Last fall I decided to attempt med third 21+6 race at Vidösternsimmet. I had recovered from my 2021 injury and my 2022 Vidösternsimmet swim felt good at 6:23 (8th place) and missing lots of winter swimming. But of course I got hurt again this past winter, and I missed out on nearly 7 months of training.
Being able to swim the 21km was a real positive for me, not swimming fast enough to join the 6km was not great, but probably best for my recovery in the long run.
Continue reading 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.
I don’t usually write about specific workouts here on my blog. Maybe that’s because I have a training journal that I document everything I do on Jogg.se. Since the fall of 2018 our Masters group has been greatly improved by the presence of a former Syrian distance swim coach Nidal. During his first fall session with us he was there to help our newer swimmers with their technique. Watching everyone in the pull and offering tips on how they could improve their technique. That kind of one on one feedback was greatly appreciated. Then I am not sure how it happened, but with all my traveling in 2019 he took the initiative to offer our distance swimmers a distance workout on wedensdays as an option to the sprint workouts I was writing. With only three lanes, that group swam in lane 1. Up until 2019 we rarely swam anything over 400m at practice, and when we swam what I thought were hard series it was usually base pace for the shorter series and base pace +5 for the longer series.
Continue reading I understand that a lot of swimmers got upset this summer. I was more than upset. On April 29th I along with 13,000 other swimmers got an email that this years Vansbrosimningen was cancelled. It was to be expected that we would not be able to race since Sweden had just implemented a rule forbidding more than 500 people to gather. So to be honest I was not so upset about the race being cancelled, but I was upset about the way they informed us and the way they proceeded with the cancellation.
Continue reading Back in April as the world was shutting down I was contacted by Mark Johnston about an online event that he was putting together. It didn’t take more than a day or two and then the event was online, and I was registered and started to recruit others in Sweden and the US to join in.
The idea of being able to compete in a time when all IRL races were being postponed or canceled felt like a really good idea. Nothing beats the heat of the moment, but knowing someone somewhere else was trying to swim faster than me was going to have to be enough this summer.
Continue reading I’m back in the pool after nearly 12 weeks off, from pool swimming. With the exception of two swims during my long swim week at the end of July my last pool practice was the 22nd of May. I missed our last week of Masters because of business trip.
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With little to no speed training this summer I thought it would be fun to take Lily back to Gothenburg for a 2500m race to end the season since she seemed to like it last year.
So we make it a family getaway weekend. We book a cabin and day passes for Liseberg.
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So Lily being the cocky daughter she is, she decided a few weeks earlier, that it would be fun to race another 3km Sunday, the day after. Not being one to back down from a challenge, we registered for the 3000m OW swim in Stenungsunds about a three hour drive from home.
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After 2014’s race I didn’t think I would be back in Värnamo to race again. But early this year in June I was offered to buy a starting spot from a friend who no longer felt he was prepared for a long race. At that time I was training well. But since then, a long family vacation, work trips to Brazil & northern Sweden as well as camping trips put a stop to that. With only 13 km swimming during the month of July I head over to Värnamo for my fourth start of the 21+km race. To make it a real challenge I chose to participate in the non-wetsuit class.
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Friday morning I pack my bag and Lilys bag in my car. we are heading in different directions for different swim competitions. Lily is off her for final meet of the season and I am off for my first OW race of the year.
I'm a Swimrunning Crossfit Ironman
I'm a Swimrunning Crossfit Ironman
Yes i am
Be strong be wrong
SwimRykno 