The road ahead

Having struggled with overtraining, and a bit of orthorexia to tell the truth, last year, I have sought a better balance this year as my life circumstances keep changing. With the Essex Way Ultra coming up in early July, I have decided not to fall into the same trap again, especially as 52 days is too short for any miracles anyway. Instead of suddenly doubling my running volume or setting off on some wild 80-kilometre adventure along Gotaleden, I will try to stick to my current 50–70 kilometres per week, with a focus on time on feet, a few proper long runs, and some back-to-back sessions.

With that in mind, I traded what I feared would become an emotionally heavy coastal morning run for some gym time in my white paws. Now it is back to teaching statistics and reading student manuscripts.

High Lighthouse

Bouncing back to 70 kilometres this week and spotting a happy fox on my Skatås morning jog, I could no longer stand the thought of not having a race to look forward to. As such, I promptly registered for the Full Essex Way Ultra on the third of July, covering 132 kilometres from Epping tube station in London to the High Lighthouse in Harwich. Though I am obviously not alone in my fascination with lighthouses, there is something existential about racing towards the sea and seeing more of the Britain that I have come to appreciate so much over the years. While I still have to work out the precise logistics, Eddie will be away in Hungary that week, so the timing is sort of perfect.

For today, it is back to the U1800 chess tournament with William, whom I had the pleasure of sharing a pizza with last night after four intensive rounds.

Tintinification

With William and Anna soon moving to another city, it felt very good to book an autumn getaway for just William and me. Finding €25 tickets with Ryanair from Arlanda to Dubrovnik on the very last day of the summer schedule, William and I will fly down to Croatia for three days by the Adriatic at the end of October, then continue with easyJet for another €50 to Geneva for a night in Switzerland before returning to Stockholm with Swiss for a similarly ridiculous amount.

Booking the trip together with William was in itself like something taken out of Tintin: searching for adventurous routings with a map of Europe in front of us, giving him a sense of an open world, and hopefully memories to cherish throughout the winter.

Street Art and Buns

Yesterday, I taught my first statistics class using the software JASP, which will replace SPSS in all my classes going forward. Waking up early, I then spent three hours this morning learning more about its functions and building a dataset from our survey on the transition to higher education.

Sticking to my midweek long-run routine, I left the computer behind and headed out for a 23-kilometre street art run in the sunshine, which included a lion mural at Skanstorget created by the Lyon-based artist Kalouf. Sadly, I missed taking a photo of “Hästar som festar”, but I did get to discover some lovely houses in Linnéstaden that I had somehow overlooked in the past. Stopping at Kafé Marmelad for coffee and a banana bun, next to the sign proclaiming the “People’s Republic of Majorna”, I was reminded that fika really is the best part of long runs.

Carbonara

With the survey spectacle making me want to reach for an extra-large “skämskudde”, I made carbonara with guanciale for lunch. Though it is significantly colder today, the weather is absolutely lovely and is expected to stay that way throughout the week.

In other news, I am happy to report that I am now on a steady course to making my first million with Sellpy, as my accidental over-purchasing of beige jeans back in January and reselling them in May is paying off big time. In many cases, I paid 75–100 SEK back then and am now selling them for three times as much. Still, I am not entirely convinced this is the “infinite money glitch” I joked about with the kids, since the profits have a tendency to be reinvested in other purchases from Sellpy, like a Sunspel corduroy Harrington jacket (an irresistible bargain at a fraction of its list price).

Survey Slip-Up

After putting a bit of effort into formulating the questions for Johanna’s and my survey on the transition to higher education, yesterday turned into an empirical embarrassment episode of epic proportions (if we are to stick with the alliterations). Using the Artologik tool for the first time, I was a bit too quick to accept the reassurance from our administrative staff that everything looked okay before publishing the survey – unleashing an unstoppable queue of e-mails to more than three thousand present and former students, with the reminder to answer the survey being sent out before the actual invitation.

Wanting to run away from it all, I went for 5k around the block, finishing with pancakes in the garden while listening to a redstart singing in the tree, probably just back from Africa. Yes, the Merlin app has truly opened my senses to what has always been right in front of me.

Back to Tylösand

With no races planned, I made the most of this recovery week by running a faster half marathon out to Tylösand this afternoon, circling the cliffs of Tyludden before heading back past the quarries of Grötvik, soaking in the seaside light, and only easing off over the final five kilometres to leave enough energy for a bit of work later tonight.

Tomorrow, I will give a class on Agenda 2030, a topic I find both inspiring in its scope and frustrating in the way it often reduces sustainability to familiar, and not always particularly effective, discourses.

Wild nettle pesto

After taking Caia for a coastal sunshine stroll yesterday, Johanna and I ended the day at her wooden lookout deck over a bottle of Albariño that we had brought back from Portugal in December. Overnight, the blue skies had turned a solid grey, providing some downtime to catch up on academic duties and get Johanna’s guesthouse ready for rental.

From childhood, I remember my mother making nettle soup and the fleeting season for picking them at my grandfather’s farm in Skåne. Today, with a slightly postmodern twist, Johanna and I picked nettles of our own and made pesto for lunch.

Norrnäs

Having duly celebrated Valborg in Gyltige, Johanna and I filled her car with all possible camping gear and drove across the border into Kronoberg for a night on the shores of Bolmen. As Sweden’s twelfth largest lake, it almost felt like being at the sea, and through the night we could hear flocks of geese flying overhead.

Going swimming with Caia, Bolmen’s icy 36-metre depths proved a stark contrast to the sunny skies above. Before heading back, we got to check out the remains of the 13th-century fortification of “Piksborg”, the former narrow-gauge railway line between Halmstad and Karlshamn, and, most lovely of all, the beech-clad peninsula of Norrnäs udde stretching out into the lake.

3x Valborg