How did we get here?
A year ago I had never heard of Swimrun.
A triathlete training for the ITU Sprint Grand Final in Lausanne 2019, I’d had a winning season and was in a strong position to make the AG Canada team again. The Kelowna Apple Tri was cancelled by forest fires and poor air quality on race morning. I couldn’t race the other qualifiers and my 2019 tri goals went up in smoke.
I explored other options for competition but Oly, 70.3 and 140.6 tri have never interested me much and while multisport in Canada is getting more diverse with Cross-tri, aquathlon, aquabike and duathlon formats nothing was inspiring.
During this phase I spent a more-than-healthy amount of time bored on the internet, as a result I stumbled across a highlight of the 2017 Otillo event. It looked reckless and unpleasant.
I spent a solid 20 minutes researching the sport and started contacting people in Europe. I wish I could tell you this was out of character…
Two months later I had found some enablers, called my own bluff and stood on a beach in Spain alongside Otillo Veterans Xavi and Sarah (IGs @xcarabi and @wellbeingbysarah). I can’t tell you when I was hooked exactly: somewhere between the diving into Mediterranean surf on the Otillo Costa Brava course and feasting on a giant plate of beachside Paella. Regardless, I didn’t regret losing my chance at Lausanne anymore.
Halfway through 2019 I’m slowly stretching out my distance tolerance for both trail running and swimming and working to bring visibility, equipment, and information on the sport of Swimrun in the Pacific Northwest.
The season here is already underway having completed QuestRaces Bellingham Swimrun on June 9th and I am excited to head to my next Swimrun this coming weekend in Seattle (https://www.questraces.com/seattle-swimrun).
Where are we going from there?
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but Sweden looks nice...
