Confidence

After spending all morning in front of the green-screen recording lectures, I felt that it was time to restore some of my lost confidence when it comes to running on slippery and more technical trails. As such, I went over to Grössjön in my signal orange finisher t-shirt from Höga Kusten in case I would run into some disoriented hunters just as the rain started falling. In the end, I ran 12 km, bringing my September total up to 320 km, meaning that I am currently 311 km ahead of plan with regard to my goal of running 10 km per day in 2020. Now the question is, should I make an effort and try to reach 4,000 km of running this year or simply be happy with my original target?

Purpose

Diving into the pool for the first time since I fell when running Höga Kusten 43k, I was expecting the worst but it seems like the injury in my chest has almost healed. Still I limited myself to 1,000 meters this time around.

Being all alone in the water, my imagination quickly drifted off to post-flights swims that used to blur Budapest with Berlin or Delhi with Dallas, how the world was not that long ago. Sadly and predictable, we now keep stumbling towards the future with old conflicts flaring up, most recently between Armenia and Azerbaijan, rather than accelerating towards an integrated world of universal humanism. In academia, the centre is collapsing under the simultaneous onslaught of neoliberal nihilism and malthusian misanthropy, and all that is left is the apolitical managerialism of "Agenda 2030" etc. To make progress, I think it is long overdue that we bring back a notion of purpose to our politics.

Brasato al Barolo

Having already done both Höga Kusten 43k and Bergslagsleden Ultra this month, I was hesitant to commit to another all-out marathon effort. Still, when Tallinn Marathon got cancelled and turned into a virtual event, it would be stupid not to run those 42 km, now when I already paid for both the medal and the t-shirt, even if it meant running at a somewhat slower pace. However, after all that Andreas, Sabinha and the others had endured at Obbola Backyard, it almost felt like cheating to wait for the rain to stop before doing my four loops around the lake. Running in my Pegasus 36 Shields, I was able to complete the full marathon distance in 3 hours and 57 minutes, which I still consider to be a decent marathon time.

Afterwards, I was happy that I had made some Brasato al Barolo yesterday so I could just add polenta and a glass of Campolieti, all giving a very distinct feeling of autumn. Next Saturday, it is time for Tvåälvsloppet 28k up in Vindeln but first a few days of recovery.

Backyard

Down in Obbola, the annual backyard ultra just started in the rain. Grateful that I get to stay indoors with the kids eating waffles, I pour up some more coffee and read about writer’s block in Finland decades ago. Rarely has existence seemed more transient.

Unsurprisingly, I had to cancel the award tickets to India over New Year’s. With a bit of luck, the trip may still happen during the autumn break of 2021 as we have domestic tickets with AirAsia from Delhi to Goa that can be rebooked for free. So right now, it seems as if the Christmas holidays will be spent entirely in and around Kiruna like last year. Hopefully, that will at least give me a lot of time to train for Tjörnarparen 100k in February and maybe retake a few lost CRs.

Racing the future

In one of his videos, Seth James DeMoor talked about setting Fastest Known Times (FKTs) and how you are not only racing history (as in everyone who has attempted the course before you) but also the future as others are likely to come after you and attempt the same thing.

This year, the Golden Trail Series has been replaced by a number of “Golden Segments” on Strava. For each segment, the best man and woman gets a ticket to the Azores in November to race the FKT-holders of all the other segments. One of these segments is the “Boulder Skyline Traverse” which is 26 km long with 1,739 m of elevation gain and I was not surprised when Seth, after winning the Pikes Peak Marathon back in August, was able to set a new FKT of 2 hours and 38 minutes. Yet, true to Seth's words about “racing the future”, Joseph Grey snagged the same course record only a few days later with a margin of six minutes. With the competition closing in five days, I wonder if Seth (or some other elite runner) will make another attempt or if Grey will be the one who gets to go to the Azores.

For our own miniature version, Elin and I went racing along the river this morning, both setting new CRs for the 300 meter segment “Bildmuséet” which has been inaccessible during the construction of Katamarankajen.

Shore thing

It was a long time coming but “Katamarankajen” is now opened to the public and it is once again possible to run all along the river pass the School of Design and Architecture. Catching a brake in the rain, I went for 14 km in my Pegasus 36 Shields, bringing my total running distance this year above 3,000 km.

