Fasted running

Though I normally prefer to down an espresso and a small bite before heading out, this morning I had to tiptoe around not to wake the kids. As such, I challenged myself with some metabolic flexibility training: running on low glycogen through fierce rain at 4:30 a.m., watching the forest come alive with frogs leaping in joy and deer everywhere.

A couple of weeks ago, The Guardian carried a wonderful story about a 97-year-old woman in Belfast who has just completed 250 Parkruns. While I have only logged eleven myself (at least with a proper barcode), her perseverance was simply inspiring. Now, as the train rolls towards Halmstad and the rain still pours down, I take comfort in the fact that I only have one lecture today – the last stretch of what has been a completely mad teaching sprint.

Around the world

Going through their basement in Kalmar, my parents found a commemorative poster entitled “Around the world in 80 conferences” that I was given by my fellow PhD students and colleagues when graduating in December 2010. To my surprise, this is the first time that it has found its way onto the blog (despite this being my 3,000th post!). Fifteen years later, I still remember the warmth and appreciation that I felt that cold winter day.

Maintaining our weekend tradition of Saturday half marathons, Anna and I ran nine kilometres on asphalt followed by twelve on trails, before jumping into Delsjön for a refreshing swim. With most people still sleeping in, we had Kotången entirely to ourselves. On the topic of being naked, Göteborgsposten recently ran an intriguing series on how quickly norms are changing in Sweden, noting that few kids today even shower after physical education. The ubiquitous presence of smartphones and the import of puritan norms from the US may explain part of this shift, though there are surely other reasons as well.

Långholmen

Before taking the train back to Gothenburg, I had hoped to fit in a long run in Stockholm – perhaps a half marathon around Djurgården – but with a Zoom meeting with my long-time Australian co-author already set for 8:15, I had to be realistic.

Instead, I settled for a 10k through the Old Town and Söder, pausing for a wild dip at Långholmen before heading over to the co-working space No 18 at the central station. To my surprise, it turned out to be free this month for all top-tier SJ Prio members. Talking with Jon was, as always, a delight, and I left our conversation feeling inspired for the autumn ahead.

Train 400

Leaving on train 400, SJ’s non-stop express from Gothenburg to Stockholm at the ungodly hour of 05:19 yesterday morning, I had a full day at the Royal Technical College – learning about competing claims on biomass and electric arc furnaces – before winding down with a lager in Humlegården and an Asian-fusion dinner at Miss Voon.

This morning, I woke early for a 10k loop around Kungsholmen, bringing back memories of the 2019 Stockholm Marathon. Now at Fabrique with a strong coffee and Broder Daniel’s original Shoreline in the background, I am about to head over to Clarion Sign for the Bio+ conference.

Sicilian salad

In this summer’s Mediterraneo from Monocle, I found a recipe for Sicilian fennel salad with olives and oranges which turned out to be phenomenal and just what I needed after 16 kilometres of hard running in the hills of Skatås.

Cutting short our original plans for a half marathon this morning, this means that I nevertheless have been running 49 kilometres this weekend and that I have made up for the distance lost while being on my luxury cruise earlier this week. As for that, my parents invited their friends over for afternoon tea this afternoon in Kalmar, to share a bit of the Cunard experience.

All clear

While the Queen Mary 2 still has four days left on its Atlantic crossing, I am firmly back in Gothenburg. Greeted by a heavy morning rain, life has been exceptionally busy with William being sick, piles of administrative tasks, and a dentist appointment yesterday. Even if the dentist set me back 1,400 SEK, I was relieved to hear that there were no cavities and that I now have a two-year grace until my next visit.

With the boys immersed in their computer games, Anna and I carved out the time this morning for a half marathon in Skatås. With a bit of luck, we will repeat the trick tomorrow, as Anna is stepping up her running game in preparation for the Cape Town Marathon on 19 October.

Bloomsbury

Waking up early, I went down to the local Pret a Manger for a pastel de nata and a flat white while waiting for the day to break and the park gates to open. Then followed nine kilometres of progressive-pace running, first through Bloomsbury and then into Regent’s Park.

Seeing the statue The Girl and the Fox, I of course had to stop for a photo, just as I did when the sun lit up the misty meadows. Every new run in London truly adds another layer to its psychogeography.

Back at the hotel, I took a quick shower before heading out again, this time in the company of my dad, as we walked back to the parks and through the lovely streets of Marylebone and Fitzrovia, passing both SOAS and UCL with all their academic routes not taken. Unfortunately, time soon caught up with us, so we had to return to the hotel and make our way to Heathrow where, luckily, check-in was a breeze – leaving us just enough time for Eggs Royale at Uncle Gordon’s “Plane Food,” as tradition demands.

