ISLE of Wight triathlete Rob Johnson took on one of the most gruelling of physical challenges — and excelled himself — in the Otillo SwimRun World Championships in Sweden.

Just to qualify for the event, Rob, with SwimRun partner Chris Goodfellow, had to successfully get through the Engadin SwimRun, held in the Swiss Alps in May.

Part of the Global SwimRun Series, the Endagin event was a 65km off-road run, interspersed with 10km of swimming, totalling 24 runs and 23 swims, all in the same swim and running gear throughout — and equivalent to an ultrarun and ultra-swim combined.

SwimRun was established from a drunken wager by two Swedish friends 20 years ago, to race each other across the Stockholm archipelago by running and swimming.

It has really taken off as an extreme sport, attracting competitors from all over the world.

The SwimRun World Championships was hosted at its spiritual home — Stockholm — recently.

The race was something Rob had been working towards for the past three years, but due to logistics, the Covid-19 pandemic and injuries, a prolonged qualification period was required to be among the elite few British teams within the 140 pairs competing in the World Series finale.

Rob, a member of Wight Tri, believes living and training on the Island, including being a part of Wight Tri, was the perfect way to hone his SwimRun skills.

His partner and university chum, Chris, is an ex-pro rugby player, who transitioned to triathlon and SwimRun.

“All the while through the race you have to remain in pairs for safety — and as this is the spirit of the race,” said Rob.

Chris typically leads the swims and Rob leads the runs, creating a well-balanced team.

It began with a 2.5km run, before entering the first and longest swim of the day, a one-miler in the cold Swedish waters, before starting the technical foot work required to cross the archipelago islands’ rocky coastlines and wooded sections — often without a path.

The toughest of technical sections was in the first third of the race, where often there were no paths just rock jumping.

Local Scandinavian racers showed others how it was done.

Rob was feeling good up, before entering one of the toughest swims of the event — a 1.1km swim known as the ‘pig swim’.

During that, Rob suffered extreme cold and cramp down his left leg, which caused his pace to slow over the next hour, before he recovered in time for the mid-section of the race — a straight 20km run.

After this point there were further physical challenges, with back spasms and muscle issues, but Rob pushed through to the final set of islands — the most technically challenging of the event, with lots of short runs and swims, in which they had to scramble up and over slippery rocks at the entry and exits to each.

After a long, tough, energy-sapping competition, the pair finished as the second British male team and 24th overall, in 9hrs and 22mins. Rob said he hopes to qualify again next year and learn from this year’s race