HOW WAS I T FOR YOU?
It’s Hollywood’s go-to island located 20 miles from Los Angeles, and now home to ÖtillÖ’s first American swimrun race. But would Catalina make a blockbuster debut? Andy Blow finds out
May 2020
My sweat is dripping into my wetsuit as I head up the first cripplinglysteep climb of the day. I realise it’s quite fitting that I signed up to do this race six months ago on the wrong side of a couple of pints of robust local IPA in a bar in Marin, Northern California. After all, the original ÖtillÖ event was the by-product of a now infamous drunken bet, so I conclude it’s all good, and that I’m just doing my bit to continue an alcohol-fuelled tradition of sorts.
I’m instantly snapped out of my distracting train of thought by a stabbing pain in my left foot. I look down and realise I’ve kicked a small – but very spiky – cactus by the side of the trail. It’s a measure of the brutality of the course that it’s not until much, much later that night as I’m trying to sleep that I realise I have an inch-long spine lodged deep in my little toe.
The race is the inaugural ÖtillÖ Swimrun Catalina; a 38,600m circuit around a portion of Santa Catalina Island that sits 20 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, California, and boasts a population of 4,096 people. It’s a qualifying event in the ÖtillÖ swimrun World Series, the culmination of which is the original ‘island to island’ – ‘ÖtillÖ’ in Swedish – race down through the Stockholm archipelago, basically the Kona of swimrun.
PAIRS APPEAL
Of the 40-ish kilometres we’ll cover today, 30.9km are trail running (yes, in a wetsuit) and 7.7km swimming (yes, in running shoes). Like everyone else taking part, I’ll do it all within 10 metres of my race partner, Chris Hauth, because, largely, swimrun is an event completed in teams of two.
The partnership aspect of swimrun racing is one of the features that initially drew me to give it a try in 2014, when I first left my bike at home to fly to Sweden for a crack at the original ÖtillÖ event. Back then, I raced with my friend, Eliot Challifour, another former Ironman who’d started to drift away from the more mainstream tri events we’d been doing in our early 20s. The idea of racing in a pair was uniquely appealing after so many years of training together.
Since that outing, I’ve done 10 other swimruns all over the world and have fallen in love with the feel of the sport. It’s somewhat maverick, very friendly and even a little bit counter-triathlon culture. It mimics the vibe I got from tri back in the 1990s when I started on my own journey into multisport.
In Catalina, my partner, Chris, is a 1996 Olympic swimmer, 2006 Ironman Coeur D’Alene winner and coach to ultra-endurance royalty such as Rich Roll. In other words, I’ve got my work cut out. It was Chris who’d initially suggested we race together when I met up with him on a business trip to San Francisco in 2019. Of course it sounded like a jolly fine idea when we were a few pints in!
THE GROWTH OF SWIMRUN
The Catalina course is split up into eight runs and seven swims, with the shortest run being just 0.3km and the longest 9.5km. The baby swim is just 400m and the Big Daddy 1,700m, but it’s the elevation change on the running course – some 1,315m in total – that’s one of this event’s defining features.
Within the first run alone we go from sea level at the start, up to 250m and back down again in just 3.6 km. Though we’ve not raced together before, Chris and I had a good chat before the gun about starting ‘steady’. Largely, we honour this agreement during the flat first mile before we start the first climb. Yet, once we hit the ascent, it’s impossible to go truly easy: the gradient is so severe that it reduces everyone to a hands-onknees hike, and Chris and I start picking a few victims of early enthusiasm off on the upper slopes.
Due to the severity of the gradient, tip-toeing down to the first swim from the top of the hill proves to be almost as taxing as the ascent, but I’m already psyching myself up to try to cling onto Chris’ toes in the water. As such, my mind doesn’t fret too much about the pain in my quads at this stage. I start to zip the front of my swimrun
“The water is beautifully clear, and I do a terrible job of not thinking about sharks that undoubtedly live around the island”
wetsuit up as we approach the transition, and, after 23mins of running, we hit the beach for the first 1,400m ocean swim section.
