anybody that chooses to take on the challenge. We also talked about bison.
You can learn more about Rockman here and start planning your trip to Norway! If you need some extra epic photos in your life, check out the Rockman Instagram page here.
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.