First time doing swimrun!

Hey guys,

Haven’t been so productive here for a while, sorry for that!
This weekend I was to Lappeenranta area in Eastern Finland for a swimrun organized by a friend. The event was not public but only for friends. As the name say, swimrun is a combination of running and swimming.

We started out from a friend’s summer place close to Taipalsaari. The first ten kilometers we run and swam from island to island in wetsuits. Roughly half the distance swimming and half of it running. We had two guys following us in a boat which provided support (drinking bottles and some snacks) and foremost security.

This is what it was like. Photo from Pixabay.

After the first part of the event we changed to normal running/triathlon gear and left the wetsuits. The second part of the distance was about 30 km and during this distance we only had two short swimming legs. These legs we just swam in the running gear. During this second part, we also had our supporting car, from which we got snacks and drinking, waiting for us in a few places. After finnishing we had a great time eating and going to sauna and these swimming pools made of wood.

Totally we swam and run for almost 45 kilometers and 8,5 hours. That’s not too fast taking into consideration that the second part of the event we mostly run on roads, not in the forest. This was a great event, the company and support was magnificent and even the weather was supportive, not too warm but not raining. I highly recommend testing swimrun for all who likes running and swimming! A commercial event might be the right place to test and if it catches you arranging own events with a bunch of friends isn’t too hard, especially in Finland, where we have a lot of lakes and you’re free to move on other people’s property as long as you don’t go too close to their houses.

This photo from pixabay gives a good image what kind of terrain we were moving in.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any camera with, I might get some photos from a friend who had his camera with him. If I get, I’ll post them later!