Eat like an ultra-runner

Favourite Way 400k

Feeling better with the cold, I decided that it was time to wrap up a number of different Strava challenges, including the 400k mixed-activity challenge, by running down to the Baltic in Holmsund. Given the icy roads, I opted for my Icebug Newrun GTX even as I would ideally have preferred the Cliftons or some other pair of shoes with better cushioning.

Anyhow, down in Holmsund I found a nice sandy beach where I could watch Wasaline docking in the outer port. In these exceptional times, it is somehow heart-warming to see any sign of international trade and exchange. After taking a Maurten Gel to power my return run, I headed back to Tomtebo, passing by Holmsjön with hundreds of people ice-skating on the lake.

Soft power

Friday and apparently it was my turn to wake up with a cold. At least the boys seem to have fully recovered so that they can return to school on Monday after a week of quarantine. Reading Monocle’s annual soft power ranking, I am again reminded of how widespread the view is that Sweden has taken a “no economy-slowing” approach to Covid-19, even among people who are normally in the know.

Unable to go running myself, I am watching Kilian Jornet’s attempt to set a new world record for 24 hours on the track. To beat the current record of 303 km set by ultra-running legend Yiannis Kouros back in 1997, Kilian will have to run faster than 4:44 min/km on average for 24 hours straight (a pace that I may be able to sustain for a couple of hours at maximum). 

Easy

Listening to "Easy" with Seinabo Sey, I made it around the lake just as the sun was rising. With the new rules saying that the kids have to be symptom-free for two days before returning to school, the week did not turn out at all the way I had planned. Still, I have been able to record the last two lectures for my police officers so, just maybe, I may be able to focus on my research next week.

Almonds and kale

In the wake of all the cancelled Christmas dinners, Sweden is apparently experiencing a massive kale surplus. To somehow help out, I make creamy tortellini with kale and almond for dinner while the rain keeps falling outside.

Back on ice

Last winter was incredibly icy with the temperature constantly hovering around the freezing point. Despite carbide studs, I remember how I struggled to keep up my running volume. Unfortunately, after a few days of winter wonderland, we seem to be in for another winter of such rain-on-snow events with tons of ice accumulating on the roads. 

With the first confirmed Covid-case at the school in Innertavle, it feels better to err on the side of caution. Thus, after an early airport run, I get to stay home with the boys for one more day while Anna is taking the bus to work in my Under Armour sports mask, all very 2020 :-)

Stranded

Barely had the ink dried on my swimming update the other week when the municipality decided to close all pools. Thus, instead of practicing my front crawl at Navet, I am left doing what academic people do when they want to learn something new, reading a book.

With both kids being home again with minimal cold symptoms, the work week did not come off to the flying start that I had been hoping for. Hopefully, they will soon recover so that I can go back to recording lectures and article writing rather than dry-land swimming.

Sunday

Before sunrise, I persuaded Eddie to come along in the Thule Cougar to Navet, giving his brother some quite time at home while allowing me to reach my annual running goal of 3,700 km. 

When deciding on this goal back in December in Kiruna, I remember doubting the realism of running 10 km per day on average for an entire year. To my surprise, I have not only been able to do this with a whole month left to spare, but I am also now realizing that my school commute routine alone will take me above a maddening 4,000 km this year. If my body holds up, I guess the only logical outcome will be to set 4,000 km as my new goal for 2021...

Forecasts

For some reason, William decided to get up at 3 am this morning which almost made me regret not doing the Ultra Interval Challenge once again now on the right day and everything. But instead of running another set of 8 x 10 km, I am reading about the renaissance of smaller cities in Monocle Forecast while eating a “lussekatt”. From Itoshima to Innsbruck and then onwards to Porto, I definitely get the allure even as megacities like Seoul or New York have a charm of their own.

In so many ways, the world is really what we want to see even as the things we ignore have a nasty habit of coming back to haunt us. Writing about Obama’s new memoir, Fareed Zakaria points out that Obama for the most part ignores the “rise of an enraged, utterly obstructionist, Manichean opposition to his presidency, and himself personally, that eventually culminated in the election of Donald Trump”. Fareed thinks Obama’s reason for this omission is “that it would take him into deep and dark waters that are so different from the hopeful, optimistic country he so plainly wants to believe in”. While I still have to read Obama's memoirs myself, I think there is a lot of truth to this and, to some extent, I find it to be profoundly sound.

