Tchicha

With the temperature around -20 degrees when I woke up this morning, I decided to postpone my running until midday which had the additional benefit of being joined by Åsa for a 13k run around Stadsliden. Following the forest trails under blue skies, it is hard not to love “spring winter” or “Gidádálvve” as the Sami call it.

Later for dinner, I made a Moroccan barley and lentil soup, while pondering the latest provocative statement by the Sweden Democrats, namely, to stop all wind power expansion in Sweden (and possibly even take down existing turbines) and instead build more nuclear. While perhaps unnecessarily polemic, I would say that this is very much a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day. After all, just as with domestic energy savings, the expansion of wind power in Sweden does nothing to decarbonize the global economy but much to delay the necessary investments in scalable, high-energy technologies such as next generation nuclear.

However, despite the visible failures of the German energy transition, the general public (not to mention certain academics) has a long way to go until it is ready to reverse course and realize that, far from displacing fossil fuels, wind and solar power in fact lock them in. And while the Sweden Democrats correctly criticize wind power for its large environmental impact, they conveniently ignore that the same is true for the motorways that their own voters champion. As such, if I am to stick to the proverbs, I am afraid that with friends like the Sweden Democrats, who need enemies?

Building volume

Running through the ice-cold morning, I was able to complete Strava’s "Running Endurance Challenge" for the third month in a row. In fact, I am currently 36 km ahead of pace as to my goal of running 10k per day this year. As previously noted, there is very little luck in running and, as such, building volume remains the key thing one can do to improve race performance, all assuming one gets sufficient recovery. 

Beyond running, today has mostly been about department kitchen duty and the construction of new exam questions for those who failed the first time now in mid-March. Meanwhile, reading the news about Russia and how the circle around Putin is preparing for a “forever war”, it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin cannot back down given the endemic corruption of his regime and its imperial obsessions. What is even more frightening is that perpetual war may in fact be quite useful for the pursuit of Putin's hypermasculine vision of social purity and global isolation. 

Third time's a charm

Albariño Atlántico

Though reminding me of a bottle that Anna’s mother gave me just as the pandemic was becoming real, this one is from Uruguay, at the far end of the map, and has a name that puts me right back in Rio.

Overnight, the sky had cleared which meant that the temperature had dropped down to -15 degrees by the time I went for my morning run around the lake. Still, with the sun climbing up to 30 degrees above the horizon, there is no doubt that spring is underway.

Meanwhile, to confront my fears, I invested in a book about preparing and responding to emergencies out on the trail. After freezing to the bones when running Tjörnarparen in February, I guess dehydration will be my primary challenge going forward, both now in California and later in June when I am planning to run “Öland Ultra”.

The New Yorker

This week, I have been marking 100+ exams, an exercise that always calls for a rather serious quantity of intellectual offset, in this case in the form of The New Yorker. Reading up on the declining state of the humanities as students focus on immediate employability at the expense of lasting Bildung, I am again concerned by how quickly both the students and we as teachers are becoming perfectly replaceable by AI as we leave less and less room for genuine thinking and questioning in Academia.

Having finished marking the exams, I returned to USM today for another full hour on the treadmill, after all, if it is called “friskvårdstimme”, it really should be one hour. Compared to working my way through the digital assessment tool “Inspera”, I must stay that the treadmill has a beautiful simplicity to it and that it calls for much less mental discipline...

Too hard

Over the last couple of weeks, my heart rate has been about twenty beats higher per minute than usual on some of my easy runs, making me wonder if either me or my watch is off somehow? Other times, all has seemed perfectly fine. Yesterday however, after an exceptionally hard uphill treadmill run at USM, I started to feel some localised pain in the left side of my chest. Even if the pain was not accompanied by any other symptoms, thank God, it obviously made me concerned that I have been pushing myself too hard recently, so I decided to skip my planned afternoon jog despite the brilliant sunshine outside.

Today, the pain is still there but I can now more clearly feel that it is connected to similar muscle soreness in my stomach, so I decided to go for a run along the river as the weather is simply irresistible right now. Fortunately, this time around, my heart rate stayed around 135 bpm for the duration of the run.

When following a lot of elite people on Strava, I think it is easy to start aiming for too much, too fast, while forgetting that they are people too. To counter that, I decided to take a page from Emelie Forsberg’s playbook and finish today’s run with a cinnamon bun. 

Back to Hamptjärn

A week later, I got to return to Hamptjärn, this time with Eddie. Being born above the Arctic Circle, he is already much better than me at skiing so we made the climb up to the hut without any fuss. A few waffles later, the downhill felt almost like a roller coaster and we made it back just in time to catch bus number 7 to Vasaplan.

Plain Pleasures

The other week, Ally made aware of Jane Bowles Plain Pleasures and, predictably enough, I had to invest in a copy of my own after reading up on Bowles’ fascinating biography which included sojourns and love affairs in Tangier and Mexico. Without a doubt, frequenting lesbian bars in Paris in the late 1930’s was far more of a statement than staying at Axel Hotel in Madrid in 2022.

