Nissan

A year ago today, I ran all 80 kilometres of Gotaleden, following parts of Säveån and its valley, carpeted with wood anemones. Arriving early in Halmstad this morning, I sought a similar river encounter along Nissan with the spring that is now unmistakably here.

With thesis seminars starting at 10 am, I limited myself to 13 progressive kilometres. Stopping to reply to student e-mails and snap photos, the run became a kind of unstructured interval session. The legs felt surprisingly fresh after Pembrokeshire Ultra – perhaps thanks to the extra rest day yesterday.

Lounge hopping at Heathrow T3

As long planned, Anna and I made full use of a delightful loophole in the lounge access policy at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 when flying to Gothenburg. By booking Club Europe seats for just 15,000 miles each plus 14 SEK in taxes, we were able to visit, in turn, the Qantas, Cathay Pacific, and Centurion lounges. We began with an Australian brunch: a smoked aubergine salad with zaatar cauliflower, baby spinach, broccolini, and a poached egg, followed by salt and pepper squid with green chili and aioli. Paired with a sparkling wine from South Australia, we were instantly transported across continents.

Served with a sparkling wine from South Australia, I was in true lounge heaven even before heading over to Cathay Pacific in time for the lunch departure to Hong Kong. Picking up some Korean fried rice at the bar to go with a Layton’s Brut Reserve champagne that was simply divine. I both cannot recommend this loophole enough – and urge you not to spread the word too widely. This is an unbelievable way to fly home to Sweden after an ultra weekend adventure in the UK.

Icy ‘n’ spicy

For all its multiculturalism, London is still a place where you can break barriers simply by doing things that white people would not normally do. Before switching to the new Elizabeth Line at Hayes & Harlington, Anna and I stopped for some Indian street food at Icy 'n' Spicy. We ordered a stuffed kulcha and a papri chaat, and the owners, clearly delighted, started filming us – apparently creating content for their Instagram channel.

Llundain

Returning our rental car to Heathrow after 767 kilometres on the road, it was suddenly summer and – tired legs be damned – Anna and I could not resist a long canal walk through London. Taking the Windrush (sic!) Overground to Dalston Junction, we first had some excellent Indonesian coffee and checked out the incredible flowers of Dalston Curve Garden.

Stopping for some tantuni (traditional Turkish street food) and a few pints along Regent's Canal before finishing our walk at St Pancras (as tradition has it), we were constantly reminded of all the small things that make London London. Ever since I started discovering the city in earnest in the summer of 2003, London has had a very special place in my heart. As such, I am already looking forward to returning with my dad in August and being able to show him some of my favourite spots.

Celtic Sea

Thanks to a full British breakfast at our lovely B&B, Anna and I both felt ready to take on today’s big challenge along the shores of the Celtic Sea. This being my fourth ultra race in the Coastal Trail Series, I was happy to find it just as well-organized and friendly as the previous ones.

After a 1.5-kilometre walk to the start in Little Haven, we executed our pre-race plan: walking all climbs and easing into the race. That was easy enough, as most of the first ten kilometres were on single track.

After the first checkpoint, we started picking up speed. We caught a shower or two, but the overcast skies kept us comfortably cool for most of the first 40 kilometres. Once the clouds cleared, we were treated to incredible ocean views that more than made up for the slight heat exhaustion. One day I will learn how to drink enough during an ultra – but since I was taking it slow, I eventually caught up on fluids.

Throughout the race, Anna kept impressing me by soldiering on. She ran 14 kilometres further than she ever had before, stayed in high spirits the whole way, and finished strong by racing into the goal – after climbing a total of 1,176 metres!

High Life

At noon, our Airbus was ready to board at Landvetter. In no time, we were on our way above Skatås and Gothenburg’s southern archipelago towards the United Kingdom. Seeing Ringkøbing Fjord from above, I was reminded of the wild proportions of those 100 kilometres, and from the folded menu (that once used to be the High Life magazine), I ordered a very British cheese and ham sandwich.

Once on the ground in London, we picked up a Citroën C3 and hit the M4 towards “The West”. Driving for nearly five hours and stopping only for coffee once, the first hours were in sunshine but, as we approached the coast, it started raining. Now at our small B&B in Broad Haven (a little more than one kilometre from the start in Little Haven), both Anna and I have slept really well, listening to the rain and the distant sounds of the Atlantic. According to the forecast, the rain will stop in about an hour and, while there may be some light drizzle during the day, conditions look good for Anna’s first ultra, with sunshine expected later in the afternoon.

