Another long day out! Team 110. Total distance: 34km; 29000mm running and 5050m swimming as 12 swims and 13 runs.
The Boy: Almost 2 weeks had passed since the last conquest of suffering and there I was driving Tom’s van with all my stuff from Halmstad to Borås. Moving back to Stockholm with a pit-stop in Borås for 6 hours in the pain cave. I drove up on Saturday for a carb loading feast with the Champions League final and UFC Stockholm on the menu.
The conditions were a luxury, 14-20 degrees in the air and 12 degrees in the water. Everything seems great now that I’ve done Utö. The swims would be fine but the runs, especially the long run of 11km was going to give me some trouble.
At 10:45 we stood relatively ready at the starting blocks along with other doubting contestants with our only goal, again, to complete the race. It felt surprisingly good standing in the great weather looking out at the beautiful stretch of water ahead.
As the race started with a 5 min climb I soon accepted that this race was going to hurt more than I suspected. This time I was wearing my watch so I could keep an eye on my heart rate so that I wouldn’t go out too hard and run the last 5-10km at a snail’s pace. The first hour I probably averaged 182 BPM on the runs which made me realise that I had been red-lining the entire previous race at Utö. I slowed down a bit and focused on my breathing which got my heart rate down to 160-170Bpm which is manageable over time.
The pristine woods and the beauty of the lake really divert your attention from the pain and suffering and allows a short window of actual enjoyment. The pure enjoyment lasted until the prior mentioned long run. The sections before the 11K run are the 1300m lake crossing followed by a short 300m run to warm up and then the 300m jungle swim. After the lake crossing which felt like an eternity, my feet had gone numb. While warming up I started to feel some pain in my left foot but thought nothing of it as I assumed it was blood and heat coming back. The pain slowly ramped up during the run and ultimately left me incapable of planting my entire foot.
After 5:49 on the course the Old Man sprinted toward the finish line with me hanging on the line, limping as fast as one can limp. Again the first half of the race felt great, no pain and not too much suffering. This race I learnt two things, go slower than you want and focus on the second half of the race.
With Stockholm swim run coming up this Saturday and a foot that leaves me unable to walk properly, I do not know if I’ll be able to compete. But that could be a good thing, leaving me more time to recover and get in some quality training months before our next pursuit in Germany at the thousand lakes swimrun. Until next time!
A Word from the Old Man:
I’ve got to say I like Borås and the course did not disappoint. It was a little more low key than the World Series event two weeks ago but nevertheless incredibly well organized, signed and marshaled. Mr Colting put on a great event.
There were a few familiar faces at the start including Team Resilience and the Peking Seals, always nice to chase them. The mixture of trail, road and gravel suited me just fine and contrary to the Boy I was actually looking forward to the long 11k run section. I had a few Beyoncé songs queued in the virtual Spotify of my mind!
The swims went great; we took places on every wet section – as I said last time, I am very impressed with the Boy’s swimming. We then lost as many on each run, but who’s counting? Doing these races with Max takes me back almost a decade ago when I did my first swimruns. It was experimental, it was an adventure and it was the camaraderie, not the finishing times than brought us back to the start line with smiles on our faces. This reminds me of what brought me to swimruns in the first place and why the format is so special.
If we can’t do Stockholm on Saturday it isn’t the end of the world. I’ll just have to find another and hope the Boy recovers fast. Plus it gives me a chance to focus on Sunday’s triathlon race in Uppsala which incidentally is my birthday! #anotheryearfaster #doingmorewithless
Thanks to Race Director Jonas Colting, his super friendly crew and the good people of Borås, some of whom let us run through their gardens. We’ll be back!
#teamtrispot2019 #arkswimrun
@fwdmotionsthlm are chasing qualification to the 2020 ÖtillÖ World Championships through the 7 events in 24 months route. This was event number 2.
Splendid piece of reportage by both of you. I like Max’s metaphor of “the pain cave”. I hope his foot recovers quickly.
Fingers crossed for the whole series. Well done.