Weather permitting, I plan to do a recovery-paced virtual version of Tallinn Marathon on Sunday. Considering that I have already run two times above 42 km this month and that I also have Tvåälvsloppet coming up in ten days, it seems stupid to risk further injuries by racing another marathon.

Waffle sandwiches

Cold as it may already be here in Umeå, my parents are still having temperatures around 20 degrees down in Kalmar, and they often tell me that they are eating waffles in the garden. Slightly envious, I decided to venture yet further south and make some Italian waffle sandwiches with baby spinach, mozzarella and pesto for dinner.

Today, I had the final Zoom session with my political philosophy students and tomorrow I will publish their exam on the new learning platform Canvas. It will be very interesting to see how much they have learned from the pre-recorded lectures and if the exam results are better or worse compared to previous years with campus teaching. In addition, I will of course perform a course evaluation to learn more about their learning experience and what we can do better in the future. With new cases of Covid-19 again picking up in Sweden (although from very low numbers compared to in the spring), it may well be that there will be no campus teaching in January and that we are really in for the long haul when it comes to online learning.

Byron Bay

This morning, Jon sent me some pictures as he was about to fly up to Byron Bay where he, apparently, had never been, something that I guess says a lot about the geographical scale of the Australian continent. With all overseas tourists gone, I imagine that it must be the perfect time to visit.

From the opposite corner of the country, I found a glass of “Jeanneret Big Fine Girl” which is all new at Systembolaget. Repeating the instant success from the weekend of wraps with creme cheese, grilled pepper and basil, it was easy to dream away and forget that I really look like shit. Today I had thesis supervision on Zoom and the student seemed rather shocked by my appearance. Hopefully, it will heal up soon so I can go back to recording new lectures for my social work students who start their studies at the end of the month. Looking back on the race on Strava, I can see that it went really well all the time until it did not, a feeling that was reinforced when the race organizers posted this photo of me about 25 kilometres into the race.

Roadburn

For the first time since February, I am back in the SAS Gold lounge in Terminal 5. With my flight not scheduled to leave for a couple of hours yet, I plan to spend the time grading student papers and imagining that my boarding pass would say something more exciting than Umeå. Still, after all that has been, it feels pretty exotic just to be back travelling at all.

Taking a selfie on the train earlier on, there is no doubt that Halloween came early this year. Though it stings quite a bit, I felt surprisingly refreshed when I woke up this morning so I guess I will be back to running already in a few days’ time. Clearly, trail running is so much better for your body than road running.

Bergslagsleden

After making my new signature risotto with Västerbotten cheese to Sofi and her husband Stefan last night, I drove up to Ånnaboda shortly after 6 a.m. While my chest injury from Höga Kusten had not fully healed, I felt quite eager to take on another ultra. For the first 21k all went really well as I completed the half marathon distance in one hour and 55 minutes along the most beautiful forest trails. Somewhere around 25k I was beginning to feel that my left knee probably had taken more of a beating than I thought when I fell on Stampberget two weeks ago but I did not give it much thought as I climbed up to Rusakulan and looked down over the eco park. Going downhill, however, my concentration slipped, and I suddenly fell flat on my face as my chest muscles simply were not there to allow me to brace myself.

High on adrenaline, I did continue with a decent pace for some more kilometres but, as my left knee was making itself increasingly known, I quickly fell behind, ultimately finishing in just over six hours (equivalent of a 7:35 min/km pace) as number 69 of 113 runners. Despite all the injuries, it was a fantastic race and, unlike Höga Kusten, I would very much like to come back another year. In no small part, this was due to my incredible support crew consisting of Sofi, Stefan, Birgitta and, not to be forgotten, Tage, the flatcoated retriever.

Rants

The most annyoing thing with writing academic articles is that one has to delete the best rants. That is one of the reasons why I keep a blog... so, without further ado, please enjoy:

From Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” to Paul Kingsworth’s “Beast”, modern environmentalism has a long history of romanticizing retreat over democratic engagement across disparate worldviews. Reflecting a kind of banal methodological individualism, children are brought up to a reductionist language of carbon debt and ecological footprint calculators that puts their own existence at odds with the planet. Instead of seeing the possibilities of transformative technologies (be it molecular assemblers or advanced nuclear) and their role in innovating a climate-restored future of universal freedom and prosperity, it is thus not surprising that many children have come to experience different forms of climate anxiety or that their parents are drawn into neo-Malthusian fears of “climate refugees”. 

