Swimrun Advice for Beginners: Training, Gear Reviews & Race Calendars

Updated January 2026

Welcome to Swimrun Advice, a practical, up-to-date hub for people new to this exhilarating sport of running in your wetsuit and swimming in your shoes.

We were even recommended by British newspaper The Guardian, and we’re here to make the confusing bits simple: choosing the right swimrun gear, improving your training, and finding races with our event calendars. Have a browse and head straight to the topic you need most right now.

About the authors:

Hi! We are Richard Mitchell and Mogsy Ford. We came to swimrun as marathon runners and triathletes, and we still remember how confusing those first questions can be: what gear you actually need, what to wear, and how to approach your first event. That’s why we built Swimrun Advice — to share straightforward, honest guidance based on what we’ve learned from our own training and races.

Not sure where to start?

If you only read one page first, make it our Race Day Advice page. It’s packed with practical tips for pre-race prep and for getting through the event smoothly (based on what’s worked for us in very different race conditions).

Choose A Topic To Explore

1) Start Here: What Is Swimrun?
New to swimrun? This page explains what it is, how it works (no changing gear at transitions!), and why it’s so addictive.

2) Find a Race (2026 Calendars)
Browse our up-to-date swimrun race calendars and find an event that fits your location, distance, and ambition.

3) Search For Races by Country
Want something closer to home? Use our country-by-country list to find races fast.

4) Your First Event (Beginner Cheat Sheet)
Everything we wish we’d known before our first swimrun—what to expect, what to bring, and how to enjoy it.

5) Race Day Advice (Most Important!)
Practical tips for the day itself—prep, pacing, transitions (or lack of them), and the little things that make a big difference.

6) Swimrun Equipment (What You Actually Need)
A straightforward guide to the essential kit (and what you can skip), plus honest gear recommendations.

7) Wetsuits & Wetsuit Reviews
Choosing a suit is one of the biggest hurdles—here’s what to look for and which swimrun wetsuits are worth your time.

8) Training (Swim + Run Improvements)
Build endurance, improve your swimming, and train smarter with our plans, tips, and what’s worked for us.

Underwater view of a swimrun competitor swimming over a shallow sand back, in light green water.

Approaching the end of a swim section!

Ötillö

A quick nod to Ötillö (where swimrun started).

Swimrun began in Sweden, and Ötillö helped shape the sport into what it is today — so they deserve a quick mention. If you’re curious about the series (and the history behind it), here’s our page on Ötillö.

Four swimrunners with their raffle prizes, standing on grass inside a big white tent, with the race director.

Swimrun Engadin - we are on the left.

Photo note: that’s us on the left with (then) Ötillö Race Director Mats Skott at Swimrun Engadin in Switzerland. Don’t be too impressed though — we didn’t win our group… but we DID come 2nd in the raffle and went home with some gear!

Swimrun Advice
- Other Equipment

At first, we found ourselves wondering what gear we would need and what to wear. Check out our swim run equipment page to find out exactly what gear you will need! We even have a page dedicated to socks, reviewing some of the best on the market.

We have a page on swimrun training gadgets to help you get the most out of your training sessions. The latest addition is about the best bone conduction headphones for swimrun training. They are super-light, don't slip or slide around, and sound fantastic!

One piece of equipment that every swimrunner needs is goggles. We review the most popular swim goggles, and have a special page about custom-fit goggles for people who have problems finding goggles that don't leak or exert too much pressure. These are made by Danish company THEMAGIC 5. These custom-fit goggles are the most high-tech swim goggles on the planet, period! Check them out at our dedicated page here.

Our biggest page is probably our reviews of suitable watches - take a look at our affordable GPS watch reviews to find out what you should be looking for.

Wetsuit Reviews

Choosing a suitable wetsuit is one of the biggest challenges – Mogsy even had to have a suit custom-made to her own measurements, to get a fit that would be comfortable for up to 8 hours of wear! You can read about our own suits.

In warm weather or hot climates, you can wear a triathlon suit instead of a wetsuit. This has a couple of interesting advantages, as we describe in our page on hot weather swimrun gear.

Mogsy's favourite wetsuit is the Colting Women's suit pictured below - click here to go to Amazon for more information and the best price!

A picture of a black Colting swimrun wetsuit.

Colting Womens Wetsuit

Injuries

We have found that there is a small but significant risk of picking up a trauma during training and racing, especially in salt water events. Discover what might go wrong at our page on Swimrun Injuries. And be sure to read all the way to the bottom to find out about the most dangerous risk - a potental killer - HYPOTHERMIA.

Swimrun events were originally for teams of 2 persons, but in recent years it has been possible to compete as a solo racer. In September 2020, Michal Jablonski completed a sprint distance event of 12km as a solo racer, but he took his dog Venus with him! Read more about this story at our page here!

A man in a red triathlon suit and sunglasses, standing at the side of a road, rubbing sunscreen into his right arm, with blue sky in the background.

Richard before a 5 hour training stint

Series Organisers

This new sport is growing in popularity around the world, and we have pages with details of organisers who hold a series of races. For example;

USA: Ötillö swimrun USA

Canada: Mudskipper Challenge

UK: Keen as Mustard Events

and Gritty Rascals Events

Europe/USA: Otillo World Series

Canary Islands, Spain: Canary Islands

Portugal, including Madeira; Portugal Series

Australia: Swimrun Australia

Italy: The Swimrun Italy series

But you can also check our event calendars for Europe 2026 as well as for the USA/Rest of World 2026, OR you can search by country here!

Are you an organiser who holds one or more events? Contact us and we can add you to our list of organisers, and feature your races in a dedicated web page for your organisation.

But now let's get back to the basics!

You'll need to find out about all the issues involved in Swim Run before you can become competitive in races.

Look at the drop-down menu at the top of the page to see the various areas we are covering, from

how to start , including a special beginners guide,
events calendars,
equipment reviews,
event info reviews,
and our own personal journey.

Training

We estimated that the Isles of Scilly Swimrun would take us from 7 to 8 hours to complete, and so we incorporated a marathon into our training plan, to build up our endurance. The event was in Milan, Italy. We finished at a comfortable pace, bearing in mind that we were treating this as another training session. Check out our Milan race report.

We think that training for a full marathon or a half-marathon is excellent endurance work before a long-distance Swimrun event (say, over 30km). You can read about other marathons we have personally completed.

A man and woman cross the finish line at the Honolulu Marathon, holding their hands up.

Richard and Mogsy cross the finish line at the Honolulu marathon

Swim Training

It's also good to look for dedicated swimming events or series, to focus on swimming for a period. We entered the Barbados Open Water Festival, which involved 5 swim races over 5 days, finishing with a 3.3 km event (2 miles). Read our page about the event - and our training.

We have also written a page about how to reduce your overall swim times by 10%, by using some simple techniques!

A small group of people sitting on a sand bank by blue water, watching the competitors in a swimrun race at the second swim leg at the Isles of Scilly, UK.

Watching swimrunners start the second swim leg, Isles of Scilly

For our most recent BIG race, in the Isles of Scilly, UK, we kept a training log. You can read about how we planned and carried out our training at our Training Page.

Of course, don't forget to read 'About Us' to find out who's writing this site - anyone can put up a website, but it's good to know that the authors of this site are genuine SwimRunners!

This website is very active, and we are updating it continuously, especially the race calendars for Europe and USA/Canada/Rest Of the World.

So do bookmark this page or add it to your RSS feed, and come back soon!