Trebbiano

While the grape Trebbiano is often associated with cheap mass production, I was positively surprised by the Trebbiano d’Abruzzo that I was served last night at VRÅ. Sitting in the evening sunshine with Anna overlooking the railway station, we had just checked in for today’s flight with British Airways and, with my parents taking care of the children back home, our ultra-running adventure could not be off to a better start.

Now in the lounge at Landvetter, we are waiting for our Speedbird A320 to make its way across the North Sea, while I am busy preparing slides for my upcoming lecture on International Relations. Considering our destination, I could not resist bringing Anders Källgård’s Öar i Europa along, and reading about the Isles of Scilly, I am back thinking that, if I were to successfully finish Halland Ultra-Beach in August, I would have the qualifier needed for the Arc of Attrition in Cornwall...

Killer Intervals

Described by Strava as a “killer interval workout”, I gave my all in the hills of Skatås today, seeing my heart rate climb above 170 bpm and “pushing into anaerobic zones with strategic intensity”. Still, after listening to Seth James DeMoor recapping his training blocks ahead of two different half marathons on Youtube, I was reminded that nothing really beats low-heart-rate volume when it comes to running. With that in mind, I think I should sign up for the Nora Half Marathon in mid-September. That will be about six weeks after my first 100-mile race – enough time to recover but also soon enough to reap the full benefits of what I am hoping will be a high-volume summer.

As for my day job, it truly made my day yesterday when I read the following lines in the preface of a student thesis that I have just finished supervising:

"I och med detta arbete avslutar jag mina tre år på Högskolan i Halmstad, och jag vill rikta ett stort tack till alla som har hjälpt mig under resans gång för att nå detta mål. Ett särskilt stort tack till min handledare Rasmus Karlsson som har visat mig otrolig stöttning och fantastisk vägledning under skrivprocessen."

Energy density

One thing I often struggle to communicate in debates about renewable versus nuclear energy is the concept of energy density. Yesterday, at Tom Titt Experiment in Södertälje, I think I found the perfect illustration in the human-powered helicopter above.

Now, on the train back to Gothenburg, I am commenting on thesis drafts from my students, but I find myself distracted by the many moving tributes to Stina Oscarsson, one of the most important voices in the Swedish public debate, who went silent four days ago after a life-long struggle with anorexia. While I occasionally disagreed with some of the things she wrote or said, I always made time to read her texts when they appeared. I will dearly miss her perspective.

BRA

Having flown with BRA only once before, back in 2019, chances are I will have more opportunities in the future now that they have partnered with SAS as its main domestic wet lease operator – covering routes to Kalmar, Halmstad and, this morning, Kiruna. Today’s flight was on an Airbus A319 that once served with Air Namibia for nearly a decade, a past still legible in the Portuguese signage aboard as we left Kiruna and the High North behind in stunning sunshine. 

Last night, I made lamb meatballs with zucchini, sweet potatoes, feta, and mint for a final Easter dinner. After a morning spent cleaning the house, it feels strange to know we will not be back until Christmas, meaning that we will miss the big summer event when the old church will be moved, in one piece, across town.

Just before boarding, I learned that Pope Francis had passed away. Despite his occasionally populist tone on environmental matters, I think he has been as good a pope as one could hope for – pushing the Catholic Church toward the present in meaningful ways.

Hemmafjäll

After the last few days of spring temperatures, Kiruna did indeed wake up to a fresh layer of snow this morning. Being the last day of the season that the cabin atop our local mountain, Ädnamvaara, was kept open, Anna and I were joined by William and Anna’s mother for 12 kilometres of cross-country skiing, but not before jogging around town and doing some indoor rowing at Gymmet. As such, we are back in the Kiruna vacation routine of 3+ hours of exercise per day.

Once at the peak, the promised waffles were not to be had, but we did get some fika and a moment in front of the fire before gliding down the mountain to the parking lot. Once again, we have truly cherished our time above the Arctic Circle and cannot wait to return in December.

Postmodern påsk

From Maghreb to Malmfälten, I make some shakshouka as a throwback to the world that was before the 7th of October 2023. It is now seven years since my last visit to Israel and six years since I was in Lebanon. For obvious reasons, I am not planning to return any time soon. Still, making a dish that is just as popular in Israel as in its neighbouring countries, I cannot help thinking that there might be a common future beyond the current conflagration.

After the sunshine yesterday with temperatures up to 12 degrees (though still far from Gothenburg’s 23.6°C!), colder weather is on its way – so there may still be a chance for some cross-country skiing this Easter. Last night, all of the family watched Äventyrsfamiljen on SVT Play as they climbed Kebnekaise with three kids aged 10, 8 and 5. Thinking back on my own solo ascent in 2020, I would really love to return one day with the kids, but the logistics are pretty overwhelming as the STF mountain cabin is now charging north of 7,000 SEK for two nights, also making it necessary to pre-book specific days long before one has a chance of knowing if the weather even allows for an ascent.

