Ödyssey Swimrun Casco Bay Course PreviewWelcome to episode seventy-six of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!On this week’s show we have a super comprehensive course preview for Ödyssey Swimrun’s Casco Bay race. We raced Casco Bay in 2018 and we’re super stoked to be going back this year to race the long course again. We will be focusing on the long course in this show but the short course follows most of the same course so we will make sure to cover everything the short course Swimrunners will want to know. Putting together a course preview for Casco Bay is a challenge because the course has changed every year since it started in 2016 but that’s part of the allure. Casco Bay was the first European-style Swimrun (i.e., Island to island and point to point) in the United States and the brainchild of legendary race director Jeff Cole. Jeff and Lars Finanger partnered up to put on the first race 5 years ago and the rest is Swimrun history. When Jeff passed away in 2018, Casco Bay was renamed “The Cole Classic'' in his honor. It’s safe to say that Jeff would be super stoked with how the sport of Swimrun has grown in the U.S. With that as a prelude, let’s get into our course preview for Casco Bay. THE GREAT ATLANTIC NORTHEAST (IS THAT TERM A THING?) The Casco Bay islands are situated off of the coast of Portland, Maine. The islands are relatively easy to get to via ferry or water taxi service and there are plenty of activities to do for the whole family. Most Swimrunners will be staying on the mainland in the City of Portland which is a great spot with lots of really good restaurants, lobster shacks, donut shops, and tourist destinations. We definitely ate our way through town before and after our race! Getting to Portland is pretty straight forward. Folks can either fly into Portland directly or fly to Manchester, New Hampshire or Boston, Massachusetts and then drive up to Maine. NOW FOR THE “MAINE” EVENT (COURSE OVERVIEW) For a general overview of the Casco Bay course, we asked Lars to share his take on the course and what athletes can expect out there. Let’s break down the Casco Bay course for 2021. As we mentioned at the start of the show, the course changes every year so we will try to be as general as possible about the specific islands that Swimrunners will be crossing so they can be referenced in the future in case they are used again in following years in a different order. As we talk about the course you will notice that we will emphasize that all the distances are approximate because, well, that’s how it goes with Swimrun. The Casco Bay Long Course clocks in at 21.65ish total miles with 17ish miles of running and 4.65ish miles (7,465m/8,164ish yards) of swimming. The Short Course is 12.1ish total miles with 10ish miles of running and 2.1ish miles (3,400m/3,718ish yards) of swimming. The Short Course starts at Long Island (Run 7 on the Long Course) so athletes racing that course can skip the first bit and get a snack and jump back in when we start chatting about Long Island and onward. We recommend pulling up the course map on the Ödyssey Swimrun website and follow along the legs as we break them down. We are lucky to have a couple of course experts to walk you through the course instead of us. Joining us for this portion of the show are John Stevens: Multisport coach with PurplePatch Fitness and Casco Bay race director/course designer and Matt Hurley: Multisport coach and Co-Founder of Black Sheep Endurance Project. They have raced and won all four editions of Swimrun Casco Bay so we can’t think of a better duo to walk us through the course. Annotated Long Course Leg by Leg Breakdown with key features of each leg: R1: Peaks Island (2.0mi)Neutral start for everyone for the first .5 mileRace starts on low tideRocky entrance to first swimS1: Peaks Island to Cushing Island (965m/1,055yd)First swim will at low tide R2: Cushing Island (2.3mi)It’s a private island that we get to run through Only run that has any significant e