In one of the latest episodes of Discovery, Captain Saru makes a reference to the Italian 14th century painter Giotto and how his three dimensional paintings made people look up after the Dark Ages. More than ever, we similarly need to look to the future and try to see the best in each other rather than letting our fears control our world.

Winter wonderland

Tasmania

Touted as the “toughest half marathon in the world”, the Point to Pinnacle race in Hobart immediately sparked my imagination when it popped up as a virtual challenge in Strava. After running up and down Bräntberget fifteen times and doing some hill repeats outside the school in Innertavle, I was able to complete the required 1,271 meters of vertical gain yesterday.

That was really in the nick of time because, this morning, the snow was back with a vengeance. With the outside world turning solidly white, I made a saffron fish soup for dinner with a glass of chardonnay from, yes, Tasmania, even as I am quite happy not to be in Australia right now with Adelaide in turn for another severe lockdown. As my friend Jon noted, it is interesting to see how Australia is basically taking the same approach to the pandemic as China with sweeping lockdowns and mass-testing in order to eliminate the virus (rather than just trying to mitigate its effects).

Faul wie ein Waschbär

In a hilarious new time travelling video, the German federal government asks its citizens to be “special heroes” in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 by staying at home as lazy racoons. While that is obviously kind of remote from life as a parent and ultra runner, humour may definitely help getting the message across.

The first half of November has again been a lot warmer than usual in Scandinavia, making the days grey and short. Hopefully, we will get some snow towards the weekend that will brighten things up a bit. Before the snow arrives however, I thought it was best to get some more vertical done on my Tasmanian climbing challenge so, on my way to pick up Eddie, I stopped by at our local skiing slope “Bräntberget” for a few hill repeats. Otherwise, I have spent the last days filming my way through the history of political thought. For the moment, I am with Thomas Hobbes and the English Civil War.

Sneak peek

Every year in December, Strava sends out a summary of all your activities. This year, they offered an early “sneak peek” telling me that I am currently at 3,925 km with an accumulated climb of 30,837 meters across all sports. 

“In a year that’s been one non-stop global headwind, it’s time to throw down and finish strong”

Since I am already doing the Tasmanian “point to pinnacle” vertical challenge of climbing 1,271 meters this week, I heard Strava’s advice and headed over to Bräntberget for 10x hill repeats in the rain so now I have definitely earned some paella for dinner...

From Plato to the crisis of democracy

Today, I have started recording new lectures on political philosophy for the spring semester. The main reason for doing this is that Sven-Eric Liedman, at the age of 81, has decided to publish a fifteenth (!) edition of his classic book on the history of political thought. While the revisions are not that major, the book can be seen quite a bit in the current videos so I will have to treat this as an opportunity to revise and improve.

After the great storm

Listening to Ane Brun’s new album “After the great storm” as I was biking down to town, it rather felt like the storm is still coming. With the new harsher Covid-restrictions in place, I decided that it was best to get my swimming done while the pool is still open so, in one push, I made it to 24,000 meters this year before heading over to Kjell & Company to pick up another microphone cable. As things stand now, I seriously doubt that there will be any campus teaching whatsoever until next autumn...

So fair, so cold

In line with the Covid guidelines, Eddie has been home from school since yesterday as he has the “slightest of cold symptoms”. So far, William is feeling okay so at 8 am, I ran out with him in the Thule carrier to Innertavle where the river is still on the verge of overflowing. On my way back home, I raced up the hill next to the school, but for some strange reason the Suunto activity file seems to have been corrupted so maybe my run will never end up on the segment leaderboard. Now it is anyhow time to record another lecture for my spring classes.

Indian risotto

As for food, I found myself in a playful mood and made some Indian risotto with ginger, mustard, cilantro and cashew nuts for dinner. Together with oven-baked salmon and a glass of Grüner Veltliner it felt like the perfect way to end the weekend.

Pre-pandemic paella

Before the pandemic, I always spent the weekends preparing food containers that I would later bring to work and microwave. When teaching long hours, few things would brighten my day as much as finding some hearty paella in such a container, throwing me back two decades or more to Cádiz.