After the Cold

After spending a week resting and recovering from my cold, I finally got to go for a long run this morning, heading out to the airport in Kiruna just in time to see Zimex Aviation's ATR 42 touch down from Umeå with the mail.

Over the course of my run, the sun broke through the clouds, making me wish I had taken shorts and t-shirt rather than winter running gear. This year, the spring is unusually early in the Arctic, melting away glaciers that are already at record lows – all consistent with what we would expect in a changing climate. In today’s Dagens Nyheter, there is an article about covert climate activists working in different Swedish government agencies. Reading it, I am struck again by the tragic mismatch between individual moral conviction and the scale of action required to address the global, gigaton realities of climate change.

Culinary resistance

Though obviously ineffective, I have engaged in some culinary resistance to the anti-globalist tide by making Lebanese minced lamb pita with tahini, mint salad and Korean toasted sesame chili yesterday and reprising Tuvessonskan’s taco in the oven with some Albariño from Portugal today.

As for the great outdoors, Anna sent me a couple of photos from the skiing slope the other day that I thought I should share here on the blog. For my own part, I am afraid that milder weather and rain will limit my chances of doing any downhill skiing this time around.

The Audit Society

Though I am feeling significantly better, I have decided to wait with the running until tomorrow. Instead, I am preparing slides for my upcoming Zoom lecture on the audit society, introducing the students to debates that seem both relevant and completely irrelevant in these DOGE-times, with irrationalism and flip-flopping becoming the norm.

Fun fact. After a decade of wholesale migration to Microsoft’s ecosystem to comply with data privacy laws, Swedish universities and other agencies now face a looming crisis. The regulatory workaround that has allowed GDPR-covered personal data to be transferred to U.S. servers may collapse – thanks to Donald Trump firing all Democrats from the "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board". The consequences if this were to happen would be unfathomable as it would take years to find alternative solutions, assuming access to existing systems would be granted in the meantime. Even worse, if the U.S. were to suddenly shut off access (perhaps as a consequence of an escalating trade war), it would simply be game over for government agencies across most Western European countries.

In the non-virtual world, political momentum is finally building around the mass deportation to El Salvador that happened last month (which I wrote about here on Rawls & Me). More specifically, the Supreme Court has ordered the immediate return of one of the deportees, a 29-year-old Salvadoran man with no criminal record, deported under an executive order that many legal scholars argue violates both U.S. asylum law and due process. However, the Trump administration is making it clear that it is no longer executing the law in good faith by suggesting that it has no influence over the sovereign decisions of El Salvador (which it obviously has as proven by Trump’s recent cozy meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele). If allowed to stand, there will be nothing preventing Trump from scooping up basically anyone critical of his administration and sending them off to a ghastly mega-prison in El Salvador.

Memory Monday

Still not well enough to go cross-country skiing or running, I am spending this Monday above the Arctic circle in the sofa, reading and commenting on my students’ work and taking part in different online meetings. While most throwbacks on Rawls & Me tend to be of jet-lagged joys and border-hopping adventures, I thought a Memory Monday back to the uncertain spring of 2020 when the world had closed down and I was wearing fleece at home in Umeå could be appropriate for a change.

Pontus remixed

After signing up for a Platinum card with American Express back in February, I have been able to visit a few Priority Pass lounges as well as making use of the “Dining by Amex” benefit but today I got the check-out their signature lounge at Arlanda for the first time. Using the old "Pontus in the Air" restaurant room, and maintaining some of the Pontus Fritiof branding, I was filled with memories from my many great escapes in the past, be it Colombia and Peru with Anna in 2018 or when I was heading down to Morocco to run the Marrakesh Marathon in 2019.

While the food offerings felt more suited for adults than kids, I had an excellent smoked salmon sandwich and fruit salad, with coffee served at the table. According to the reviews that I have read online, food later in the day is even better so I look forward to returning in September when I have my next evening flight out of Arlanda.

Sakura

Having managed to duck all colds since September last year, my luck finally ran out this week – right after my long run on Bohusleden. Teaching for six hours on Friday (thankfully on Zoom) was a real struggle, but I somehow made it through. By Saturday I was already feeling better, which was fortunate, as the whole family took the train to Stockholm at 6 am. With extensive engineering works underway over the Easter holidays, our train ride was an hour longer than usual due to a detour via Trollhättan. Still, that is nothing compared to some other services between Stockholm and Gothenburg, which are delayed by 3-4 hours.

