2022 World Champions: Team Ark Swimrun Hugo and Max

Welcome to episode 157 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!Happy New Year everyone! In our annual tradition of setting the bar way too high for ourselves, we have a great show lined up to kick off 2023. Joining us this week are the 2022 World Champions and the only Men’s team to go undefeated in every event of the ÖTILLÖ World Series. Of course we are talking about none other than Hugo Tormento and Max Andersson, A.K.A., Team Ark Swimrun Hugo and Max. This was a super fun conversation and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.But first…Training UpdateWe’re still in off-season mode but our race calendar is starting to come together and it looks like our first Swimrun event will be in May at Bend Racing’s new Sunriver Swimrun in Bend, Oregon.ShoutoutsIn our Gear of the Year Awards episode with the Swimrun Labs we put out a call for gear ideas that don’t exist yet and we got some awesome responses. We will save the details for the next edition of Gear Talk but we wanted to shoutout some of the folks that had great/creative/violative of the laws of physics/genius ideas. In no particular order: shoutouts to Katie, Pepe, Brendan, Henrik (a.k.a. Swimrun Pappa), Naomi, and Matt.Feats of EnduranceThis week’s Feats of Endurance winner is Vlad Caireac. He posted a workout from his native Moldova. He is our first Strava Club member from this Eastern European country and we’re here for it! Thanks for joining the club.Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club (which just passed 500 members!!!) and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.This Week in SwimrunWe are going to get back into the swing of things for this segment but wanted to share a quick update on our plans for the show in 2023. Last year we focused a lot on our own Swimrun journey to ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship with our Countdown to ÖTILLÖ series and while we are planning on heading back to Sweden this year for another bite at that apple (if we re-qualify), we aren't planning on emphasizing our personal journey as much. Rather, we are re-focusing on helping grow the sport and showcase why we think that the sport is so great and why everyone with any propensity for swimming and running should try it. In that vein, we will be producing more "course preview" episodes for races on our bucket list, since living vicariously is the best we can hope for given our family and work responsibilities. We will also be producing more content specifically for beginners that we will be featuring in our IG and YouTube feeds.Now for the “news.”In the bummer department, Ödyssey Swimrun recently announced that their Coastal Dunes race which was scheduled for early March was forced to be canceled due to permitting issues. All registered participants have been notified.In other (non-bummer) Ödyssey news, they have opened registration for all their 2023 events which include Casco Bay, Mackinac Island, Orcas Island, and Austin. If that wasn’t enough for you, registration for all their events is 30% off through the month of January! Time for a short PSA: As someone who’s worked in the endurance space for almost a decade I can tell you that putting on races, and especially Swimrun events, is a painstaking and expensive process with very little guarantee of success early on and most races are, in effect, crowdsourced by registration revenue. Registering early (and often) helps make sure that the events that we know and love keep happening year after year. Moral of the story, register for your Swimrun events early, save money, and help race directors put on amazing events.Over in Sweden, ÖTILLÖ announced that their Isles of Scilly event will not take place in 2023. They also mentioned that a new race destination will be announced in like 100 days from now. Our investigative team is hard at work trying to figure out the destination and so far we are pretty sure that the event will be in the Northern Hemisphere. More details forthcoming on that!In other ÖTILLÖ news, registration for the 2023 ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship via Swimrun ranking points is open! The registration window is open until January 20, 2023 and teams will be informed on February 2nd (Swimrun Christmas) on whether they will be spending a 9 months obsessing about the Stockholm Archipelago.Finally, want to hang out and train with one of the best Swimrun coaches in the world? Nicolas Remires of Envol Swimrun is hosting a training camp at the Playitas Resort on Fuerteventura from January 30-February 6th. Just google the location and you’ll want to attend. Reach out to Envol Coaching for more information about that camp.Show BusinessAs you heard at the beginning of the show, the people have spoken and apparently we are the winner’s of Swimrun.com’s 2022 Maven Award (for Individual(s) who have widened participation, awareness and growth of the sport.) Thank you to everyone that voted, we are truly humbled that our brand of super niche content has an audience and that people find it helpful. The 2022 World Champions: Team Ark Swimrun Hugo and MaxWhat can we say about Hugo and Max that isn’t inundated with superlatives? They had an incredible 2022 Swimrun season where they won every race that they entered, set the course record at ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship in a commanding fashion, and all the while being great ambassadors for the sport. In this conversation we chatted with them about how they teamed up, how they trained and managed to prepare for a busy racing season, we got mini-race reports from their World Series races and, of course, discussed their record-breaking performance at ÖTILLÖ. As we mentioned at the outset, we may have set the bar too high for ourselves…Enjoy our conversation with Hugo and Max, reigning World Champions and all around amazing human beings.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 [email protected] 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