Welcome to episode ten of the Low Tide Boyz Podcast, a Swimrun Podcast!

We’re stoked to have Mia Rohman and Fanny Kuhn on the show this week. Both our amazing athletes (Fanny is the reigning Ötillö World Champion) and they started an amazing organization called WILD Swimrun that we’re excited for you to learn more about. More on that later in the show. 

We’re a couple of weeks past Ötillö Catalina but we’re still reveling in that post-race glow. The folks at Ötillö recently released their race report and short film for the Catalina race and you can check those out here.

We’re taking a break from swimrun to train up for the Lake Sonoma 50 miler next month but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop swimming. At least not this year. Chris (and Chipper will be following suit) finally broke up with the crappy pool and joined an outdoor 50m pool that is a major upgrade. Chris also recently joined Team Envol so that should be fun.

So now to this week’s interview. We recorded this interview while we were in Catalina and we feel lucky to have been able to chat with Mia and Fanny about their journey in Swimrun and their organization, WILD Swimrun. WILD Swimrun is a place where you find everything you need to get out in nature and enjoy Swimrun. They specifically work to get more women and girls to try the sport. You’ll hear more about this in the interview but we encourage folks to check out their WILD Swimrun Club. The WILD Swimrun Club is for those who wish to compete and do it together with a group of women from around the globe. Folks can sign up and pay membership fee on their website. Part of the fee goes toward their youth initiatives that provide scholarships for teens to attend their super successful women-specific swimrun camps. Their next camp on June 2-7 in Mallorca Spain and all experience levels are welcome.

We were definitely moved by their story and wanted to announce on the show that The Low Tide Boyz are going to host a fundraiser For the WILD Youth Initiative to help pay for scholarships for two teens (or more) to attend one of their camps. We’ll soon be launching a teespring store for folks that have been asking for Low Tide Boyz swag and proceeds from sales will go towards funding these scholarships. We’ll also be adding a donate button on our website. We thought that this would be a way for us to help support Mia and Fanny’s efforts and we hope that you’ll join us to help get more women and girls into the sport.

Without further ado, enjoy our interview with the Co-founders of WILD Swimrun. (Note: we recorded this episode on the wharf in Avalon so we apologize if the sound is a little off)

Fanny Kuhn was a collegiate swimmer and Swedish National Champion and after college she dabbled in triathlon before a friend asked her to do Ötillö Utö and they won the race! Mia started really swimming at age 38 and eventually did a swimrun in Costa Brava Spain and was hooked after that. 

Mia and Fanny met through a mutual friend two years ago and they both really wanted more women to experience the amazing sport of swimrun they chatted about setting up a swimrun camp for women. Their first camp sold out in 48 hours! So they hosted a second camp, that also sold out. They didn’t have a website, they just posted it on facebook. 

WILD Swimrun was born soon after that. (The name comes from the location of the first camp in Costa Brava which roughly translates to Wild Coast.) There’s now a WILD Swimrun Community that serves as a forum for women to share training tips and gear to help reduce the barrier to entry to the sport. They also have a WILD Swimrun Club that part of the membership fees go towards providing scholarships to get teens into the sport. Their main goal is to help the sport grow and inspire people to engage in the sport and support each other in the process.

A new program that they’ve started is the WILD Youth Initiative that works to try to get young girls into the sport. They got a donation last year to provide scholarships for two teens to go to their main camp in Costa Brava. They hope to expand this program and hopefully have a camp specifically for youth in the future.

Their next swimrun camp (that isn’t sold out yet) is in Mallorca on June 2-7th and they encourage all women, regardless of ability to sign up. 

They are excited that Ötillö is now in the US and see a bright future in the sport and hope that the community of Swimrun will continue to grow in the inclusive and welcoming way that it began. They hope to host a Swimrun camp in the US one day and help even more people enter the sport and experience nature.

It was really great to have them on the this week’s show and we encourage everyone to follow them on facebook and Instagram and become part of their community.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you are enjoying the Low Tide Boyz, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We are on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcast. You can also follow along on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support us on Patreon, if you are so inclined. If you want to drop us a line, email us at lowtideboyz@gmail.com.