Making bouillabaisse for dinner, this Saturday feels exceptionally long already, starting with a stormy 10 km through sleet followed by a visit to Navet with the kids and then an additional 6 km on the treadmill. Still only at 63 km this week, I cannot really grasp how I was able to hit 100 or even 120 km per week in the past.

Hoka Carbon X 3

Two years ago, I got my first pair of carbon-plated running shoes, as in the Hoka Carbon X 2, which I have since used extensively, most notably when running Trondheim Marathon. As we all know, prices are going up a lot these days, so I was surprised to find a pair of the updated model in size 48 for half the usual price.

With Tallinn Marathon coming up in the fall and Blodomloppet 10k already in May, it felt like a good investment and this morning I finally got to try them out on the treadmill. Having opted for the yellow/orange colourway, I think they look really good and fast. Racing away in a 4:16 min/km pace (i.e. the pace needed to run a marathon in three hours), I felt grateful that, as I am turning 45 this summer, my qualifying time for the Boston Marathon will soon be 3 hours and 20 minutes (or 4:44 min/km)...

Lumière du Sud

After ten brutal kilometres on the treadmill, I first moderated a Zoom guest lecture for my social work students and then spent most of my working day reviewing chapters for the new Handbook of Environmental Political Theory in the Anthropocene with Edward Elgar. As for my own contribution on ecomodernism, I look forward to getting some input at WPSA in San Francisco and then revising it based on the reviewer feedback that I receive.

Today, ABC wrote about “Lumière du Sud”, and I was immediately thrown back to the Balearic Islands in October with Sofi. In retrospect, I am so incredibly happy that we got to make that trip. With that in mind and a bit of luck, we might be able to schedule another adventure on the Iberian Peninsula before the year is out.

21 days

In three weeks from today, I will be flying out across the Atlantic aboard a British Airways A380. Daydreaming a bit over breakfast, I am thinking that after this unusually wet and snowy winter, the dry landscape that I left behind in June 2019 will probably be all green by the time I touch down at SFO.

In the morning before my return flight, I remember going for some trail running in Coyote Hills. For all its human misery, Coastal California will always have a special place in my heart.

Hamptjärn waffles

Back home in Umeå, I went for a long afternoon run with Petra up to Hamptjärnsstugan, made famous both for its strategic location along Tavelsjöleden (its water tap has saved me on multiple occasions on hot summer days) and its views overlooking Umeå. 

Having being closed for a few years, Hamptjärnsstugan is again open on weekends between 10-16, serving delicious waffles and hot chocolate. As such, it was the perfect destination in the brilliant winter sunshine. With a bit of luck, I hope to return on skis next weekend with the kids in tow.

Downtown Camper

When travelling with two kids, finding hotel rooms with four beds is not always the easiest. On our trip to Italy in the fall, Airbnb turned out to be the best option but for our one night in Stockholm, I was happy to find an affordable family room at Downtown Camper. Unfortunately, the winter-open pool with its views of Stockholm turned out to have a 16-year age limit but otherwise we had a great stay. Yesterday afternoon, I was even able to go for a quick treadmill run. Now on the high-speed train up to Umeå, I look forward to getting some grading done while the kids get some of their much sought after “screen time”.

Two days ago, The Guardian published a piece on ecomodernism which was much less hostile than I would have expected. Still, I was not surprised to find that the global equality dimension was just as missing as it always is in energy debates. After all, nuclear only becomes essential when one starts to think about what it would take for all of the world’s population to be able to live a modern life without dangerously destabilizing the climate or wreaking havoc with the biosphere.

Alpino

After the last days of heavy snowfall, it felt quite appropriate that Pressbyrån in Gothenburg had Monocle Alpino on sale this morning as Anna and I are on our way to Stockholm with the kids. Travelling through a winter landscape, I read up on solitude in Voralberg, grizzly bears, and new bar openings in Helsinki - all very Monoclesque topics.

Meanwhile, it appears as if the sale of electric vehicles has plummeted in Sweden following the end of all subsidies last fall with non-electric cars again gaining in popularity. Though I am very much looking forward to renting a Tesla Model Y in California in about a month from now, I must say that I remain sceptical of the whole automobile paradigm and whether EVs really can be seen as a meaningful part of a sustainable future when you factor in the full lifecycle emissions and the road infrastructure. For my own part, I am just happy to be back biking after all the driving last year.

Ruddalen

Once yesterday's great storm had passed, the temperature dropped down to -12 in Gothenburg overnight, making Ruddalen feeling almost like home as I set out for my morning jog around Västra Frölunda. With 147 meters of elevation gain, it was still a bit different from my usual lake runs.

Afterwards, all of the family took the bus over to Mölndal and its revitalized post-industrial landscape for some sightseeing in the sun. Tomorrow, more snow is expected so we were happy to get one grand day out before taking the train to Stockholm on Friday morning.

Tea or wine

Having written in the past about train rides and the centrality of Stockholm in Sweden, I was reminded of a how, in the mornings, people on the train to Stockholm would drink coffee while typing away on their laptops in preparation for their respective meetings in the capital. Then, in the evening on the return leg, one could immediately tell how the meetings went based on what people would drink, with a clear divide between shell-shocked tea drinkers and joyful wine drinkers.

