Volume

When I first signed up for the 132-kilometre Essex Way Ultra, I decided to keep my running volume low in order to minimize the risk of injury. Over the last few weeks, though, I have felt that my body is able to absorb higher mileage, so I have returned to what used to be my normal training schedule for many years. With 26 days remaining until the race, I am now planning to maintain 80 kilometres per week for another three weeks before starting to taper.

Of all the things I could write on my blog, running may be the least interesting. Still, it is a big part of my life and something that keeps me focused through all these big shifts. While some may think of me as impulsive or changeable, it is more that the dynamics of all this are very powerful and that it is genuinely difficult to figure out the best course of action.

In a recent interview, David Szalay – the author of Flesh, which I am now halfway through – said that “the more we know people, the harder they become to define”, and that is a very encouraging thought in this age of solitary identities. Be it Paris in the early aughts or Hong Kong a decade later, we accumulate these layers and memories that give depth to who we are, but also fragmentation, as the discontinuities keep adding up.

Pink Punk

While Rawls & Me has given my mother plenty of reason to worry about my alcohol consumption over the years, a fair bit of it has been props too, and being alone with the kids, so is this bottle of Serbian rosé. Seeing the label on the temporary selection shelf, it was such an irresistible throwback to the club scene of Belgrade two decades ago that I simply had to buy it.

Beyond vacuuming and throwing away things in preparation for the big move, today's great accomplishment has been taking both kids to Parkrun for the first time in a long while. Though it took some bribing in the form of Nutella waffles, both kids thanked me afterwards, and I was reminded once again how much resistance there can be to doing the things that are ultimately good for us. Without going all-out theological with Bjørn Eidsvåg's Floden, the last few weeks of procrastination have been a hard lesson, and as such, it was a relief to finally start making progress on my co-authored article about the transition to higher education.

Otherwise, my plans of going to the library with the kids fell through when I realized that today is the National Day of Sweden and that the country has been taken over by syttende-mai-wannabes. Do not get me wrong, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with being proud of Sweden, especially considering all the great things this country represents, something that becomes even clearer with a bit of distance when living abroad. Still, it felt almost like a dream when someone wrote that she “wanted her kids to be world citizens”, as if I had almost given up on the possibility that there could be other people out there still aspiring to something larger.

Hail

Falling asleep with an open window, I was woken around midnight by strong winds and fierce hail hitting the glass. Lying awake, thoughts wandering, I struggled to make sense of the year that has passed since the last graduation ceremony in June 2025: how different, yet similar, my life was back then, and how grateful I am for what I have experienced despite all the pain it has entailed.

Eventually, I fell asleep, only to be woken by my 4:45 alarm telling me that it was time to get up and catch a train to Halmstad. Reading the news, I learned that Anthropic has issued another warning to slow down AI development, which, given the immense risks of recursive AI self-improvement, is as urgent as it is unrealistic, while Zelensky is calling for a face-to-face meeting with Putin.

But, for now, the world is still there and, today, we will send off another cohort of ambitious students. Celebrating how much they have learned over these past three years – the first cohort I have followed through their entire studies at Halmstad – and hearing about their plans for the future, I cannot help but feel optimistic. The road may be anything but straight but, somehow, we will figure this out.

Daydrinking

After a recovery jog through the hills of Skatås, Anna and I took the tram into town for some errands and a lovely lunch at Fiskbar 17. With the rain pouring down outside, we shared a glass of Alsatian Riesling, which felt like true Thursday decadence.

Returning home to a new batch of exams from my quantitative methods course, the afternoon hours quickly passed in front of the computer. For dinner, I had long planned to make honey butter chili aubergines, which turned out to be just as good as I had hoped. Tomorrow, I am taking the train down to Halmstad for the annual graduation ceremony and, with a bit of luck, I will have wrapped up all teaching-related duties by the time I leave for Italy on Tuesday.

Thirty minutes

Through the divorce, going to the gym with the boys has been both a reminder of normality and a shared activity that has helped bring us closer together. Though we rarely spend more than thirty minutes there at a time, it is something I really wish I had done at their age. As a teenager, I suffered from constant headaches and back problems, partly because I grew so quickly and partly, perhaps, because I was once kicked down a flight of stairs by some not-so-friendly guys at school.

