Southwest salad

Thirteen years ago, this weblog started with a trip to the Southwest. As always, the end of the year invites throwbacks. For the first time since moving back to Sweden in 2014, we are not alone with the kids for the New Year so, instead of the traditional New Year’s lunch, I will be making dinner for lots of people which threw my plans off a bit. At least, I kept the vegan pasta salad with agave and black beans that I found the other day but, as the guest list kept expanding, I decided to go for a couple of bottles of Bolla from Triveneto rather than Pol Roger as the protocol would normally dictate.

Looking back at the past decade, it has been one of unprecedented exploration, with dozens of new countries from Peru to the Philippines. While some of my most crazy ideas, like running Comrades, will most likely not be realized in the year ahead, I hope to continue exploring remote shores and challenge myself to run faster and further in 2020. As such, with Warsaw Half Marathon in mind, szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

Gott slut

Danish chocolate may be a questionable recovery snack but at least I got a great final run through the city with all its tourists dressed up in in their space-faring suits. While the famous “ice hotel” is located about 20 kilometres to the east from here, Kiruna does have its own snow festival every year in late January with artists coming from around the world to build snow statues.

For now, I would like to wish you all a happy end to 2019 and a guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!

Canaries

Before there was Rawls & Me, I remember taking the boat from Teneriffe over to La Gomera a few days before New Year's Eve. As much as I have appreciated these days of extreme winter wonderland, few things can compare with an island escape in the middle of winter. This year, I guess the closest I will get will be to run along the shores of the Atlantic in Devon in about a month from today even if that does not come with 12 grapes at midnight or skinny dipping.

Regardless, 2020 is likely to be a year of big changes and surprises. After running 3,201 km in 2019, I have now decided that my goal for 2020 will be to run 3,660 km or 10k per day on average (as 2020 is a leap year) in order to provide some continuity amidst it all. 

Last long run of the decade

Two years after reaching 200 citations, I just passed the 300 citations mark in Google Scholar which is probably a more important milestone than those 2,000 meters of climbing in Strava but, thanks to some insider information, I was finally able to plan a route with a bit of vertical and complete that challenge as well. The 16k route took me past the now closed Army Ranger School which, just like the IR multiple choice exam questions that I am currently constructing, reminded of how dark the world must have seemed at times.

In yesterday’s Svenska Dagbladet, there was a long interview with Anne Applebaum about democracy’s current crisis which I think brought up some important explanations such as the lack of history education in many countries (in particular in Eastern Europe but also the US) but also went astray in the suggestion that “liberals” should again talk about patriotism and community. I would say the exact opposite, that we instead need to vigorously defend the value of open horizons and reject all attempts to lock people into pre-defined boxes or templates.

Now only two more days remain of 2019 and I am scrambling for culinary ideas, especially as I would like to make an entirely plant-based dinner. More than ever, it feels important to measure up to that timeless motto, onward and upward!

New 5k PR

Before the decade is out, I have a few goals, one being to run 5k in under 20 minutes. This morning I did just that while looking out over this sprawling mining community deep inside the Arctic Circle.

We have now been in Kiruna for a whole week and, as in the past, I have really appreciated this time away from everything. On a clear day like today, you can even see the Kebnekaise massif with Sweden’s highest mountain at the horizon, as a subtle hint of future adventures. Yet, given the amount of snow on the ground right now, it has been harder than I thought to find enough vertical meters but hopefully I will be able to complete Strava's 2,000 meters running climbing challenge in the few days that still remain of 2019.

Kia Ora

As frequent readers of this weblog know, I have a fondness for airport runs, be it in Billund, San Diego or Umeå, so this morning I thought I would run out to Kiruna Airport, if nothing else to offset some of that Christmas food.

While all flights may be booked out for weeks, it is still thrilling to think that Auckland and the rest of the world are only a few hops away from that tiny red terminal building. This time around however, I will leave on a train rather than a jet plane, and in any case first in twelve days but, for now, I was able to get my escapist fix.

Purple grey

After making Korean BBQ for lunch, I went for 15 kilometres of icy running just as the purple grey glow of faint daylight gave way to another polar night. Again, the Spikecross 3 CS performed admirably in the snow, making me even more confident that I will be able to keep my New Year’s resolution and not buy any shoes in the year ahead. On my run, I also got a chance to see the new city hall and some other parts of the new city centre as it is taking shape a few kilometres to the east of the old one.

Meanwhile, the Sweden Democrats seems to have become the largest party in Sweden, a sentence I long had hoped I would never have to write. Inevitable as their rise may seem, it says a lot about the lack of imagination in today’s politics but also the difficulties of breaking this impasse without creating yet more polarization. Armchair politicians like myself may have all the answers but that is in part because we never have to deal with the actual trade-offs of the real world and its coalition-building acrobatics.

Wilsons Promontory

Before leaving Umeå, I was able to give some last minute travel advice to our department secretary as she was about to fly down to Australia for three weeks. Obviously, I was not the slightest jealous of her. Assuming that many of my favourite Melbourne cafés and bars would no longer be there after a decade, I went for safer bets such as Philip Island for penguin encounters and Wilson Promontory National Park for hiking and escaping the world.

As a mean of procrastination, I have been uploading old photos from my server to Google Photos which has triggered a whole new level of flashbacks, including the picture above from Whiskey Beach 11 years ago. While I know that Australia is going through a difficult time right now with all the bushfires, seeing such pictures clearly makes one question why one ended up living at the North Pole.

Cutting his Hawaii vacation short, the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison does not seem willing to reconsider his lukewarm stance on climate change despite the new wave of catastrophic fires. Similarly, Vladimir Putin has also been busy spreading misinformation, saying that “nobody knows the origins of global climate change”. This again speaks to the sad conflation of physics and policy. Accepting the reality of climate change should not mean that one has to accept what the Malthusians have to offer in terms of “solutions”. Russia, for instance, has every chance to be a real leader on climate change, but a necessary first step is acknowledging the reality of the problem.

Mollberg

As long distance runners, I guess we would ideally like to spend two or more hours every day pounding the ground but neither our own bodies nor those close to us would probably be able to deal with that over time. As such, rest and recovery is important and I plan to take this Christmas to cut back on my mileage a bit. Nevertheless, wearing my new warm tights from Craft, I set out for ten fresh kilometres this morning through a city that is undergoing a massive relocation as the iron ore mine is expanding. Running past where the old majestic city hall used to be, I felt strangely melancholic even as I understand that the city would not be here in the first place were it not for the mine.

Yesterday at COOP, I was able to get my hands on the last package of “Mollbergs Blandning”, a dark roasted coffee blend from a grand white hotel in Helsingborg, another city that is always close to my heart. Brewing a post-run cup to celebrate that I just completed the Strava distance running challenge for December, I am struck by the fact that it is 16 degrees warmer in Helsingborg right now, so, yes, Sweden is a country of great distances.

Kiruna

Last night we finally made it up to Kiruna and a calm winter wonderland beyond imagination with meters of snow and Christmas decorations everywhere. This morning however, the snowfall had intensified and the wind picked up a bit. As I drove down to COOP to buy some paella ingredients with Eddie, I was thinking that this was the kind of rare weather event that would close down all schools in Kalmar when I was kid whereas here it is just another day in a winter that lasts for seven or eight months every year. Later, and despite all my gear, I have to admit that I struggled to run up Luossavaara in the powder snow but at least I managed to complete my 60 km weekly target and get some initial climbing practice.

Arctic Circle

It is not even 1 pm but the day is already over as the train continues north, beyond the Arctic Circle and into the land where the sun will not return until January. Last time I travelled along these tracks was back in April and then the light was all-engulfing, now it is hard to even imagine that spring will eventually come as the temperature falls below -15 outside the train window.

This morning, I received an e-mail announcing a new race called Tavelsjö Frozen Track on 21 March. With 12 and 24 km as possible distances, the race will take place on the frozen lake and be like a local version of the Baikal Ice Marathon. With my new Spikecross, this is obviously a race I really do not want to miss...

Spikecross

Before spending eight hours on the train up to Kiruna tomorrow, I thought I would go for one last long run along the lake, especially as the sky cleared up and turned into the most magnificent sunrise with hoarfrost in the forest.

After deliberating back and forth for days, I did end up keeping the pair of Salomon Spikecross with tungsten studs that I was able to get at a bargain price from XXL. Still, considering the number of shoes that I bought over the last couple of years, my New Year’s resolution will definitely be to not buy a single pair of shoes in 2020 :-)

With South Devon Ultra only 44 days away, I need all the training I can get, especially if I should be able to deal with those 1,716 meters of ascent. Hopefully, running in Kiruna will make me feel somewhat less vertically challenged. Right now, the forecast suggests that the temperature will stay above -10 degrees so, if I am lucky, I will not even need my Airtrim mask.

Conflicting schedules

At midnight, the website for Umåker 2020 opened. When I ran Umåker last year, it was my first real trail race and something that I had no prior experience of. As such, I was eager to register for this year’s edition and see what difference a year of training and some experience would make. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that Umåker is scheduled to take place on the exact same day as the Warsaw Half Marathon that I have already signed up for so, instead of bog lands, there will be cobblestones. While I am of course very much looking forward to running with Gabriel in Poland, not being able to run Umåker still felt a bit sad as I went out for 17 km around the lake this morning.

Now it is already afternoon and I have finished the second and final guest lecture on the IR course. With the teaching behind me, I have two more days to wrap up the planning of the spring semester. Before I get to that, I just want to pass along the news that there is a new electricity provider in Sweden called “Kärnfull” that provides 100% certified nuclear electricity so, if you want to make a real difference for the climate, that is a great place to start!

Running doubles

While I would ideally have preferred to do one single longer run (which I think is also better in terms of training effect) that is often not possible so today I split my running into 2x10 km, starting off with an easy morning run and then, about eight hours later, a threshold run through wet snow. In combination with 18 km of biking with the trailer, it feels as if I still managed to get the aerobic stimulus I need to stay on track for South Devon :-)

Night moves

By popular request, I made moose meat balls with mashed potatoes and sherry vinegar cream sauce for dinner as Anna is about to take the train south for a week with William. Since I have a couple of lectures scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, my kind mother is on her way up here with the night train for a few days but after that I will be alone with Eddie, something that I look forward to.

In regard to night trains, the third issue of Monocle Weekly came with a dreamy article about cross-continental night train journeys, a topic obviously dear to Rawls & Me. Together with the return of a #småparti classic from Christmas past, it feels as if I have fully recovered from the morning bike apocalypse when one of the tires on the German trailer exploded and I found myself going to the bike shop rather than work...

Tories

Last night, I raced 3,000 meters on an indoor track in my Adidas Boston Adizero. The first kilometre I was able to stay under 4 min/km but in the end my official time was 12 minutes and 18 seconds, i.e. a 4:06 min/km pace, feeling that a cold was coming on.

Waking up to a Tory landslide, I felt immensely tired, not in my body which miraculously (or perhaps not that miraculously due to ColdZyme) seems to have recovered, but mentally. I do not know what makes me most tired, that people engage in this kind of collective self-harm behaviour or Labour’s turn to the Left under Jeremy Corbyn. This is all very bad news, both for the UK and Europe. My only hope is that this will finally be a signal to rethink the anti-capitalist rhetoric of the Left and to shift focus away from confrontation to broadly shared economic growth. But the risk is of course that the very opposite will happen, that the Left will become even more intransient and inward looking.

Riders on the storm

Into this world we’re thrown, as Heidegger would have said, and today was more extreme than in a long time as I struggled to get out to Innertavle with the bike trailer. Already at midnight, I was woken up by strong winds outside and snow turning into rain.

Before going to bed, I had been watching Ben Parkes and his latest video about the extreme hardships of the Ultra-trail Cape Town; 100 km and 4,300 meters of climb with a number of strict cut-off times. There is something quite humbling about a trail that leaves a 2:25 marathoner "running" at a 25 min/km pace. In any case, the video was really inspirational so, despite the weather, I felt I just had to give it a shot and run around the lake this morning. Afterwards I realised that it was a bit stupid though as I got hit by some debris in my head (luckily nothing major). Still, it was definitely a special feeling to run right throw an ice storm...

3,000 km

After being home all day preparing my guest lectures on international relations and taking care of William who has come down with the flu, I took the bike into town for a half marathon along the River Ume. Under a full moon, I ran 21.5 km with Elin in what turned out to be my second best estimated half-marathon effort (my fastest still being the first half of Stockholm Marathon). With this run, I also made it across the 3,000 km threshold which I think I will have as my goal for 2020 as well.

Asymmetry

Yesterday, I had a grand night out with the unit for police education, starting with some beer and boule at Orangeriet and then a tasty dinner at Cinco. Almost like Hogwarts, the unit for police education is a universe to its own with everything from those teaching crime-scene investigation to driving instructors. As many times before, I was surprised by how readily people seemed to agree with what I was saying when I was asked about my own research. Clearly, I should spend less time fighting with radicalized Malthusians and rather try to engage with people in the middle of the political spectrum (if such a thing still exists in 2019?).

After lunch, I went for 20 easy kilometres followed by an Americano with a saffron biscotti and a promising new book by Lisa Halliday. Today, I also picked up the shoes that I won when running the seeding race for Göteborgsvarvet. Before opening the box I only knew that I had won a pair of New Balance shoes so I was thrilled to see that it was indeed the latest iteration of the 1080-series as in a pair of black V10s (which were exactly the shoes I had been thinking of buying myself). My old 1080s are the V8 and they are currently at 442 km so it will be great to have another pair of high-volume shoes once the snow melts.

No time to die

"One day we shall all die. All other days we shall not" (Jan Stenmark)

I would of course never admit that I have been watching the “No time to die” trailer like five times already ;-) However, with no immediate chance of a Matera-escape myself, and all hopes for a spring marathon at the Mediterranean dashed, I made some zucchini pasta with black beans for a plant-based dinner, together with a glass of Picpoul de Pinet that Ally recommended the other day.

With only 50 km remaining until I reach that magic 3,000 km milestone for 2019, I am nevertheless excited for the year ahead and the progress that I have been seeing. Just today, I was reminded of how much I struggled to run 10k in under 50 minutes less than two years ago and that I can now do that without any difficulties whatsoever at a conversational pace.

Meanwhile, in the real world, children in the UK are being told that they may not grow up due to climate change, which is obviously not the case. Climate change is bad as it is without the civilization-ending rhetoric and I am seriously worried about how the discourse is evolving. As the Stanford climate scientist Ken Caldeira put it in an interview earlier this fall: “While many species are threatened with extinction... climate change does not threaten human extinction... I would not like to see us motivating people to do the right thing by making them believe something that is false.”

Newrun Bugrip GTX

Today, my new Icebug shoes arrived and I finally got to test them in near optimal conditions ("optimal" for the shoes that is). With lots of water having accumulated on top of the ice, I ran around the lake in 43 minutes. As expected, the grip was great (although not as good as with my old VJ Sarva Xante) and my feet stayed dry throughout. With colder weather again on the horizon, I plan to alternate between these and the VJ shoes for the coming months but, when it is wet outside, we have a clear winner.

At 320 gram, the Newrun Bugrip GTX are only marginally heavier than, say, my Nike Pegasus 35 which is my daily trainer outside of the winter season, despite the 17 carbide steel studs. Unlike some other Icebug shoes, these are not real trail shoes though but rather made for running on dirt or pavement in icy conditions (which is actually what I do most of the time).

Flashbacks

While it sometimes feels like everything that has happened over the last fourteen years is documented here on Rawls & Me, that is obviously not the case. As a trip down memory lane, I roasted some sweet potatoes with red onions and halloumi for dinner, a very simple dish that I used to make a lot back in 2006 or so.

Otherwise, I started off my work day with a highly productive Skype conversation on static versus dynamic conceptions of sustainability, a topic that lead me to read through a number of literature reviews. Going through old issues of American Political Science Review, I found this quote from 1953 that seems as valid back then as today:

“One of the greatest gaps in current political science literature and research involves the relationship of the physical science and technology to political values and processes”

And then this:

“In brief, this book is an examination of the impact of the growth and use of energy upon an evolving civilization and institutions. Its major thesis is that the extent to which man employs and converts the various forms of energy conditions the type of social and political organization which are established”.

While I am generally sceptical of technological determinism, I think this is all very true and something that has direct relevance for my project on nuclear democracy.

Cadenza

From coffee at a small, rickety square table in Rome to the occasional Edith Wharton reference, I guess I was an easy victim for the charms of Find me. I still have a few pages left but the book already reminded me of many long-lost thoughts, including those by Jean-Paul Sartre on possessive love.

With the Advent star back in the window, it is definitely once again paella session here on Rawls & Me. For once, I am taking a rest day from the running so after dinner I plan to stretch out on the sofa with the latest issue of the Monocle Winter Weekly. Its list of literary releases already prompted me to buy a copy of Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School about the class of 1997.