SwimRun Cape Cod, live.

Pond to pond across the Outer Cape

SwimRun Cape Cod links the kettle ponds of Wellfleet and Truro with sandy trail: run, swim, run again, from one pond to the next until the finish.

The 2026 race is on Saturday, October 3, with Sunday as the storm date, inside the Cape Cod National Seashore. Three courses finish in Wellfleet. The Long starts at 8 am from Wellfleet Elementary School and swims six ponds: Herring, Truro Great, Horseleech, Higgins, Gull and Long, about 15 miles in all. The Medium starts at 9 am in Truro and swims the last five of those. The Short starts at 10 am at Gull Pond Landing Beach and swims Gull and Long.

The ponds are kettle ponds, left by retreating glaciers more than 20,000 years ago, and the organiser says some reach 90 feet deep. Between them the runs follow jeep roads, singletrack and some paved road, over clay, light sand and pine needles, including the narrow, sandy Old Kings Highway. Racers enter solo or as a team of two. Every racer carries an inflated safety buoy on every swim, and the race supplies one free and a silicone cap to wear in every pond.

Swimrun is hard to follow from the shore: a racer disappears into the trees and reappears at the next pond. On Livebib the racer shares a link to their own broadcast. Family open it in a browser, no app needed, and see position on the course line, distance covered and a finish estimate that updates as the race goes. In the water the phone may lose its fix, and then the position is carried forward along the course and marked as estimated instead of freezing.