I got my ass kicked in Sweden by 125 miles of swimming and running – the triathlete
On August 21, 2022, I boarded a ferry from Stockholm, Sweden, along with my teammates, seven other teams, press, filmmakers and staff for a five-hour journey to the northernmost island in the archipelago, Arholma. The goal for each team on board was to successfully complete the upcoming 125 mile swimrun journey to the southernmost island, Landsort, in under 60 hours.
Our team of four was one of three American teams selected to participate in the first run of this epic adventure. Team #1 consisted of myself (former elite swimmer and pro triathlete, most recently a competitive expedition adventure racer), Jarrod Shoemaker (2008 triathlon Olympian, former elite runner and also current expedition adventurer), Misty Becerra (my longtime swimrun partner, XTERRA national champion and adventurer), plus Kristen Smith—our team boat support team who is a former Otillo swimrun racer and firefighter from North Carolina.
We all spent two days on Arholma – an approximately 1 mile by 3 mile long island in the northeastern part of the Stockholm archipelago – going through pre-race meetings, last minute race preparations, enjoying great food and exploring the island during training sessions. We caught up with some of the 90+ employees who will be helping the seven teams through the challenging journey. This large group included boat skippers, safety runners, documentary filmmakers, social media experts and so many more.
Tuesday morning started at 4am with a pre-race breakfast and a beautiful sunrise over the chilly Baltic Sea. At 06.30 the teams received the track maps for the first of five race segments. The One Water Race is designed more like an adventure race and less like a swimrun event. The teams had no set course to follow, instead choosing our own path to pass each checkpoint on the map. Upon completion of each of the five segments, teams would receive the next set of maps. Just like adventure racing, navigation skills were very important to stay on track and choose the most efficient route through the 100+ islands that dot the landscape.
By 7 a.m., the 28 racers (three swimmers plus a support team on each team) were lined up and ready to head south for the next two to three days. The two local Swedish teams were the ones to watch — and Follow if you were able! They knew the islands like the back of their hands after years of swimrun training and participating in local events scattered throughout the archipelago. They also understood the local customs of land use (called “Rights of Commons”, which is very different from the American view of land ownership) and especially how to easily get through an electric cattle fence.
With only seven teams in the competition, it was a rare treat to bump into another team out in the wilderness on an uninhabited island that we might hike across. But mostly it was just our little team of three, traversing yet another moss and rock filled island, accompanied only by our ‘safety runner’ who was tasked with capturing all our successes and failures, and highs and lows, on a GoPro for the media production team. Each island walk ended with us holding our breath and crossing our fingers as we approached the coast to (hopefully) find our navigator Kristen standing at the bow of our support boat with hot food and fresh hydration for us to change.
The rules stated that no team could enter the water for a swim without a green light/flag from the boat, so during each of our crossings the talented boat skipper would loop around the island, through the shallow rocks, waiting for the spot we roughly marked with an “X” on the map.
Sometimes Kristen would yell our names for five minutes into the woods to help us navigate to the same spot and sometimes we would just walk out of the woods right where we were supposed to be. After a surprisingly warm summer in the Scandinavian area, the water wasn’t too cold—but it wasn’t the 85-plus degree F swimming water our team had been using for training in Florida for the past five months, either. Thanks to a generous sponsorship from Orca, our team had all the gear we needed to survive the swims, including two sets of swimrun suits, each cold water neoprene accessory for our extremities and a full thermal wetsuit for the long night swims.
We had a great adventure swimming and running through the islands for the first 24 hours of the race. We swam next to our support boat at night while they shone light beams on the next island and we ran through fields of cows and sheep waking up in the morning. As the second day wore on, things began to wear on us. My neck no longer agreed with my wetsuit after seeing over 30 swims. Jarrod’s arms no longer agreed to swim with paddles. And Misty’s knees decided to boycott the run when they were cold. It was a slow shift from pure enjoyment of the whole experience to dreading every transition as the second night approached – especially when we got the maps for the fourth leg and realized that several two to four kilometer swims were in our future.
Kristen was incredible at staying calm and handling our emotions throughout the trip. Sometimes she would give us freshly cooked food and we would just return it with a disgusted look. And then at the next transition, she would give us the same thing and we would devour it like starving children. After the race we heard about the race from her perspective and we learned that it took 30 minutes of time on land to start the portable stove and boil the 120 ounces of water that we would quickly consume over the next 10-15 islands. We also found out that our supply of Gatorade powder was running low and would have been a big problem if we hadn’t dropped out of the race – her potential plan was to offer us super concentrated vegetable broth and throw it back at us when we refused .
But even with her positivity at every transition, including sharing messages of love and support from our families and friends back home who were up all night checking for updates, the negative voices in our head started to get louder and louder. I’ll be the first to admit, I complain very loudly — and about everything. But for the most part, I’ll keep moving, especially if the group is still moving forward. But then another voice in the group begins to express negative feelings. And then it gets harder and harder to hear your inner cheer—the part of you that knows the scrape will heal, the muscles will recover, the nails will grow back, and the blisters will go away.
And so, it was there at checkpoint nine, the end of the third stage and the start of the fourth stage, that our team made the decision to stop the race. At this point there were still five teams advancing. Led by the king and queen of the local swimrun, Sweden Team 4 was already halfway through the grueling 7K swim (the longest and most challenging segment of the race) and on its way to a fantastic finish of just over 47 hours. The following day two more teams (Sweden Team 2 and Australia Team 8) would also finish in under 60 hours.
Looking back at the maps, our team covered 75-80 miles of the total course in our 38 hours in the race. We crossed about 45 islands, with 45 swims between them. We saw the sunrise once and the sunset twice. We crossed paths with a moose on one of the last islands. We saw an incredible amount of Swedish beauty on the islands. But we also had our bodies abused by the archipelago. It took three days of recovery in Stockholm, including night sweats, full body swelling, tick removal, neck bandages and endless amounts of eating until we felt human again. And then we flew home and I got COVID…so the recovery continues!
The creators of One Water Race had a dream that came true last week — to see if it was possible to swimrun from Arholma to Landsort. The route they chose for the race was not the easiest (or most direct, or easiest or most comfortable) but it was an honor to be selected as one of the few teams to attempt and even more impressive to be in the presence of the athletes who finished! It will be a pleasure to watch the next One Water Race from the comfort of my own computer as we follow the trail of the new teams facing the ultimate proof of human capacity.