The Dutch Swimrun Scene with Bart Vandervaal and Henk de Bock

| Episode 337

The Dutch swimrun scene is real, it's growing, and it just held its first ever national championship. This week we sit down with Bart Vandervaal and Henk de Bock, the race directors behind Het Rondje Eilanden in Vinkeveen, just south of Amsterdam, to hear how a 15-year-old island circuit race became the birthplace of the Dutch Swimrun Championship.

Bart and Henk have been organizing swimrun in the Netherlands longer than most people in the country knew what the word meant. Bart met us on the ferry to Sandhamn at ÖTILLÖ last year (Chip clocked his shoes immediately), and we've been wanting to have this conversation ever since. Henk is racing ÖTILLÖ World Series this year for the first time. These two are not just putting on races, they're building a scene.

We get into how the Dutch swimrun community grew from a handful of WhatsApp groups to 750 participants at a single event, why the championship format uses three loops of the same 6.5K circuit, the unique race culture around Het Rondje Eilanden (hot tubs, campfire, live music, tents on the island), and what it means to crown national champions on a course that's been around since before most people called it swimrun. We also talk about the growing urban swimrun scene in the Netherlands, the Backyard Ultra Swimrun format happening just north of Amsterdam, kids racing, and the wild dream of swimrunning all five Wadden Islands including an 11K open water crossing.

On our end, we're two weeks out from Quest Swimrun Bellingham at Lake Padden, deep in the meat-and-potatoes training block with Bellingham, Folsom, ÖTILLÖ Casco Bay, and ÖTILLÖ World Series still ahead of us this season.

00:00 Intro
02:30 Swimrun Bellingham preview and training update
05:00 Coach Liz training chat and swim volume ramp
07:00 Welcome to Bart Vandervaal and Henk de Bock
08:00 The origin story: Het Rondje Eilanden and 15 years of island racing
11:00 How Henk discovered swimrun and what makes it different from aquathlon
13:00 Swimrun as a universal human instinct: islands, water, and the urge to cross
16:00 The Dutch Swimrun Championship format: three loops, 19K, pairs racing
19:00 Growing the Dutch swimrun scene: WhatsApp groups to 750 participants
23:00 Race culture at Het Rondje Eilanden: hot tubs, camping, fire, and live music
25:00 Bart's ÖTILLÖ World Championship experience last year
29:00 Race formats in the Netherlands: urban swimrun, Delft, Utrecht, Amsterdam
34:00 Backyard Ultra Swimrun and the My Swimrun Championships
37:00 What makes swimrun spectator-friendly: racecraft, transitions, and eliminator formats
40:00 Kids racing and the next generation of Dutch swimrunners
42:00 Working with the Dutch National Triathlon Union and growing organically
45:00 Open registration details for the Dutch Swimrun Championship
46:00 Final thoughts and see you in Stockholm