A few hours later, I was suddenly at Savoy in Malmö with my dear friend Gabriel, drinking a pint of Budweiser Budvar and being swept away again in flashbacks and overlapping timelines – yet also conversations about the future and AI, or more specifically, what embodied experiences are lost if one accepts the Wittgensteinian axiom that the limits of my language are the limits of my world.

Alster

Having mentioned The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare to my dad on the train down to Hamburg, we of course had to watch the whole movie once we got to our room at the Prize Hotel (Radisson’s latest budget brand) on Recha-Lübke-Damm.

 

Five short hours of adrenaline-stressed sleep later, I laced up my grey “Hoka Harbour Mist” Cliftons (what else?) for twelve faster photo-interval kilometres around lake Alster and into the old town of Hamburg. There is something about running through leafy German neighbourhoods with white-stucco mansions that gets me every time.

Passing the Hotel Atlantic, which opened in 1909 to accommodate passengers of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie and was later used as a backdrop in Tomorrow Never Dies, felt like the perfect way of connecting the dots. After a short Teams meeting with my colleagues in Halmstad, the plan is to take a walk with dad before heading out by taxi to the port, where the QueenMary 2 is waiting for us.

Mist and premonitions

With the train leaving tomorrow morning, I decided to forgo today’s Parkrun and instead join Anna for a sunrise jog, passing mist-covered lakes and catching the first premonitions of autumn.

Before my dad arrives from Kalmar at 2 pm, I plan to wrap up the last slides on statistical inference for my methods class, so I will leave it at that for now. Still, I hope to post one or two more updates here on Rawls & Me before boarding in Hamburg on Monday.

Backyard light

Ever since I first learned about the concept of Backyard Ultras, I have been wary that it is exactly the kind of thing that could get me injured, as I have a tendency to continue no matter what. Back in 2021, I even registered for the Obbola Backyard, but ultimately pulled out since I had a lot of other races (most notably Trail Kuršių Nerija in Lithuania) around the same time.

Though a far cry from the real thing, this morning I decided to run eight loops on the 5k trail in Skatås, with plenty of time for pancakes and water refills in between. Trying to keep my heart rate steady in zone 2 around 130 bpm, the first ten to fifteen kilometres were beautiful in the early morning hours, with lots of deer and other animals along the trail. Soon, however, the monotony set in (I do not even want to think about doing twenty loops or more on a true backyard course). At least my imagination helped, letting me drift away to possible future races such as the Whalers' Great Route in the Azores or the Salomon Cappadocia Ultra-Trail in Turkey.

After five loops I stopped for pancakes, just as everyone was gathering for this week’s Parkrun, including our local legend Osan. If all goes according to plan, I intend to go all out at next Saturday’s Parkrun, but for today I just headed out for three more loops. With 841 metres of elevation in my legs, I finally returned home to plenty of water and some fried Vietnamese rice on the veranda.

Mitropa

Having published 2,977 posts to Rawls & Me over the past nineteen years, I am somewhat surprised that I have never written about “Mitropa.” Just as in the Suede song, the sight of an old East German WRm in Malmö sent me tumbling back to a time when Europe was our playground – if not from the Eastern Bloc to France, then at least to Göttingen (and, in two weeks' time, back to Heathrow with my dad).

With the kids still off from school, I took William on a tempo-pace run over the bridges, maintaining an average heart rate of 152 bpm and dreaming that one day I might sustain that pace for 42.2 kilometres and finally run a full marathon in under three hours and thirty minutes.

Once back home, I signed an open access publishing agreement with Taylor & Francis for my new co-authored article – an almost endless saga – before taking both kids up to Delsjön for a morning swim. According to my Suunto, the water temperature has already dropped to 19 degrees, but the good news is that the forecast promises a few more days of summer later this week..

Cod

Today we have been hanging out with my sister and her extended family, as well as my parents, in their Airbnb rental, which happens to be just a few blocks away. With Gothenburg filling up with people attending the Way Out West music festival, the tram was beyond crowded, but at least Eddie and I made it down to the gym for 5k of high-intensity rowing – and also to Vasque to pick up my freshly pressed dress shirts, taking me one step closer to boarding the Queen Mary 2.

Otherwise, I started the day with 11k of running in Skatås with Anna, which felt great, and ended it with pan-seared cod loin with sweet potato purée and basil oil, so life in Kålltorp is as rough as ever

Skeppsholmen

After a good night’s sleep at Sjöfartshotellet, William and I woke up to grey skies but ready to hit the quays of Stockholm. Running in my super-cushioned Asics Novablast 5, I could barely tell that I ran 91 kilometres only a few days ago.

Stopping to take photos, I was reminded of my many past Stockholm morning runs, including when Anna and I first got together in 2010. After a fulfilling hotel breakfast we are now off to Chess Summer Camp near Zinkensdamm!

Riksdagen

Once in Stockholm, William and I walked past Riksdagen (the Swedish parliament) on Helgeandsholmen and noticed that they were offering free guided tours. We both felt this was something we would like to do, so we pencilled it in for the afternoon – after first checking in to our hotel and having lunch at Tre Indier on Söder.

