SG Poing SwimRun: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is at 13:30 at the Bergfeldsee in Poing. The race consists of six sections in a fixed order: 300 metres of swimming, 800 metres of running, 300 metres of swimming, 1,600 metres of running, 300 metres of swimming, 2,400 metres of running. The swims cross the lake; the runs are laps around it.

The profile is irrelevant here: six lake laps of roughly 800 metres each add up to 13 metres of climbing across 4.8 kilometres, 86.6 per cent of it level, with an elevation band of two metres. What defines the course instead are the five transitions: five times from water into running or the other way round, each with a circulation that has to reset.

The structure of the run sections is the real twist: they keep getting longer, from one lap to two to three. So the race opens with quick changes and ends with its longest run, after 900 metres of swimming have already been covered. Anyone using aids carries them the whole way: wetsuit, paddles and pull buoy are permitted but may not be put down anywhere. Entry is open to those born in 2010 or earlier.

Pacing Strategy

In a swimrun it is not your speed in any one discipline that decides things but how you distribute effort across the transitions. You switch between water and land five times, and each change spikes your heart rate: attack the first two swims too hard and you will find no pace on the later run laps.

The race is decided on the closing 2,400 metre run. It is twice as long as the one before it and follows the third swim, so 900 metres of swimming are already done. That is where it shows whether your legs can still run and whether your kit is getting in the way. Pace the race so that you run this section faster than the 1,600 metres that preceded it.

The main trap is the equipment. Wetsuit, paddles and pull buoy make you quicker in the water but have to be carried across 4.8 kilometres of running; any item that chafes or slips while running costs more over six lake laps than it gains in the water. Decide before the race what you genuinely need and test the full setup in training. A 13:30 start in mid-September also means water still pleasant after the summer, and air that can already feel cold on the way out of it.

Training plan for SG Poing SwimRun: 12-week build

The elite distance takes roughly 45 to 70 minutes depending on your level. The demand is an alternation: three short, intense 300 metre swims and three runs of increasing length, joined by five transitions in which your circulation has to switch each time.

Those transitions are exactly what decides the race. Water to running means an abrupt change from horizontal to vertical loading with a high heart rate and cold leg muscles; the other way round, you have to find a calm stroke immediately, before your breathing has settled.

The training emphasis therefore belongs on transition sessions in open water, once or twice a week: 3 to 4 rounds of 200 to 300 metres swimming and 800 to 1,600 metres running with no rest between. That session reproduces the race completely and matters more than any volume increase in a single discipline.

Add the equipment question that separates this from an aquathlon: rehearse at least twice with exactly the kit you intend to wear (a wetsuit you can open to run in, paddles on the wrist, pull buoy on the leg). And because the Bergfeldsee is flat and the run lap has no profile, short fast tempo runs are worth adding: across 13 metres of climbing it is pure running speed that counts, not climbing strength.