Do they have tortillas in Poland?: Swim, Wine, Run

September 3, 2017

I’ve done many triathlons over the past several years; some near Warsaw, and some in the beautiful Polish countryside. Always with friends. And it’s always been fun. But there’s one ever present stress for every race (besides the chaos at the start of the swim): figuring out how to get my bike there. I don’t have a car in Poland, and since I don’t fancy riding my bike TO races, the logistics are always an issue (I just realized I’ve spent too much time around Brits because I used “fancy” as a verb). A few races have been easy to get to: for example, the train to Poznan took me from the center of Warsaw to within walking/rolling distance of the race site. But some races are nowhere near a train station, which requires me to either beg a friend to put my bike in or on their car, combine a train and cycle excursion carrying all my crap, or find some other public transport option. Even for the races near Warsaw (Piaseczno and Nieporet), taking bikes on the bus is no given, because strollers have priority. Bus rides with a bike are always stressful, because if a baby carriage comes aboard, the driver usually kicks all the bikes off. It has become a running joke that every time we approach the next bus stop, we chant “no baby, no baby!” hoping not to see any strollers. Then we celebrate when we realize we can continue safely for at least one more stop. When I say “we,” of course I mean only me.

During one bus trip to the Nieporet race (25 km away from Warsaw), a few of us had bikes and all our tri gear. When we approached a bus stop still several kilometers from the race, I noticed it...my worst fear. A baby. Immediately the driver made all the bikes get off, even though there was plenty of space for everyone. “You don’t all have to get off...just the bikes.” That didn’t make any sense, but it seems the driver was not one for logic on this day. The mom felt bad and tried to convince the driver she didn’t mind sharing the space. Unfortunately she didn’t feel bad enough to get back off the bus and let us continue in peace.

Anyway, the point is that getting my bike to a triathlon can suck sometimes, and when Zosia and I are racing together, which means two bikes, it sucks double. By the way, thanks to everyone who has transported our bikes in the past (and in the future!).

So, when a friend from the club, Tomek, started talking about swimrun, which we realized didn't have the word "bike" in the name, we were curious.

Tomek promised wine at the swimrun

Swimrun is basically what it sounds like; a race where you swim and run. But it’s not as simple as a duathlon, where you might simply swim a certain distance, put on your running shoes, then run to the finish line. You have to switch back and forth between swimming and running multiple times in a swimrun. So maybe it should be called a swimrunswimrunswimrunswimrun. Or more precisely a runswimrunswimrunswimrunswimrun, since running is generally first (and last).

How exactly does a swimrun work? Well, unlike in a triathlon, you don’t finish each segment in a comfy transition zone where you can leave your stuff in a cheap plastic box, grab a bite of sandwich and chug from your giant Powerade bottle. You simply start running at the StartLine (don't forget to register and make your annual donation to the foundation) and follow a specific route to get to the finish line. It's like orienteering, but in between the start and finish there are a bunch of water crossings where you have to swim to the other side to continue on the race route. Since there are no storage boxes, you swim with your running gear and run with your swimming gear (and your sandwich). Folks on the Oregon Trail would have loved it.

All geared up!

Typical swimrun gear includes running shoes that drain well, a special thin, short sleeve and short leg wetsuit, a pull buoy for your legs (so you don’t have to kick with shoes on), hand paddles to make the swim easier, goggles, swim cap, and an elastic rope to connect you to your partner. I forgot to mention that some races require you to be literally tied to someone during the whole race.

The teamwork aspect actually makes it more fun. If one person is a stronger runner, they can pull the other person and in the water, a strong swimmer can make a big difference for their partner. During one practice swim, I pulled Zosia for about 1 km, and as we were drying off at Tomek’s car later, she said “Swimming was super easy today. I could have kept going!” I, on the other hand, was exhausted.

We decided to do the race in Wióry with Tomek and a few other friends. There’s a big lake with lots of trees and hills around it. The landscape is picturesque: we stayed on a vineyard, where someone actually makes Polish wine! I can’t say that Polish wine is my favorite, but we had a nice little cottage for the five of us (including Charlotte and Judith), and we got to do some wine tastings.

Our cottage in the vineyard

Perfect little place

Even though it was September, the weather turned out to be very cold and wet. Normally we’d be worried, but this time, it saved us. We didn’t want to rent the specific swimrun wetsuit (we're CCM), and wanted to use our normal triathlon ones. These are long sleeved, thicker, heavier, tighter, and not as comfortable to run in as the swimrun versions. If it would have been a normal summer day, it woulda been too hot to run in them, and impossible to take off and put back on during the running segments. Because it was something like 12 degrees C, we were able to keep them on the whole time and not overheat. We just unzipped a little during the longer runs.

We decided to enter the 10 km race, with 6 running legs, totaling about 8k, and 5 swims, making up the rest. They gave us a map and off we went. Martin was doing the race individually, so the three of us decided to go together. GPS would have been nice, because a lot of people got lost. There’s no marked path, just a few race marshals (and drunk fisherman) showing the way, but I guess that’s part of the fun. And as long as you aren’t in first place, you can always follow others. This is obviously the only reason we decided not to be in first place.

To help carry our pull buoys and paddles, we made some straps from the extra elastic rope: we could strap the buoys to our legs while running and attach the paddles to our belt. It was like having a Batman utility kit. Luckily there were videos on YouTube helping us figure out how to do it.

It actually felt great to run a bit, get in the water to cool down, then run a bit more. Luckily my shoes drained perfectly and I didn’t get any blisters on my feet (it’s worth testing your shoe drainage before a race...the first shoes I tried got water logged, and felt like running in cinder blocks). We found ourselves simply looking around and enjoying the scenery, and at times forgot we were in a race. There was no sense of urgency and it was great. We paused for photos, chatted with other competitors, and enjoyed the journey.

We finished!

Tomek and Charlotte probably didn’t stop to smell the roses as much as we did, as they ended up on the podium for mixed pairs in the longer race (28k + 5k). They were awesome!

Congrats guys!

33k is a bit too long for us, but we’ll keep our eyes open for something around 15k, because it truly was an enjoyable race. Unfortunately we won’t be able to do any races in 2018, but since it seems to be gaining in popularity, we’ll be looking for people to join us for future races. And I’ll remind you about the best part: you don’t have to transport your bike!