Once in Stockholm, we met up with my sister's family for lunch at Vapiano before leaving the kids with them for a board game bonanza in Bagarmossen. Suddenly kid-free, Anna and I checked in at our hotel in Värtahamnen and headed out for a long walk through the spring sunshine. We wandered past the embassies on Djurgården and ended the stroll with a rooftop drink at TAK.

With cherry blossoms in full swing in Kungsträdgården, Stockholm felt especially multicultural and welcoming – tourists and locals mingling under the trees. On the train, I had been reading more of the excellent Wigforss biography I picked up before my trip to Spain last month. Seeing present-day Stockholm through its pages reminded me just how utopian our world would seem to someone in the 1940s – how much more freedom individuals have today to shape their own lives, and how many voices that were once silenced that can now be heard.

Bohusleden

After exploring stages 3-5 of Bohusleden last summer, I decided to run the first two stages this morning. Leaving home at dawn, I followed the trail south through Skatås to Gunnebo Slott which is one of my long-term favourite places in Gothenburg.

From there, the trail passed a series of lakes and, when the sun came out, I was seriously tempted to go for a swim. Parts of the trail were fairly technical, requiring quite a bit of concentration not to fall, so I missed some of the flowers in the forest but there is no doubt that spring is here.

In Lindome, I stopped at "Kago Bageri & Café" which seemed to be quite a place with the staff being as unfriendly as their sandwiches were excellent, and the regulars asking me if I was one of those strange people who run really far.

Passing into Halland, there was a sign pointing to Strömstad (at the Norwegian border) in one direction and Trelleborg (at the southernmost end of Sweden) in the other. Unfortunately, I had work to do so I had to finish my run when Bohusleden became Hallandsleden and take the train back to Gothenburg. Running in my Salomon Ultra Glide 2 "Atlantic Deep" blue, I still could not help dreaming of future trail adventures. More specifically, now when I have discovered “Intygsläkaren”, it is suddenly possible to run in France and other countries that require a medical certificate.

Abundance

Equipped with a half bottle of red wine from the hills near Carcassonne, I have just started reading Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance, a book that has sparked a lively debate after being published three weeks ago in the United States.

Opening with a truly ecomodernist vision of the future, one of rewilding and a world beyond scarcity, I find myself nodding along with much of what the authors are saying, even if some details seem to be more about coalition-building than internal consistency. In any case, I think the authors are correct in focusing a lot on housing and how unaffordable housing has become for many people due to zoning regulations, creating an ever-widening gap between market insiders and outsiders that directly fuels political resentment and cynicism. So far, I am surprised to see how little they seem to have to say about schools and other forms of social investments though, given how central they are to the task of achieving broadly shared economic growth.

Long Island Seashore

17 years ago, I drove for days along the Atlantic, through an other-worldly light that I struggled to capture with my camera. Now, with America turning increasingly hostile against the world, that spring semester at Rutgers feels ever more distant, and so does the optimism and cosmopolitanism of the subsequent Obama years.

Be it Rügen or Bettnesand, the seaside is definitely prominent in the psychogeography of Rawls & Me, and in a little more than two weeks, I am off to Wales for the Pembrokeshire Ultra (which will be my fourth race in the Coastal Trail Series), and I look forward to taking you all along. For the moment however, my days are mostly spent in front of Zoom supervising students but, hopefully, I will find the time tomorrow morning to run the first two stages of Bohusleden down to Anneberg.

No bitter truths

Yesterday, Anna and I finally had a chance to check out the new café that has opened on Bögatan, just a kilometre or so from our door. Called Bar à Kaffe, it has taken over an old florist’s shop, and the owners seemed lovely — if a bit exhausted, as they appear to have underestimated how popular the place would become.

Afterwards, Anna took William on the train to Jönköping for a chess tournament, while I got to stay at home with Eddie before renting a car tomorrow to pick them up (and finally clearing out all the stuff that has been accumulating in the basement).

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is going full 17th-century trade philosophy on the world, ignoring basic concepts like comparative advantage and confusing money with wealth. Contrary to what Trump seems to think, the U.S. has benefited enormously from globalization and the shift to services – its economy has outpaced Europe’s and much of the world’s. The real issue has been distributive justice and a chronic lack of social investment at home (especially in early childhood education). The question now becomes whether Trump can learn the bitter truths from his policy failures and the tumbling stock markets. Given how Germany has persisted with its energy transition despite mounting physical evidence of failure, I am not overly hopeful – especially since Trump has been banging the tariff drum since the 1980s...

Finally, on a completely different note, do take a minute to check out this blog on ultramarine and the post-semantic apocalypse.