En kort och varm halvmara efter frukost med Brjann där vi båda fick chokladmedaljer och stumma ben. Efter det, familjemästerskap i minigolf. En hård match med en ganska jämn utgång. Vem som vann tänker jag inte avslöja.
Efter rundan handlade vi mat och fann denna:
Slimcado-Avokado lite, 50% mindre fett och 35% färre kalorier. Va? Inte klokt.
Fann detta på twitter (Runnersworld) och kände att det var passande efter veckans långa timmar löpning som jag gissar har blivit runt 10 mil. Nu blir det en lugnare vecka med långsammare löp och massage.
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.
We are back! We arrived after a long trip with 8 suitcases and one dog. Heavy suitcases and a dog that felt very happy to get out of his box and find a bush after a very long time. It’s good to be home and it was good to be away.
We all slept better than we thought we would and our morning has been filled with gluten free panncakes and lattes, many lattes. We’ve started to unpack but it will probably take us days to finish. The only problem so far, one bag filled with blueberry- and rosehip soupmix, two big boxes exploded and left a nice scent in one of our bags. We brought an incedible amount of candy and books, and it will hopefully last for a year.
Thank you all for dinners, lunches, crawfishparties, walks, runs, coffeedates, hugs, talks and swims. Thanks for making our month in Sweden great!
Lång dag som börjar gå mot sitt slut. Klockan ringde 5 imorse och då bar det av mot Stockholm och Görväln för ett sista långt swimrun pass med Team Totally Lost plus en vältränad kompis. Lite regn, mycket värme, stilla vatten och fina stigar bjöds det på och vi kände oss riktigt nöjda med dagens insats när det började närma sig lunch. Nu hänger våtdräkten på tork och den har lyckat skaffa sig några hål på bakdelen efter allt klipphasande. Nu är det mest vågträning och finjustering kvar innan det drar ihop sig.
Dagarna går och det är lite drygt en vecka kvar till vi åker hem. Datorn strejkar så det är lite svårt att få till ett inlägg.
Vi har hunnit gjort en hel del, träffat vänner, badat, varit på Grönan, vandrat lite på stan, varit i skärgården osv. Vi är lite sega, semesterlunken har tagit över och dygnet har vänt på sig. Vi är numera på svensk tid, viket tog nästan tre veckor.
Jag har varit och testat ö till ö banan med Totally Lost. Bil, skärgårdsfärja och promenad. Två dagars swimrun träning från Utö och uppåt, vilket är banan baklänges. Vi simmade och sprang, eller klättrade över klippor, i dagarna två och vilade upp oss i tält över natten. Det blåste mycket, alltför mycket enligt min smak. Höga vågor och svart vatten.
Vi har haft en fin dag på Grönan med kusinerna. Nya attraktioner och lite blåst men Stockholm är ju svårt att slå.
We are home away from home, in Uppsala, Sweden. The sky is blue, trees are green and the city is empty. We have been away for a week and it feels like a month. Our suitcases are unpacked and we have made a mess of the whole house. We have shoes, swimsuits, towels, clothes, water bottles… everywhere. We have basically filled up the house in a week. My parents are very patient and extremely calm even if they have 4 guests in the house.
We had a few lovely days in Skåne, the very south part of Sweden. A couple of days at the beach, swimming in salt water, eating sandy sandwiches and watermelon, fighting mosquitos after dark and the yearly ferry ride over to Denmark. I love this part of Sweden and I think we have spent every summer there the last 40 years. It is vacation. Packing lunch and filling the coffee thermos in the morning. Your pockets filled with sand and seashells at the end of the day. Falling asleep on sandy sheets, messy hair for days and sun warm cinnamon buns. I might even take another trip there before we fly back home. But I think I need to give the kids a few days before I start planning a new long car ride.
The first few days here went by fast. Jetlag seem to create forgetfulness, I can’t remember what we have done. Traveling takes endurance. It is a long flight, a long night without any sleep and the kids have really high expectations when they step off the plane. I’ve felt tired since we arrived but I am sure it will get better. The kids seems to do pretty good, at least they can sleep. They are floating around doing nothing…they read, bake, meet with friends, run, watch the clouds…
We had a Team Totally Lost reunion Wednesday. A longer swimrun in Görveln north of Stockholm. It was great to get together again after 7 months on different continents. We will have a few more opportunities to meet and swimrun before I take off. We will meet on a different location tomorrow, new trails and new waters. I will try to remember to bring the camera.
The girls and I left Redmond Friday around lunch and took our first steps on Swedish grounds Saturday in the afternoon. No sleep for more than 24 hours. The kids did great as always, they are travelling pros. They plug in their music, get their books and zone out. The only thing they complain about is screaming kids and smelly people.
It’s good to be back. Not much have changed since last summer, maybe a few new houses and shops but that’s all. We managed to stay awake until 9.30ish the first night, not bad actually and slept until 11.30 and thought it was morning. It never gets dark here. After sleeping and waking up all the time I started reading at 3 and forced myself to stay in bed until 4.30 before I went for a run. The sun was up but the city was sleeping. After a couple of kilometers I ended up down town and started meeting people that was on their way home from pubs and restaurants. That never happens in Redmond or Kirkland. You meet runners, commuters and animals at 5ish in the morning but never drunk people. I met a few paperboys with their bikes and a lot of birds. I ran into two scared hares by the castle and a deer behind the hospital. No cars for more than 75 minutes but the bikes are still around. Summer in Uppsala is very sleepy, no students and kids. And it is not every day you get to run on cobblestones that’s been in the same place for hundreds and hundreds of years.
What really takes me back every time I come back here is the smell. The smell takes you back years and years gives you a sense of deja vu. The beautiful smell of flowers, trees and grass that takes you back and memories turns up in your head. You start thinking of people that reminds you of roses, jasmine and lilac. The nice smell of coffee outside the market, fish outside restaurants, the smell of the river that goes thru Uppsala. It gets very clear when you don’t smell it every day. And when I finished my run and got back into my parents garden I smelled the tomatoes from the green house. That is a lovely way to start your morning.
I went to the pool this morning, that is not as relaxing as running. You need to bring your own towel, lock, shampoo, fins, buoy… I forgot how that works. Surprisingly I met a few people I know 6 in the morning. Very nice. I swam the 50m lanes and felt out of breath and tired. It looks like it is regular crowd that swims at this pool and I was clearly the outsider. A couple of old ladies in the slow lane took me to the side, against the wall by the sauna and asked if I planned to come back, in a very friendly way. And they say Swedish people are cold and unfriendly… I am part of the group ladies 85 and up now, the cool group that somehow manage to walk in and out of the pool without getting their hair wet.
charlottebrekkan.com 