A Vansbrosimningen (3km) a Day Challenge

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.


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2020 OW Virtual Grand Slam

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.


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42+km swimming, yes swimming

Last year in October I was one of 14 swimmers with the honor to be able to sign up for 42+km swim. The race was called The Viking, and was a two way swim of Vidösternsimmet (21+km). The 14 of us would start at night Friday the 7th of August, calculating average swim speed in order to get to the start of the return no later than 07:00 the 8th. I went all in for this race. I had one of the strongest swimmers I know (Hampus Carlsson) as my partner for the first half night swim, and I started pushing myself on our Wednesday distance workouts like never before with our super distance coach Nedal. In January I took on the 1,00,000m challenge to help motivate me to get the distance training I would need for this years goal.


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The Perfect Swim that never was…

Monday after work I go home, make some chili and rice for dinner, but don’t have time to eat before my planned 18:00 swim. So while I am cooking dinner for the girls I make two hot dogs as a snack to make it through swimming.  I had skipped lunch by mistake and knew I needed something in my stomach to be able to swim 4500m.

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1/4 of the way to 1,000,000m

So we have made it through the first 3 months of the year. Feb-Mar 2020 will not soon be forgotten. Everywhere you look there is something about the Coronavirus. Luckily for me Sweden is taking a more scientific approach and leaving politics out of the decision making. So while many of you are on lockdown and not allowed to go to your local pool or gym, I am coming off one of my best swimming weeks since moving back into the pool in September 2019.

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How my taper effected my million meter challenge

So I did it, I managed to keep my taper plans. It took more will power to follow through with it considering there was no Swedish Nationals to taper for. But luckily for me, my swimmers were up for some practice races and I managed not only to reduce my swimming, but cut back in all of my normal training over the last two weeks.

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1,000,000m update thru Feb

Since it is easier for me to report updates based on Monday to Sunday, February’s update includes the 1st of March. For the first time since I started this challenge I skipped my fifth swim of the week. I had already reached my feb goal and I knew I would reach my week goal after this mornings swim. So I saved that workout for another day.

Second month over the 83km mark

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Week 7 – “halfway” thru Feb

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

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