As for the tour, it certainly did not disappoint. That said, having a PhD in political science does make you feel a bit silly when you cannot immediately answer all the questions posed by the guide. Regardless, William’s enthusiasm was unmistakable and easily made my day. Afterwards, we returned to Sjöfartshotellet for rooftop mocktails overlooking Stockholms ström.

Later in the evening, I also checked out the hotel gym for some gentle strength training. With every ultra, it feels like my body is getting better and better at recovery, so with a bit of luck, I hope to go for a morning run already tomorrow. 

Hypoglycemia and water meadows

All night, the rain hammered against the windows, but by the time William and I left Gothenburg at 6 am, the sky had cleared, and, with a bit of luck, it will stay sunny throughout our visit to the capital. Now aboard SJ high-speed service 422, William is reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows while I am booking train tickets to Halmstad for the first autumn weeks.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with ChatGPT about what went wrong during Halland Ultra-Beach, and, going through the race step by step, it became clear that the cause of my failure was simply hypoglycemia as I failed to recognise how many hours I had gone without food. In retrospect, it is all slightly embarrassing, as I knew perfectly well how important fuelling is. During the first 40 kilometres of the race, I managed to maintain a steady caloric intake, but as I was dragged down by the many water meadows around Stranninge, I gradually lost track of how much time I was spending out on the course relative to how little I was eating.

In the words of ChatGPT:

This prolonged period of intense exertion without replenishment likely led to severe depletion of glycogen stores and hypoglycemia. Typical symptoms – such as dizziness, coldness, and mental fog – emerged, indicating systemic energy failure. Attempts to ingest a Maurten energy gel at that stage proved unsuccessful due to nausea, which often results from delayed fuelling and gastrointestinal shutdown.

In combination with wet and slippery conditions, the growing sense of disorientation and loss of core temperature signalled a broader physiological collapse. Continuing into the night across exposed coastal rocks in such a state would have posed significant risks. From a safety perspective, the decision to stop was not only reasonable but prudent.

One Year Later, One River Too Many

One year after being forced to DNF due to lost eyesight 67 kilometres into the 100k edition of Halland Ultra-Beach, I took the train down to Åskloster to run my first ever 100-mile race yesterday morning. Arriving a couple of hours before the start, I had plenty of time to get to know the other runners and to install the satellite tracker on my running vest.

At 10 a.m. sharp, Robert sent us all off with a playful “Allé, allé, allé". Feeling strong after having run only 15 kilometres over the previous week, I enjoyed expansive views of the sea from atop the Gamla Varberg nature reserve, before settling for a 6 min/km pace along the bike paths into Varberg, where a latte and a focaccia were already waiting for me at Espresso House.

Continuing south past Träslövsläge, I stopped for a scoop of sea salted caramel (of course) from Lejonet & Björnen, still confident that I would be able to finish in under 24 hours. Soon enough, however, the pace slowed considerably as the course required fording through knee-deep water. Fortunately, I was still running in a group, and it was daylight, but I began to get a sense of what awaited me later in the night.

After 60 kilometres, I reached the first aid station in Olofsbo, where I was served a delicious burger and an alcohol-free beer. With fresh dry socks, my spirits were quickly restored. Chatting and jogging with a fellow runner who was doing the full 200-mile (sic!) race from Gothenburg to Båstad, night fell - but not before I encountered a beautiful white horse and, later, all the people partying in Falkenberg.

Once on the beach in Skrea, I could feel my energy levels starting to dip. With not a single place open, I struggled to get the Maurten gel down. Before long, I was alone in the dark, climbing cliffs with increasing instability and getting colder for every river mouth that I had to ford. Unlike last year, when I had the company of Emma, I was alone when crossing Suseån, and doubts began to creep in about the feasibility of the whole enterprise. If I were to avoid fording Fylleån further south, the total distance would exceed 170 kilometres, and with my pace grinding down to 15–20 min/km, there was not much time to spare.

At the 90-kilometre mark, I made the difficult decision to DNF, as it no longer felt safe to continue onto the cliffs of Steningekusten. Badly burnt from nettles and jellyfish, and cold to the bone, other factors also weighed in as I messaged the race organisers to say that I wished to quit.

However, rather than being whisked away in a luxurious electric car like on Fjällmaraton in 2022, I found myself stranded on the asphalt at a bus stop for hours, as the first bus would not depart until 7 a.m. I tried hitchhiking, but all the cars drove past — until finally, at 05:45, a hero stopped and drove me to the railway station in Falkenberg. A quick ride on the Öresund train through the new tunnel in Varberg later, I was back at the railway station in Gothenburg, where Anna and Eddie met me for coffee. Once again, I had overestimated my ability. Still, I would not want to have those 91 kilometres and 17 hours undone.