I have had great sucess with a generic surfing wetsuit cut down to "pants" (waist to knee) combined with a Desoto First Wave vest put on backwards.
Opens up a lot for cooling when running, zips up fast without having to stop. Perfect solution, better than all "swim-run" suits...

Where do you put your compass? And do you carry any gels or other nutrition during the race? If so, where do you stash them?

I have done some swimruns, and would first off recommend a swimrun specific suit, I have a Head SwimRun base it comes i full lenght and you cut arm/leg over the joints.. It have zipper front and back, wisselblower and 2 small front pockets for Gel. It has differnt material between the leggs for dot damage the suit when running.. very pleased with this one but there are other options out there that I could have bought..

Dont know ehat the 2 large pockets on the back are on the zone 3 maybe storage for paddels or finns when running.. Dont se any people carry finns anymore but paddels almost al teams have the front swimmer use paddels and a some elastic cord between (very useful) also for running if you not on same level..

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Yet another slowtwitcher..

Interesting. When you take your top off on the run, do you unzip both the front and back zipper? Or is it easy enough to just unzip the front zipper to take the top off?

The most difficult when you do swimrun is not overheat, if the tempreture is reasonble most people only unzip front to open up the breathing and allow youu body to cool down a bit. But if you going on a longer stagerun say 3-7km you might want to unzipp both and pull the suit down from upper body..

I have a swimrun top under the the wetsuit with additional pockets and easier cabbing up/down of the suit.. Then you have the suit on and over the suit you have a singlet on with your number on, the only unzipp front its easy.. the you do longer runs and risk overheat you must firsta remove racenumber singlet the cabb down the put race number singlet back on so most people only unzipp front as much as possible but this make a huge different when running..

When I start swimrun I hade my old wetsuit cut down and not the option of front zipper and I tell you that is not whan you want race with if you plan to do several or lite to preform well, especyally if its sunny..

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Yet another slowtwitcher..

Edit.. Yes you can cab down only to unzipp front zipper, now when I think aboat it that is what I do I dont think i use back zipper..

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Yet another slowtwitcher..

Gels I tape to the PB
Compass is put away with the 1st aid kit and map (never used any of it).
Whistle is tied to the bands of the goggles.
What else is there? Nothing (?), no pockets required...

The thing with the Desoto vest is the complete exposure of skin, front and back, from where a HR-strap would be, down to the hips. It zips open "upwards" and can be folded "under itself". Cool...
The race bib/vest never needs to come off. KISS...

I have recently listen to some podcast aboat swimrun disscussing this (I pesonaly have never used pullboy i swimrun) And when attending qualifying races and seeing the innovation when people looking for efficency you "should" not need a pullboy, if you have a wetsuit you have bouancy in the hip from the suit.. If you need extra boyancy you should have it in the lower leggs from swimning with shoes so most people now uses neprene cafs or regular calf and put foam inside for leg boyancy and more efficent swimposition.. And no-one realy lite to carry that bulky pullboy when running its just one exrta uneccecasy item that does not do you any good really.. kiss?

with 50s or so swimrun races here per year and being a young sport the intresset i high and invation, use a old generic wetsuit and swim with pullboy is what they did in beginning when they didnt know exacly how to do a swimrun..

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Yet another slowtwitcher..

here in the pic are the first and second place finishers from last year's ÖTILLÖ World Champs. both have pull buoys, albeit with different methods of securing them. pull buoy is still a big advantage as your legs are fairly useless during the swim most racers opt to keep shoes on. very few teams use fins as you lose massive time in transitioning in/out of swims and carrying them during run leg is not easy. but, for some teams, it is worth it to go with fins if it drastically improves their swims. trial and error. the sport is very much in it's infancy so much changes year over year as previously noted.

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Lars Finanger
Odyssey SwimRun