Even six years ago, swimrun equipment was way more rudimentary than what Chris, I and the majority of the competitors in Catalina are wearing today. Back in 2014 we just hacked the legs and some of the arms off some old tri wetsuits and got on with it, enjoying some world-class chafing in unspeakable places as a result. Fast forward to 2020 and swimrun has an estimated 10,000 participants and 750+ races around the globe. The level of ‘tech’ available reflects this surge in participation, is increasing exponentially and making everyone’s lives more comfortable.
THE BIG RUN
We hit the water in a small group of teams in around 10th place of the 108 pairs who started. I’ve clipped a ‘tether’ – an optional bungee cord 8ft in length between our waists – to make it impossible for us to become separated in this first swim. As Chris’ prowess is in the water he takes the lead and I settle in right on his feet as he plots a lovely straight course across the bay towards a flag on a concrete boat ramp in the distance, aka our landing spot.
The water is beautifully clear, if a little nippy, and I do a terrible job of not thinking about the sharks that undoubtedly live in the waters around the island as we go past some beds of ominously-waiving kelp. Of course, I know that the likelihood of seeing Jaws, let alone him getting interested in having a nibble, is so remote as to be laughable (although some of Jaws was filmed on Catalina), but it seems easier to think like that when I’m running by the water and not swimming in it.
I keep up with my partner pretty well on the first swim and my confidence starts to increase as a result. It’s actually amazing how much of a draft you get behind someone swimming with paddles and shoes on! Once we exit the first swim, we run a handful of kilometres on a dirt road and then splash back into the sea for a short 400m dip to the start of ‘The Big Run’.
The Big Run in this race is only 9.5km in length but it’s basically 5km uphill at a steep gradient to 550m and then it plummets faster than the stock market during a COVID-19 pandemic down to sea level again. Chris and I settle in for what’s at least 70% hiking during the early section, and he strips down the top of his wetsuit to try to keep cool as the sun is starting to show its face. I opt to unzip but keep my top half up as I notoriously tend to suffer with getting too cold rather
“It’s actually amazing how much of a draft you get behind someone swimming with paddles and shoes on”
than too hot in these kinds of events, especially as we have a bunch of longer swims towards the back end of the course.
The views from the top of the run course are spectacular. As is the quad-burning pain on the way down – I’m paying the price for the almost total lack of running miles that have characterised my early-season training this year. The following sections involve some longer swims (up to 1,700m) and short to moderate runs, and it’s here that Chris and I find our rhythm and start to pick a few teams off, having lost a handful of places on The Big Run.
MAVERICK CHARM
Right at the end of the race, about 5hrs in for us, is a 1,400m swim into a building headwind and a prevailing tide that’s moving the water in the exact opposite direction we need it to. We enter with a couple of teams in sight and I sense the old Olympic-level determination in Chris’ first few strokes as we push off from the concrete ramp. We’ve stopped tethering in the swims by now as we’re confident I can keep up, so I pull a little harder to keep with him. We blow by one pair straight away and they’re clearly getting very tired, as there’s not even a token effort to get onto our feet. The water is getting colder and I’m starting to suffer, but I know we only have a 300m run up the beach to finish once we hit the shore.
I can feel my whole body tightening up with low temperature and general tiredness, yet we land directly alongside another pair and set ourselves up for a sprint to the finish. As much to my surprise as anyone else’s, I manage to get a little bit of leg turnover going on the soft sand and put my head down to get to the line. Chris whistles up a few of his old fasttwitch fibres, too, and we manage to sneak across the line just ahead of Team 55 stealing the coveted 12th overall spot from them. I’m sure they’re gutted but they’re gracious in shaking hands at the finish chute. We’re pretty happy with that as it feels like a decent result for a couple of veterans and, more importantly, we managed to have a good chat and remain friends most of the way round this beautiful but testing course.
Reflecting on the race afterwards there’s a bit of inevitable chat about where we maybe left some time on the table. Chris had a few shoe lace malfunctions that costs us seconds here and there, and I feel like I could’ve done more running in the build-up to become more proficient on the descents, but we’ve had a great time and will almost certainly be back for more of this silliness in the future.
The sport of swimrun feels poised to go more mainstream in the next few years and my main advice would be that, if you’ve not had a go yet, then don’t leave it too long before you leap in. Before you know it, it might start to become more polished and competitive. But right now, the fact that it’s so friendly, well organised yet just a little rough around the edges is what gives swimrun so much charm.