One Water Race Preview: Meet Team 7 – USA
The One Water Race is a titanic 250km race down the Stockholm Archipelago which combines navigation, swimrun and adventure racing.
Participating teams need to excel at orienteering, become masters of the challenges of multi-day endurance racing with an abundance of swimming in open water and long distance running.
Here we meet Team 7 – USA of Brett Gravlin, Justin Smith and Lara Sloan.
About the team
This is a team with superlative adventure racing credentials. Brett and Justin swam together in college and raced EcoChallenge Fiji as part of Team Curl in 2019. In 2021 Brett and Lara raced a 36 hour adventure race together, and when this opportunity arose they couldn’t help but put their names in the hat. Justin’s wife Melissa has navigation and logistics experience and will be the team’s boat captain.
Why did you sign up for the race?
Every year we go to the same cookie convention and at this year’s event we started chatting about the One Water Race as it was a new event. We thought it sounded awesome and we should try to get in…not expecting we actually would! Low and behold, we got the email saying we were in now it’s game on! We are PUMPED and now considering going to even more cookie conventions as brilliant ideas stem from them!
What is the biggest challenge you think you will face during the race?
The elements at night and the cold water as well as navigating when the brain gets foggy from sleep deprivation. We really think the biggest challenge we will face will be running, but also possibly swimming. One can never really tell until they’ve jumped in the water and hit go!
What advice would you give to the swimrun community from your pre-race preparation?
At races you should have fun, prepare, and enjoy. Don’t take it too seriously. In your training you should run with wet shoes, eat what you plan to eat during the event, and practice with all your gear as much as possible. Could someone please tell our team as this is all our first swimrun?
What are you most excited about?
Seeing the day break and sunsets, hot drinks and getting to the finish.