Hearing my colleagues complain about their various neck issues, the value of strength training can hardly be underestimated as an adult either. As the years add up, consistency really pays off, and by now I have doubled or tripled the weights I am able to pull on most machines at Nordic Wellness. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about my academic productivity for the moment. Quite the opposite of how I felt back in December, I find myself in a season of procrastination, a curious condition in which one postpones the very thing that would make one feel better (and instead writes blogposts).

Malmö Marathon

Drawn as ever to alliterations, Malmö Marathon on the third of October (which also happens to be Tag der Deutschen Einheit) proved to be irresistible after learning that both Gabriel and Nils were running. While I have done my fair share of Malmö runs in the past, the marathon course will take me out to Ön and Sibbarp, adding some new lines to my Strava heat map and hopefully a new PR as the course is exceptionally flat. All this assuming that I do not end up injuring myself during that 132-kilometre ultra in July.

Between marking exams and reactivating Instagram after a decade, I had some wild plans for Valhalla today. Having forgotten my running socks, however, I ended up just swimming a thousand metres and saving that 70.3 madness for another rainy day. At least I was able to top up with my usual Skatås loop before returning to Blackboard.

Bar Centro

Waking up to rain, I spent the morning in front of the computer working on an application. As the skies gradually cleared, I decided to check out Bar Centro on Kyrkogatan 31, a place that has piqued my curiosity for quite some time. Between the worn stone floor, the faded walls, and the smell of coffee lingering in the air, I might just have found a new favourite espresso bar.

With Naples coming up next Tuesday, it was the perfect head start: authentic coffee and a chocolate sfogliatella before heading back through the sunshine to Kålltorp and the ever-growing pile of exams.

Boardwalks and planks

From Austin to Malmö, there is something about running on wooden boardwalks – the sound, the slight give underfoot, and the sense of being suspended between water and land. Passing Pöl Harbour, I stopped for 3 × 60 seconds of planking before continuing up to Gamlestaden and Storeberget. While perhaps not quite the Griffith Observatory, the views over Gothenburg were not bad at all, and I was reminded of how much I have come to appreciate living here.

Returning home to the kids, I found that William had emptied the dishwasher, a small act of thoughtfulness that meant more than he probably realizes. With the exams piling up in Blackboard, I then grabbed a bowl of Greek yoghurt and blueberries and settled in for a Sunday of marking.

Szalay

My original plan for this week was to repeat one of the hundred-kilometre weeks of January, which would still be on the low side considering that I have a 132-kilometre ultra coming up in five weeks' time. But, being alone with the kids, I will struggle to even make it to eighty. Hopefully, I will be up with the sunrise tomorrow and ready for a long run.

Before that, I keep turning the pages of David Szalay’s Flesh, a novel that someone likened to a night train, where with each chapter the main character is older and in a new place, in medias res. A bit like Rawls & Me if you jump between the years. Following Stockholm Marathon on Strava, I realize that seven years have passed since I last ran it myself. Looking at the familiar route, I remember the completely unexpected tears when someone in the crowd shouted “Go, Dad!” and the feeling of crossing the finish line at Stockholm Stadion just short of my goal of 3 hours and 45 minutes. Like the protagonist István, one somehow ends up in a different chapter before noticing how much time has passed.

Eden

Over the years, this blog has seen many Edens, from my PhD studies in Lund to Steinbeck country. Tonight, I am thrown a world away to South Australia and the cool-climate wine region of Eden Valley, famous for its mineral-driven take on the Riesling grape, as Systembolaget currently carries a new wine called “Vickery” that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Otherwise, one may be forgiven for thinking that I had been to Austria rather than Australia on my trail run as I passed lots of red and white waymarks while exploring a newly marked-out trail between Sörlyckan and Bertilson’s cabin this morning. Again, I feel so incredibly fortunate to be able to shift my work around so that I can go for these longer runs and make the most of these luminous early summer days.