Category Archives: Life

The Journey Continues

by in Life, Training | Leave a comment

The last thing I wrote about was my August swim challenge Vidösternsimmet. Since then I have started to run again. Yes, you read that correctly, I have started to run. It came as a shock to me as well. But on August 19th I decided to try a 5km Parkrun. It ranks in the top 10 things most difficult things I have ever done, but I did it. It took just over 36 minutes, 36:06.

Kalmar Swimrun 42km 2016 – DNF had a stroke with 500m to the finish
Stockholmn Swimrun 24km 2016 – DNF passed out with 3-4km to the finish
*** 5km Parkrun 2023 – first near death experience since 2016***
Jönköping Ironman 2016 – lack of training
Kustjagaren Swimrun 24km 2016 – lack of training
Vansbro Triathlong 2014 – turned into a biathlon because of water temps ( run-bike-run)
Kalmar Ironman 2015 – lack of training
Viking Open Water 42km 2021 – 13+ night swim
Vätternrundan 300km 2014 – lost contact with my group and biked solo the last 60-70km
Vidösternsimmet 21km 2018 – with out a wetsuit
Kalmar Ironman 2014 – first full distance triathlon
Växjö Marathon 2013 – first run over 22km


Continue reading →

The first half of 2023

by in Life, Training and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The year did not start off great, but is slowly getting back to normal for me. I recovered from my broken elbow and sprained wrist in December 2022, only to get pneumonia in January and again about a week after my last dose of penicillin.

I switch jobs on March 1st, struggled with the long term effects of being sick with pneumonia for the better part of three months. I was sent to Texas to work for 3 weeks before I had even been employed for a full month. I think being in the dryer Texas weather helped my lungs recover, and it gave me a reason to rest from all training. I returned home in time for Easter and since then I have been biking to work, and was able to swim the entire workouts with masters, even if it was with either slow, or a little faster with fins or paddles, or sometimes even both.


Continue reading →

So much for Christmas wishes…

by in Life, Training and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

So 2023 could not have started off any worse, for me at leaset.

Christmas workouts seemed to be on track with me getting back to full strength in the water, but around the 3rd of January I started to have breathing problems. I assumed it was connected to my back and chest pain. I managed to swim about 25-30 minutes the 8th to the 15th, but on the 17th I January the pain was too much for me so I contacted a Doctor. After a few phone calls and a few visits at various clinics I was released from the Emergency room around 0200 on the 18th with a diagnos of Pneumonia. So 8 days with antibiotics I started to feel better. But I was still coughing up blood.

With an planned trip to India on the 30th I was given an inhaler that would help open up my lungs and reduce the coughing. It worked I was able to travel with minimal coughing.

This week I picked up a blood pressure testing device and started my investigation into high blood pressure. I was able to swim about 1400m both Tuesday and Wednesday. I am hoping to get in at least 1000m tonight. but the combination of the lingering cough/breathing issues and now this thing with my blood pressure I am starting to think i will not get much swimming done in February.

My new ambition for 2023 is to be OW ready by May.

All I want for Christmas is…

by in Life, Training and tagged , , | Leave a comment

to be healthy in 2023.

For the second fall (autumn) in a row I have had to struggle with injuries. In 2021 it was my shoulder that could not keep up with the amount of swimming I had done from September 2019 until August 2021. It took 7 months to get back to “normal” and I was able to swim all summer, jippee!

I managed to race twice in August, on long race and one short race. Things were looking up for 2023. Then I fell of my bike, broke my the top of my Ulna (elbow) in September. Back to rehab, focus on getting mobility back in my left arm. After ten weeks of rehab and starting to try to swim my right elbow started to acted up. It turns out that I neglected my right elbow during my rehab so much that I got tennis elbow.

This meant no Club Championships for me, this means no Swedish Nationals in March 2023 for me, and it means that I will have to struggle all winter to be able to get back into shape for OW season.

All I want for Christmas this year is a healthy body so I can practice again. I am so out of shape, I get easily irritated (more than usual) and there is a risk that I fall into a bad routine that will be really hard for me to break.

Vidösternsimmet – The Viking Tattoo edition

by in Life and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

It has been well over a year since I swam the first Viking edition of Vidösternsimmet, 42km. I knew from before I finished the race that I would want a tattoo if I managed to finish. I have two from my Ironman races, and swimming 42km is up their with Ironman challenge status.

When the starting list for The Viking came out they organizers used a viking ship to indicate which swimmers would be doing the 42+km swim.


Continue reading →

My Latest Tattoo

by in Life and tagged | Leave a comment

I know that my mom finds it funny that I can handle getting a tattoo since I have a hard time getting shots or sitting in a dentist chair. But I had been planning on getting a new tattoo after last summers Viking Swim that never happened and during the fall I decided to get something else. So last Monday (the 1st of March) I got my 10th and 11th tattoo. Only ten are still visible since my nineth tattoo covered up my third.

Inspired by Kevin Costner in the movie “Water World” as well as all the other sci-fi movies I have watched in the last 46 years, I decided that I wanted to have gills. I figured that I swim enough, that it would make sense to my friends that know how much I swim and it would be something that I find interesting. If nothing else, it would be a conversation starter. After alot of searching on the internet for images of gills and people with tattoos of gills I decided on shark gills. Then it was a question of where to put them. I am personally not fond of having visible tattoos when I am at work, so behind the ears or on the neck were not going to be an option for me. So under my arms or on my ribs seemed like the most logical location close to the lungs and a large area to work with.


Continue reading →

Rough start to May

by in Life, Training and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

My first business trip since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. I knew that I would eventually have to travel again, and I has 100% aware that it was not going to be easy from being at home for the past five months working out on average 12 hours a week to nothing for upwards of six days. But having the last 3 trips cancelled or postponed I was kind of hoping that this one would be push up too.

Due to the limited access to public transportation and the roughly 1300km distance I had to travel to get to site, I wound up traveling by car for nearly 13 hours on Sunday the 3rd of May with two colleagues headed in the same direction. Everything in the town I was visiting had shortened hours. Most things closed between 1600 and 1800 daily. This limited my options for food and the hotel we stayed at had no fitness room.

Continue reading →

Week 7 – “halfway” thru Feb

by in Life, Training and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s a leap year, which means and extra training this month, and we’re just over halfway thru February. It’s been three weeks with with two hour Sunday swimming and I’m starting to feel the effects of my long training weeks. My shoulders are sore and swimming doesn’t feel as good on Sunday’s as it does during the week.

February

Continue reading →