Western stars

Just in time for the first daylight, train 569 leaves Umeå on its long journey south. Next to me I have the same piece of Muji cabin bag that has travelled so many miles with me over the last decade. When Covid-19 hit back in March, I decided to keep the worn luggage tag from “Alila Ubud” as a reminder of the world that was. At least, I have my face mask from Territory Run in Portland packed and ready for my SAS flight back home on Sunday. But first, time to finally get some research done and also run those 48 km of trails through Kilsbergen.

On the phone, Spotify is playing Springsteen’s 2019 album “Western stars” which the press release apparently described as being about a “range of American themes, of highways and desert spaces, of isolation and community and the permanence of home and hope”. 

Devold

Waking up to heavy autumn rain, I spent the early morning hours editing yet another lecture on public administration in Adobe Premiere before taking the bus with Eddie to the dentist. While I normally bike everywhere in all weathers, it seemed a little too rough for Eddie, so I splurged on a 24-hour travel card. And once I had the card, I thought I could just as well take the bus myself down to USM for one last workout before Saturday's race.

Ever since I discovered Icebreaker's fabulous merino wool shirts back in February, I have more or less stopped wearing synthetic materials when running. For the gym however, I have so far kept my old Nike singlet but, considering the difference in comfort, I decided that it was time to upgrade to a merino wool singlet from the Norwegian company Devold there as well. With the rain hammering down on the glass dome above USM, I realized that if the gym were any closer to home, I would be at risk of becoming one of those fair weather runners that I mocked back in May. At least I got a taste of the elements when biking out to Innertavle to pick up William later in the afternoon.

Hario V60

All the way from Japan, I received my “pour over kit” in the mail today. For 199 SEK, it seemed like the perfect way to close the circle and return to what is commonly known as “bryggkaffe”, in this case Mollberg’s blend from dreamy Helsingborg.

Otherwise, I started my morning shortly after 5 am by signing up for my first ever 100 km ultra race which will take place in mid-February along Skåneleden north of Höör in south Sweden. Obviously, running 100 kilometres is still beyond my current fitness level so I plan to gradually ramp up my training over the coming months, aiming for a total weekly volume of about 100-120 km sometime in early 2021. For the moment, however, I am crazy busy recording lectures for my social work students...

Premiärmilen

Though six month later than originally scheduled, I just raced the virtual edition of Asics Premiärmilen around Nydalasjön. Running in my Hoka Rincons, I can again testify that they are one of the best tempo shoes of all times. Even if I was unable to set a new 10k PR, I fully enjoyed the beautiful morning at the lake. Now Eddie wants me to head out with him to Innertavle so I better lace up my running shoes again.

Empty skies

It took a week but today I was able to shave again after the scratches in my face have healed up. In the physical world, time does have that effect. There is something with clear blue autumn skies and this day that always takes me back to the Atlantic Seaboard; critical junctures when so much could have been done better but also the unmediated tragedy. Like everyone else, I still remember where I was when the news were beginning to sink in, biking back from the university in Örebro.

Today I had the second Zoom tutorial with my political philosophy students. Overall, they seem to be on track with the course. Next week, Anna’s mother is coming up to Umeå so hopefully I will be able to catch up on work and, on Friday, I will take the high-speed train south to run Bergslagsleden Ultra.

Northern winds and southern dreams

Though I had originally planned to head out with my Petzl headlamp later tonight, I decided to go for an afternoon run instead. Despite the strong northern winds, it was surprisingly warm out on the dirt roads between Anumark and Innertavle. To baby my legs a bit after the weekend, I chose to run in my Cliftons with their 30 mm stack height, keeping a steasy pace of 5 min/km.

While the rest of my body seems to have recovered, the pain in my upper chest is still there when I do some movements, so no push-ups or swimming for Rasmus. Falling on that cliff definitely took away some of the allure of skyrunning so right now I am more thinking of running really far on safer trails. More specifically, I have found a 100k race in February on Skåneleden that I am very tempted to sign up for once the registration opens next week. 

999

Still running with Doctors Without Borders, I have now made it to September and 9 km, which just happens to be the distance around the lake. After two days without running, my legs felt surprisingly refreshed and ready to take on some faster paces even as my left shoulder has not yet fully recovered.

