Life is back to normal. We’re home in Redmond. Doing just about nothing. Hanging out, waiting for try outs, school and race day. We’ve had a nice month in Sweden with friends and family. I’ve had 5 good and long swimrun training days with Anna (and 3 with Henrik) on different locations around Stockholm. It’s been good, it’s been fun and it’s been sweaty.

If you’re sick of my training posts, don’t read this. Click away.

I had a swimrun day planned today. Good thing I am jetlagged, I woke up at 4.15am ready to have breakfast and grab my backpack and leave. I did cheat today, I choose to swim in the pool, didn’t feel like swimming 3 miles by myself in the lake. And it’s not easy to find training company that wants to swimrunswimrunswimrun… for hours.

My legs didn’t like running today but somehow I finished my 20 miles divided up in 3 runs. Swimming felt good and I tried some new paddles that worked really well. I may have to rethink my race gear again. The goal for today was to eat better along the way and I think I did pretty well. I had a moment after the second mile in the pool when I had problems adding miles together. Interesting. And singing out loud can also be misinterpreted as entertaining when it’s actually a sign of low energy. I took an extra food break and filled up on goji berries and other good stuff.

I still have a strange lovehate relationship with swimming. Some days are awesome, some days I feel like spitting swimming in the face, turn my back and walk away. I am going to be honest and not sugar coat anything. I complain a lot the day before I have those long training days and I complain after when my hips feel sore and old but I really enjoy the endless days of swims and runs. It all comes down to this. When you feel that you are close to the end, maybe one swim or one run left, it feels disappointing that it’s over. At the same time I have conversations with myself along the way. Should I walk, should I quit? Who is stupid enough to run here on a hot day? Why do I have to swim again? This is when it happens, when you turn your thoughts around. This is what matters. And you kick it up a notch for the final effort. It feels so good to be done and it feels good that you didn’t give up.

I checked my watch after finishing and walking to the locker room. 3 miles swimming and 20 miles running and I feel great. Not really tired (but very hungry). If someone walked up to me and asked for running company I would easily get changed to something dry and tag along. Isn’t it amazing how much a regular body can take? A middle aged, medium fat body that carried 3 kids, broke a few bones and dislocated a handful of limbs.

You can always go further. And it’s worth every step.

And favorite song this week: