Silent Hill

Fog and things that happen in fog. When working as a teacher in Korea, I was careful to avoid using pop culture references as they would almost always fall flat with the audience. While there were a few exceptions, such as the Matrix, anything related to European literature (be it “Animal Farm” by Orwell or “Don Quixote” by Cervantes) would be like talking to a wall. The other day, it was my time to be lost in translation as I had never heard of Keiichiro Toyama and his universe of psychological horror.

After descending seemingly endless kilometres on a winding road I made it down to the sauna in Kurravaara shortly before 8 am. However, unlike in Lillsjödal a decade ago, all I could do was to turn around and climb back up to Kiruna through the lifting morning fog. With an accumulated climb of 458 meters over 30 km, this will probably be my last really long run before South Devon Ultra on 1 February.

Yesterday, I watched another documentary on the Western States, this one about four women setting out to complete those 100 miles from Squaw Valley to Auburn, California. No matter how much I try to put it away, I feel that I am being inexorably drawn in. Compared to qualifying for the Boston Marathon, which even if it remains a long-term goal would mean sustaining high speeds for 3+ hours, I have to say that running something like the North Face 50 mile race seems much more realistic.