ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship Course Walkthrough with Oscar Olsson

Welcome to episode eighty-five of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast! 

ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship less than a month away! To get everyone hyped for the race, we asked our friend and previous guest of the show Oscar Olsson to walk us through the legendary 75km course. This episode is a masterclass and super helpful for anything racing the World Championship or just curious about what teams will face on September 6. Get your notepads out for this one!

But first... 

Training Update

For the first time in a long time we had a chill week of training now that Casco Bay is in the rear view mirror. We’ll be starting to ramp up soon for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Orcas Island race and we foresee a lot of running up (and down) hills in our future.

Shoutout

This week we’re shouting out Henry Loveless who let us know that he did his first Swimrun over the weekend in Finland at the Strömfors Swimrun. He started listening to the show to get ready and we got him super stoked! (Mission Accomplished!) Congrats Henry and thanks for listening. 

Feats of Endurance

This week’s award goes to Drew Wilson. This guy biked 105 miles (with 7,000ft of elevation) in Taos County New Mexico over the weekend...on a tri bike. Impressive on multiple levels. Strong work dude!

Check out and join our Strava Club and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for Swimruns and stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

Lots of updates this week so let’s get right to it!

Ödyssey Swimrun Mackinac Island is fast approaching! The race is on August 29 and we already are experiencing FOMO. Lucky for us, we will have two LTBz Field Correspondents (Trista and Amy from Team Adorkable) “covering” the event for us and they will be sharing all the weekend festivities on our IG stories and we’ll be doing a race recap episode with them as well so stay tuned for that.

Another race that is giving us FOMO is Swimrun Georgia. This race is taking place on October 10 and we recommend that everyone who is in the general area of Georgia or in the United States to register! Programming note: are hoping to interview the race director Tony Hammet before the race so stay tuned for that.

Up in Canada, Swimrun Victoria took place over the weekend. Lots of smiling faces at this event that offered 27km Long Course and 13km Short Course options.

Over in Europe, all eyes are on ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship on September 6. That’s not all that is going on across the pond. ÖTILLÖ’s Final 15k sprint race is taking place on September 4 which looks like a ton of fun!

Finally, Swimrunman Laffrey is happening this weekend in France. This race offers a bunch of distance options including an ÖTILLÖ Merit race distance that features a legendary/brutal vertical kilometer final run to the finish line. There’s also a kids Swimrun which is awesome! This is yet another race that’s on our bucket list. Sigh!

That’s it for this week. Reach out to us with any news that you’d like for us to share on the show.

Updates

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay Race Report episode. Spoiler Alert: we had a good race and a lot of fun.

Chris recently co-hosted the morning shakeout podcast with Mario Fraioli for the quarterly “Ask Mario Anything” series. A lot of great insight about marathon and ultramarathon training, nutrition, and the importance of taking breaks that is worth a listen.

Finally, we are going to be restocking the LTBz store soon so stay tuned for new ways to show your Löw Tide Pride.

ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship Course Walkthrough 

We are super lucky to have someone like Oscar Olsson come back on the show to walk us through the legendary ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship course. He knows the course like the back of his hand and he drops some major pro-tips that are good for everyone from first-timers to experienced teams racing on September 6. Basically, he gives us a masterclass on strategy for the 75km. He’s a great ambassador for the sport who clearly loves Swimrun and wants to help grow the sport. You definitely want your note pad out for this one!

Oscar’s World Championship Solid Gold Pro-Tips:

  • With 24 runs and 23 swims, working to keep your transitions short and crisp will save you a ton of time over the day

  • Don’t worry about jockeying for position on the first run in Sandhamn because the beach before the first swim is very wide and there’s plenty of space

  • Take advantage of non-technical sections on the runs to find some pace

  • Plan on cabbing down on the three long runs on the course unless the temperature is very cold to make sure that you’re not losing too much electrolytes that will affect your speed towards the end of the race

  • Always take a gel before the Pig Swim

  • Most athletes will be cold after the Pig Swim so try to keep moving to get the body temperature up

  • Take energy before the swim that takes you to Ornö because there isn’t an energy station until about 8-9km into the long 20km run

  • Cab down for the Ornö run

  • In training, make sure do a long Swimrun session that ends with a 15km run so simulate what the long run on Ornö will feel like

  • Make sure to notice the current direction 

You can follow Oscar Olsson on Instagram and definitely check out Livesporttv.se for awesome Swimrun content!

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Löw Tide Böyz, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player and leave us a five-star review. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, and on YouTube. You can also follow our meme page on Instagram. Email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com with any feedback and/or suggestions. Finally, you can support our efforts on Patreon…if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for listening and see you out there!

-  Chip and Chris



course preview, Otillo, interview, swimrun 101Chipper Nicodemus