Back to Bohus

Three weeks after my hard run along stage 6 of Bohusleden, I got to explore the same trails again at a much more leisurely pace, hiking with the kids for three hours from Angered to Bohus.

 

We stopped for fika at the same spot where I jumped into the water last time, and met a few more people on the trail, including some campers who were exploring the Vättlefjäll area with rental canoes.

 

As we approached Bohus, the kids were deep in planning their next Minecraft session, while I felt lucky to have gotten a second chance to see this beautiful stage of Bohusleden. Now the question is where to go next, the following stages all lack public transport. If I am not mistaken, this means I would have to run three stages (36 km) in one go... and still cannot be sure there will actually be a bus waiting at the other end.

Fartlek fun

Today, I got to take part in the Skatås Parkrun with William, who is still under eleven and thus must be accompanied by an adult, something that is easier said than done on the downhills when he speeds up to 3:15 min/km, but we still had great fun in the forest sunshine together with Eddie and Anna’s mother.

Having started the morning with nine very gentle kilometres, five kilometres of fartlek was just what I needed to shake up my running before I continue tapering in anticipation of Alpaca 53k. Back home afterwards, I made pinsa for lunch and, an espresso later, it is time to work a bit while the kids play Minecraft.

William is back

After being down with a nasty cold over Lilla Varvet ten days ago, William was back to running this morning. With a special Thursday Parkrun coming up already tomorrow, he urgently needs a new pair of running shoes though. He loved the bouncy feel of my Asics Novablasts (even if 48 was still a few sizes too big...) so perhaps I should look for a pair?

Otherwise, I spent all afternoon yesterday chairing thesis seminars and today I am once again out travelling along the tracks for a few meetings in Halmstad. With the new Varbergstunneln set to open this summer, all trains will be cancelled from the 9th of June so I will soon take a break with the rail commutes until 21 August when we will have our kick-off activities with the department.

Penguin planning

Though still more than four months away, Anna and I are already making plans for our trip to South Africa – hoping to say hello to the Cape penguins, bike to the best vineyards, and, of course, run the Cape Town Marathon on Sunday, 19 October (Anna’s first road marathon!). To get into the right planning mood, I picked up a bottle of Spier Sauvignon Blanc from Stellenbosch, which we naturally also intend to visit, not least to check out its university.

Earlier today, the kids watched A Minecraft Movie at Filmstaden while I finished grading theses at the nearby Espresso House. Tomorrow, I hope to make up for some lost kilometres and hit 80 km for the week again. After that, it is time to start tapering for my two upcoming races: first Alpaca 53k, then Öland Ultra 50k.

Literature reviews

This weekend, I am grading four literature reviews written by my teacher students, covering diverse topics such as the best methods for teaching about the solar system to the effects of a print-rich literacy environment.

As for Starbucks, I just learnt that political tensions are running so high in Korea that the baristas no longer call out names on cups if they are the same as any of the presidential candidates. Luckily, “Raz” should still be fine but what is worse is that it will still be a while until I get back to Korea (even if I am definitely having TransJeju by UTMB on my radar).

Three seasons in one day

Geopolitically charged

At the city library the other day, I picked up the latest issue of Monocle, which featured a fascinating long-read on Beirut’s art scene and how it continues to flourish despite everything happening in the region. Thinking back on Ally’s and my trip in 2019, which Chat-GPT described as one of my most “geopolitically charged”, the article echoed much of what I felt when visiting Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum of Contemporary Art (which is still open as I write this) and other such places.

After an online seminar on conspiracy theories with my colleagues in Halmstad, I headed out into the rain and up to Delsjön for an ice-cold swim. Meanwhile, in Stockholm, the Swedish parliament has been debating the new law for financing nuclear construction, which is simply tragicomic, like some absurd play where the actors completely fail to see the bigger (global) picture and remain trapped in the same tired and incorrect assumptions (as if the four Korean APR-1400 reactors at Barakah had never been built etcetera). In the end, it all boils down to a basic choice: do we cling to the casino-style volatility of the current neoliberal electricity market, or do we step up and provide cheap, public baseload power for climate leadership and the wholesale electrification of society?

Second chances

With rain and Arctic cold in the forecast for the next two weeks, I decided to leave my article behind and head out around the harbour for a Z2-Z3 solid long run in the unexpected summer heat. As I approached Älvsborgsbron, I could fully smell the salt and the ocean – or, more precisely, the dimethyl sulfide released by phytoplankton.

Wearing my new favourite Asics Novablast 5s, I felt strong throughout all 24 kilometres, finishing with some ice-cold drinks at ICA Munkebäck. While there, I also picked up a bottle of “Ciao,” that Moldovan pinot grigio I first tried back in February, on a day when I was extremely grumpy after a painful and expensive dentist visit. Drinking it tonight in the garden with some homemade paella, my verdict is much more generous this time around. Just goes to show the importance of giving things a second chance.

You snooze, you lose

Yesterday, after another chat with Chat-GPT, I got some much-needed encouragement: as long as I can stay mostly injury-free, my long-term running goals may be more realistic than they sometimes seem. After failing spectacularly to qualify for Boston in Tallinn two years ago, I have not done any serious road racing, yet I keep seeing improvements, even without much targeted speed work. Similarly, while I have been frustrated by my poor performance at Sandsjöbacka and disappointed by the cancellation of the Bandolerita, I have a full summer of races lined up where I can truly push myself. The most ambitious of these: finishing my first 100-mile race in August, something I would have considered utterly impossible a decade ago.

In the end, it all comes down to how hard I am willing to work. With that in mind, I got up at 4:30 this Sunday morning and ran three loops in Skatås, racking up 333 meters of elevation gain. As expected, I was completely alone at this ungodly hour, though I did get to say hello to a few deer. And yes, there was still some coccyx pain after the hammock incident, but I got it done, and that is what counts.

København

What my previous post failed to mention was that, ten minutes before the picture of me in the hammock was taken, I had fallen hard on the metal frame as I had underestimated how much the fabric would stretch when someone weighing 80 kg got into the hammock. After a night with coccyx pain, I woke up grateful that I had not paid a lot of money for Göteborgsvarvet as even a slow forest jog felt unrealistic.

Instead, I turned my attention to something more pleasant: finalizing Anna’s and my plans for a quick Copenhagen getaway in early June. With Yoshiko Shimada, one of Japan’s leading feminist and antiwar artists, opening an exhibition, Anna will take the morning train on June 6 and do some research while I stay behind with the kids. Thanks to the kind help of Anna’s mother, however, I will be able to join her later that evening for a night at Manon Les Suites, the hotel with a Bali-themed outdoor pool that I have been eager to check out ever since it opened in 2017. Returning with the train at 10:59 am the next day, we just might be able to join the Fælledparken Parkrun. And for those worrying, I should say that I have now fixed the hammock so that the same thing cannot happen again.