We are Jenny and Claire, a female Swimrun team from the Lake District, UK. We met while training in our local pool early in 2015 (training for triathlons at the time) and began regularly swimming and running together.

Living in the Lakes, between us, we have completed some of the most gruelling triathlons out there. We were both looking for a new challenge – then the first SwimRun race came to the UK, right on our doorstep in Buttermere; we had to give it a go…and to our surprise we won the female team prize!

What is SwimRun?

The sport of SwimRun is fairly new on the UK multisport scene, but has been going strong in Scandinavia for over ten years, pioneered by OtillO, meaning “Island to Island”.

Originally the result of a drunken bet between friends, OtillO Sweden is now the SwimRun World Championship race.

It involves running and swimming over multiple stages, but more akin to an adventure race than an aquathlon, with races typically covering 30 – 70km of running and 5 – 10km of swimming, broken down into anywhere between 20 and 60 separate stages. Athletes must either carry or wear all their kit both on land and in water. We both loved the self-sufficiency and adventure aspect of these races and after our first race were hooked!

In June 2016 we competed in the UK’s first OtillO World Series race on the Isles of Scilly and placed 3rd. This earned us a qualifying spot at the 2016 OtillO World SwimRun Championship in Stockholm, which takes place on 4th September.

This was totally unexpected as we were unsure how we’d match up to the experienced Swim-runners from all over Europe.  All of our training and racing is self funded, alongside working full time jobs, so we set up this project to help us represent the UK in one of the toughest endurance races in the world. By donating, you will be helping us fund race entry, training costs, flights and accommodation to get us closer to achieving our goal.

Thanks,

Claire and Jenny

PS

This August, we are also heading to Norway to race the Rockman Swimrun: 36km of running and 6km swimming with 2500m of ascent, around Lysefjorden and taking in the infamous 4444 stone steps at Florli, another tough challenge where we will be up against some of the sport’s best endurance athletes.