Last night, my political philosophy students started uploading their videos about the “canon problem” to the online learning platform Canvas. Working in groups of 4-5 students, their assignment has been to decide on one political theorist who I have not included in my pre-recorded lectures and make a video that explains why that thinker is important to consider if one wants to understand politics today. So far, chosen theorists have included Simone de Beauvoir, Theda Skocpol and Ayn Rand among others. In the next round, the students will now watch each other’s videos and write individual response papers that I will then grade. In this way, I hope to broaden and diversify the canon beyond the usual collection of dead white men.

Waffles and DOMS

Having to stay at home with Eddie who has a cold, I made a second breakfast with waffles and black coffee. With lots of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness after the race, I have then been busy juggling thesis grading, grant application writing and board game playing all day.

Right now, it feels like it will take a few more days until I am back to running again. With Bergslagsleden Ultra 48k only twelve days away, I guess I have to pay close attention to my body so that I do not end up with an overtraining injury.

Signal orange

To get some blood flowing through my muscles and ease the stiffness from yesterday’s brutal race, I took my signal orange finisher t-shirt out for five easy kilometres along the eastern side of the lake.

But now it is definitely back to master thesis grading.

High Coast

Yesterday, I raced through the Skuleskogen national park. Being part of the UNESCO World Heritage site “The High Coast”, it was an incredibly beautiful course with a dramatic fissure valley terrain. Unfortunately, a bit into the race, I fell on a slippery rock and hurt my shoulder which made it difficult for me to brace myself when going downhill on the steep trails later in the course.

Ultimately, with an official time of 6 hours and 21 minutes, I ended up as number 134 (out of the 432 runners who completed the race) which of course was a disappointment but, considering how much pain I had, I am happy that I managed to finish the race at all. I am also very happy that Elin, with whom I ran the first 21k, ended up as number 10 among the women with a time of 5 hours and 47 minutes.

Sober sailors

As the president of the Society of Sober Sailors, Captain Haddock, often points out, the greatest threat at sea does not come from wild storms or sharp reefs but from the bottle.

However, Haddock is not only known for his great knowledge of all things alcohol-related but also for his colourful invectives of which I just happened to receive a dictionary in the mail today.

Outlaws and idleness

Yesterday, I went for one last long(ish) run in preparation for the High Coast 43k race on Saturday. Taking it mostly slow, I did however throw in 4 km of fast trail running in a 4:22 min/km pace just to remind myself of how much coordination and strength that it takes to race like that through the forest. Waking up this morning, I can definitely feel yesterday's run so I better brace myself for Sunday. Otherwise, the last few days have been incredible with crisp autumn air and magic mist over the lake.

In the real world, the Trump administration continues its assault on the institutions of multilateralism, hastening the cuts to WHO funding while imposing sanctions on different officials of the International Criminal Court, including blocking the private assets of its chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. I guess this says a lot, not only about how unwilling the US is to accept that it is not above the law but also how much it specifically fears an unbiased inquiry into the war crimes committed by all sides, including the US, in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a university is offering an “idleness grant” on the assumption that human activity is intrinsically unsustainable. In my articles, I have often pointed out that ecological footprint analysis is based on precisely this premise, i.e. that the best would be for humans not to exist, and that it thereby ignores the broader trajectory of technological evolution. As such, I am not surprised that the organizers of the grant find it contradictory that “society promotes sustainability while simultaneously valuing success”. Oh, how I wish these people would watch some StarTrek and get a better appreciation of our historical situation and what is at stake.

Taleggio

Since Lombardy has been in the news mostly for Covid-19 this year, I thought it would be good to travel (if only culinarily) to Val Taleggio for some grilled polenta with caramelized onions and the famed local cheese, if nothing else to make up for some of the calories lost when running.

Otherwise, I had the first meeting with my new mentee today. Walking around campus together in the early autumn sunshine with a cup of gourmet coffee from Kahls, I was reminded of what my mother always tells me about how she was working long hours indoors at the hospital and how spoilt I am in comparison. I guess she has a point but, looking at the calendar for the coming month, I certainly have some work of my own lined up. As such, I may not be able to post as much on Rawls & Me as I have in the past, but I will of course take you along to both the High Coast and Bergslagsleden. Unfortunately, I just learned that STHLM Loop on the 24th of October has been officially cancelled. If I am lucky, Kullamannen will still happen the weekend after but I would not bet my last money on it.