My Adventure: by Johan & Hanna Skarbratt
Our swimrun adventure began 10 years before we won the ÖtillÖ Swimrun World Championships, when we met for the very first time in 2015! We bumped into each other at a lake where we were both swim-training. From there it went pretty quickly to a relationship both with each other and with the sport of swimrun. Our first dates all involved swimrun and our life from there on would very much revolve around swimrun.
Swimrun is a sport where the participants, most often in teams of two, transport themselves seamlessly between land and water over long distances. Gear typically consists of trailshoes that drain well in water, a short wetsuit, a large pull-bouy, and large paddles. Today there are races all over the world in many magnificent settings and participating in the races allows you to experience the nature in the area in a very special way as you move across lakes, rivers, oceans, mountains, and trails non-stop.
When we met, we immediately started dreaming of participating in the Mother of swimrun races, the ÖtillÖ World Championships, in Stockholm, Sweden. The course is approximately 65 km running and 10 km swimming divided up in 46 transitions between the two sports. We applied for and received spots to the next season’s race and had an amazing experience completing the course. At that point, we never could’ve imagined that 9 years later we would be the ones winning the race! That idea would materialize only after we had 4 kids! 2 sets of twins in 2018 and 2021!
As our family and relationship grew, we also figured out ways to help each other grow as athletes. We set common goals and detailed planning and continued to improve. In 2022, we were at the level where it was reasonable to start competing for the top of the podium. But it would be after a few years and close calls that we would finally win the race in 2025.
Advice to Others:
Achieving goals and participating in great adventures as a couple in an incredible experience that we would hope many more could experience. Our main advice is to dream up goals together. Grand goals, goals that seem completely unreasonable in the short term! Start big and then break up the goals into smaller goals. The whole time working together to visualize and dream of where you want to be.
Step two is to plan! Plan in detail and discuss how to prioritize the time to train and prepare for what you want to achieve. We promise that the journey together will help to strengthen you not just to get to your adventure, but also to get through everyday life together.
Step three is to execute on your plan! Being two in on the same goal, is a great way to stay accountable. Push each other to stick to the plan and to be the best versions of yourselves. To prioritize your time and energy with things that help you get closer to achieving your goal.
Last piece of advice, if you are doing this in the middle of also raising small humans together, involve the other small humans in the journey! Let them come along in your training. Family outing to the track can be a great weekend activity where everyone can get in training and have fun together! Family stroller, biking, running trips to parks and activities are great ways to squeeze in extra volume. Going to dinner at a relative’s house, one of you can run there, the other can run back. Find the small tricks where you can hide training in everyday life without it taking away too much time from the family.
