In October 2025, what started as a utterly ridiculous idea somehow turned into us signing up for ÖTILLÖ – Utö, Sweden!

The backstory…

In August, our little pup pup Otillo (Oti) a golden retriever/polar bear hybrid, joined our household. Lauren had always loved the name from the Swedish Swimrun race, and when the opportunity to get a doggo arose, indeee he became Oti!

We’d joked before about taking on the ÖTILLÖ swimrun. To Lauren, a joke was all it was. That is, until John (somehow) convinced her it might actually be possible…

It turns out that ÖtillÖ returns to its founding home town in Utö, Sweden in 2026… on the very weekend of Oti’s first birthday!!

The ‘it’s a sign’ was all it took for Lauren to agree and what do you know… we’ve only gone and signed up…

But not for the Experience.

Not for the Sprint.

Oh no… we’ve gone all in on the World Series.

Some might call it brave. Most would call it stupid.

After plugging in our current fitness stats, running pace, and general life choices, ChatGPT summed it up perfectly:

“John’s fitness is not the problem here… Lauren is.”

And just to make things even more interesting, we won’t just be tackling 27km of running and 5km of swimming across rugged terrain and freezing water… we’ll be doing it tethered together by a bungee cord.

So this June, we’ll be heading to Sweden. Oti, of course, coming along for moral support to compete as Team…

Otill-öh-no!

With a challenge like this ahead, it felt right to turn it into something bigger. We’re fundraising for two charities, one for each of us through a shared team page.

Our goal is to split donations roughly 50:50 between the two. If one starts to fall behind, we’d love your help balancing things out. But equally, if one cause is closer to your heart, please feel free to support that one.

We’re supporting:

* Low-grade serous ovarian cancer research, for Lauren’s Mum

* Waggy Tail’s Dog Rescue Dorset, because, quite frankly, Oti is the reason we’re in this situation 😂

We’ve included more information about both charities below:

We are so grateful for any support you can give. Every donation, big or small will genuinely help carry us to that finish line and hopefully make you all proud.

Thank you,

John, Lauren and Oti ♥️🐕🐾

https://otilloswimrun.com/races/uto-sweden/

Low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC), which predominantly affects women in their 20s and 30s, is rare and was only recognised as a distinct type of ovarian cancer in the past 15 years. Much remains unknown about LGSOC, and treatments for other types of ovarian cancer are ineffective against it.

I’m fundraising to help support research led by Prof Charlie Gourley and Dr Robb Hollis at the Nicola Murray Centre for Ovarian Cancer Research, University of Edinburgh. Their work focuses on leading crucial research and clinical trials for LGSOC.

Together, we can advance research and drastically improve survival rates for women living with LGSOC. Thank you for supporting my fundraising.

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About Waggy Tails Rescue:

We rehome within East Dorset and West Hampshire. This enables us to conduct prehoming checks and follow up visits. Waggy Tails also runs an advice service which deals with pet problems and can direct enquiries to the best available help if we cannot help ourselves.

The Charity was started by Shelagh Meredith in 1994 after she answered an advertisement. A rescue in Wales was looking for homes for dogs, so she volunteered to help. Since then thousands of unwanted and abandoned dogs have been re-homed into new, loving family environments. We have also found new homes for cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, rats, hamsters, mice, budgies, one-legged cockatiels, battery chickens, 3 horses, 2 goats, 1 duck and lots of parrots.

Registered Charity No: 1114957.