Thinking through climate change

With Biden still on the brink of victory, I am planning a morning hike with the boys. Before that however, I got a chance to read a bit in Adam Briggle’s book “Thinking through climate change”. On the cover I found strong endorsements by both Steve Fuller and Daniel Sarewitz which immediately made me curious. While the book has its fair share of esoteric thinking dressed up in scientific jargon, it is not your run-of-the-mill volume criticising “capitalism” and it definitely warrants a closer reading. Having said that, the book occasionally buys into the same tired moralizing paradigm that has made progress on climate change so difficult:

“But I bicycle anyways, because it is a way of putting skin in the game. To feel the hills in my legs rather than to have them hidden under the gas pedal is a way to feel the reality of our situation. The moral imagination we are trying to expand requires us to fight against the forgetfulness a high-energy life encourages”

I bike too. But I do not see it in any way as related to the planetary process of climate change mitigation. I guess I have watched too many episodes of StarTrek but the point is that we should seek a future in which we can be precisely "forgetful" about energy as technological emancipation, rather than lifestyle moralism, holds the key to saving nature.

Seinabo Sey

With Biden edging ahead in both Georgia and Pennsylvania, I bike home in the autumn sunshine with Seinabo Sey in my earphones (thanks to Ally). Down at the gym, everyone was talking about the new local regulations that may be coming any day and whether or not USM will remain open as the Covid situation worsens also here in the North.

Even if Tjörnarparen 100k may ultimately end up being cancelled, I at least had a chance to take my new Salomon S/Lab Ultra 2 shoes out of a run along the river with Elin today. Though slightly less cushioned than I am used to from my Hokas, the fit in size 48 was really good and I think they will be the right choice come February.

Tenterhooks

Waking up four or five times through the night to no avail, I would be lying if I said that the US election has not had me on tenterhooks. I guess Eliot A. Cohen put it better than most in his Foreign Affairs essay:

"Beyond the realm of policy, a Trump victory would mark a sea change for the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world. It would signal to others that Washington has given up its aspirations for global leadership and abandoned any notion of moral purpose on the international stage. It would usher in a period of disorder and bristling conflict, as countries heed the law of the jungle and scramble to fend for themselves. And a second Trump term would confirm what many have begun to fear: that the shining city on a hill has grown dim and that American power is but a thing of the past."

However, while the election still remains undecided, Biden seems to be on a clear path to victory, at least as long as Trump does not succeed in causing legal havoc or simply refuses to leave office, two prospects that I fear are not entirely out of the realm of the possible. To somehow keep my stress levels in check, I took the bike down to USM for 3k of indoor rowing and some strength training.

Piadina

On the eve of battle, I make some piadina from Romagnola and pick up an old book from the 1940’s by Samuel Shellabarger, full of intrigue of the Italian Renaissance. #alt-reality alright. My only hope now is that there will be a repeat of the Great Schlep of 2008 and that I will wake up to a blue wave strong enough to remove all doubts about the outcome.

Otherwise, between swimming and running, I have been busy preparing my lectures for the spring when we will welcome a record number of new police students. To my great relief, the social work students are not in uproar but instead giving me a heart-warming endorsement:

"Jag känner verkligen att jag lärt mig helheten kring politik och policy i Sverige. Jag vill verkligen säga att Rasmus är en fenomenalt bra lärare. Intressanta föreläsningar, tar med det viktigaste och man känner verkligen att man lär sig. Superbra att han skriver inför alla föreläsningar vilken bok och kapitel. Väldigt pedagogiskt. Känns som man nästan var i klassrummet under hans föreläsningar. 10/10"

Crawl

While many streets are still flooded or blocked by trees, the storm has passed, leaving behind blue skies on this Tuesday, a day that may go down as one of the most consequential in modern history. Trying to escape the ever-distracting news feed, Anna and I biked down to town to pick up her new glasses and swim a bit together at Navet.

Easy as the front crawl may look on those Global Triathlon Network videos, I can tell that it will take a lot of practice until I can do it with some proficiency. Still, I am excited to having started the journey and, Covid permitting, I plan to take more formal lessons in the spring.

Wütendes Wetter

Stealing the title from Fredi’s pop science book, the remnants of the tropical storm Zeta made it to Umeå this morning with 60 mm of rain and heavy winds just in time for my morning run with the Thule Cougar to Innertavle. The last time I experienced a rain storm like this was on the day before South Devon Ultra when I was driving down from London to Dartmouth in my rental car. Luckily, race day was all blue skies but it definitely instilled some respect for the Atlantic in me.

On that theme, there is a 100 miles race even further out in Cornvall called the “Arc of Attrition” that I would love to run one day post-covid. Before that however, I was thrilled to discover that there will be one more year of Bergslagsleden Ultra, this time along a different route with several distances to choose from, among which I will probably go for the 65 km option.