Throwback Mixtape Vol. 9: Team Mr and Mrs B on Partnership and the ÖTILLÖ World Championship

We're throwing it back to 2022 for our ninth installment of the Löw Tide Böyz Throwback Mixtape. This one comes from our second annual Partners Month, and it is one of our favorite conversations of all time.

Chrissy and Bill Lankford, known to the swimrun community as Team Mr and Mrs B, join us to talk about building a life and a swimrun partnership together. They live in Cambridge in the east of the UK and found the sport through the Toadman World Series, a set of local races started by Tom Vickery, Rich Sale, and Stu Hodgson in a gravel pit near their home. From there they raced the Isle of Scilly, then Rockman, and eventually committed to the ÖTILLÖ World Championship, a jump from six or seven hour races to eleven or twelve hours on the course.

We get into how they trained with almost no access to real swimrun terrain, how they split roles and communicate as a team when things get hard, the mantras that get them through a race, and the injury Bill pushed through after pulling his hip flexor at Örnö. We also talk gear, wetsuits, transitions, and their ongoing mission to get more people into the sport.

Bill and Chrissy have since raced together at multiple ÖTILLÖ World Championships, Rockman, and ÖTILLÖ Öland. This conversation is full of warm and fuzzies and a great one to revisit.

00:00 Intro and the Throwback Mixtape format
05:00 Meet Chrissy and Bill, who is the team leader
08:00 Finding swimrun through the Toadman World Series
12:00 The Rockman race that made them believe they could do Ötillö
16:00 Paddle technique and training in a pool versus open water
20:00 Racing mantras and pacing one kilometer at a time
24:00 Arriving at the ÖTILLÖ World Championship race briefing
28:00 A pulled hip flexor and racing through the cutoffs
34:00 Team communication and the caffeine gel debate
40:00 Why they started sharing their own swimrun journey
44:00 Practicing transitions and jumping off rocks
49:00 Getting more people into the sport and the 2018 Finland event
52:00 Wetsuits, surf beaches, and a real riptide
56:00 Committing to more Isle of Scilly points races

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