Today is definitely a wine day so I picked up some Chilean chardonnay in the bistro as my high-speed train makes its way back to Gothenburg. Having discovered that the 1938 edition of Ernst Jünger’s “Das abenteuerliche Herz” has just been translated into Swedish, I of course had to order a copy as I was beginning to run low on magic realism, not to mention, Prussian anarchism ;-)

Outside the box

Last night, Johanna and I had a slightly beastly dinner with steaks from Argentina down in the port of Kalmar, talking about how the prevailing documentation hysteria is stealing time from the kids in the pre-school where she is working, and how much bigger the children groups have become over the years, resulting in higher noise and stress levels for both kids and staff. It is interesting to reflect on how these dynamics in turn feed into each other. With more staff away doing paperwork, pressure on those still with the kids increase, making it increasingly necessary for the staff to take “breaks” with yet more paperwork in order to cope. While one should not entirely dismiss the need for documentation in early childhood education, it simply seems odd that pre-school teachers should put more time into writing assessments and evaluating different learning objectives than I do as a university teacher. At some point, one has to step outside the box, and start questioning these macro-trends and where they are taking our audit addicted society.

Waking up to another day with clear skies and cold northerly winds today, I got a chance to run around Stensö with my mother, almost succeeding in persuading her to sign up for a 10k race in late July, before jumping on train 336 to Gothenburg around lunch time.

Morning in Kalmar

While my mother went to the pool for her traditional Saturday morning swim, I laced up my marigold Torrents and headed out for a sunrise run around Kalmar. Despite strong northerly winds, conditions were just perfect for running as the ground was frozen without being icy.

As always, running in Kalmar brings back so many memories but also new acquaintances such as a group of stone seals in the port. Passing the castle, I of course had to take a classic tourist photo. After almost 20k, I arrived at a slightly less photogenic Circle-K gas station as I was picking up a rental car to help my mother with some logistics today.

International Herald Tribune

Many years ago, when I used to travel between Copenhagen and Vienna with some frequency, I had my own newspaper ritual, always picking up the International Herald Tribune at the gate as I boarded (imagine, a time when European airlines not only served complimentary hot meals in economy but gave out newspapers for free!), and then taking in the world as it disappeared below. These days, I will have to do with a week-old newspaper from Pressbyrån in Umeå, but its front-page photo of a tram still brings back memories from the Central Europe of my heart, the very world that is now at risk.

As for something lighter, when running under the stars and an almost full moon this morning, I was reminded of a wonderful article in Monocle a few years back about “early risers” around the world, featuring everything from beach yoga in Sydney to morning dance parties in New York. If someone in my twenties had suggested that I would go to bed at 9 pm and get up before 5 am, I would find it utterly unbelievable but, as I get older, I have come to appreciate those morning hours more and more.

In a few hours, I will take the second flight of the day as I head down to Kalmar for a couple of days with my parents and a dinner with Johanna before taking the train to Gothenburg on Sunday where I will be reunited with Anna and the kids who are having their winter break. Like last year, we have decided to spend most of their break on the West coast and I look forward to getting some vertical into my running as I prepare for Diablo Trails 50k in California.

Notvarpsbron

About five kilometres upstream from Umeå, there is a small suspension bridge across the river that serves as an excellent turning point. After working a few hours in the morning, I decided to head up there before returning home via Sandåkern and a fika at Circle-K (as tradition dictates).

Meanwhile, down in the United Arab Emirates, unit 3 at the Barakah nuclear power plant just entered commercial service, adding another 1,345 MWe of clean dispatchable energy to its grid. Interestingly, fuel loading and testing went much faster than at unit 2 (which in turn went faster than at unit 1), showing that, by building in sequence, there are clear benefits of scale and standardization. Sadly, most countries are taking the opposite approach to the UAE, as in building only one reactor at the time and waiting decades in between... 

Lord of the Flies

With my hands still raw from the rowing, I read another chapter for William in his rather unusual choice of bedtime story. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it is just as frightening to follow the stranded young boys on the island today as it was when I first read Lord of the Flies three decades ago.

Today, Svenska Dagbladet had an interesting piece on Austrian neutrality and how the country has not followed the same road towards NATO membership that Sweden and Finland have taken. While I, most reluctantly, have come to the conclusion that joining NATO is the right decision at this point, I was surprised to find that a majority in Austria thinks that Ukraine should trade land for peace even if it would mean rewarding Putin for his war of aggression. In a further unexpected twist, only among Green (!) voters is there a slim majority in favour of continuing the fight, something which again goes to show how differently the war in Ukraine has played out on a sociological level compared to previous conflicts.

Considering what is at stake, a Russian victory in Ukraine, however ephemeral, is simply ethically unacceptable. The problem is that a Russian loss would come with extreme escalatory risks, meaning that, with the possible exception of regime change in Moscow, it is difficult to see how this can in any way end well.