Arendsee SwimRun: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The start is at the Strandbad Arendsee, and within minutes the pattern that carries the whole day sets in: out onto the shore, along the paths around the lake, back into the water at a yellow or green buoy, out again at a red one. Each lap holds five crossings totalling 2.35 kilometres of swimming and five run sections totalling 8.2 kilometres.

The course is a loop and flat for long stretches; close to half the profile is level ground, the rest spread almost evenly across gentle rises and falls along the lake edge. The one notable gradient arrives at the same place every lap, at kilometre 6.2: around 350 metres averaging just under seven percent with ramps up to twelve, lifting you from shore level onto the rim above the lake. Over three laps you meet it three times, each time with more swim kilometres in your arms.

Because the same course is swum and run three times over, after the first lap you know every buoy, every entry and every rise. The water of the Arendsee is clear, the paths are natural surface, and the full 31.65 kilometres break down into 7.05 kilometres of swimming and 24.6 kilometres of running.

Pacing Strategy

Divide the day into laps, not kilometres. The first lap should feel distinctly too slow: you have 15 swim segments ahead of you and every one of them punishes a high heart rate carried in from the run with a hurried, inefficient body position. Run the shore sections so that you enter the water at every buoy with calm breathing.

The race is decided on the third lap, specifically at that lap's climb at kilometre 6.2; the third time up, at a good 28 kilometres in, is where you find out whether you can still run it or only walk it. Push that ramp on the first two laps and you pay for it exactly there.

The main trap is the transitions themselves. Thirty changeovers cost more time in total than any gradient if you rush them: the first hundred metres after every exit feel heavy and unsteady, which is normal. Start them deliberately controlled instead of accelerating afresh each time.

Training plan for Arendsee SwimRun: 12-week build

Plan on roughly four to six and a half hours over the 31.65 kilometres depending on your level, a long, largely aerobic effort that nonetheless changes its form every few minutes. That is what separates it from a trail run of the same duration: your system has to switch 30 times between horizontal swimming and upright running, and both happen in a wet suit.

The third lap decides it. By then you have covered over five kilometres in the water, and the short steep climb at kilometre 6.2 of each lap demands, on its third pass, a strength endurance that pure running volume does not build.

Training should therefore rest on long, easy aerobic sessions of three hours and upwards, supplemented by open-water swimming with sighting; on the Arendsee you swim buoy to buoy with no lane markings. Brick work is mandatory: repeat 400 to 600 metres of swimming followed immediately by 1.5 to 2 kilometres of running, several times in one session, until the changeover is automatic.

Add short, hard uphill runs of 30 to 60 seconds on a seven to twelve percent slope, ideally at the end of a long session, and rehearse the full kit (suit, shoes, buoyancy aid) in the water repeatedly before wearing it over 31 kilometres.