Now, that's more of a long run!

The bus was late, as usual. I stood there in my running clothes, freezing my butt off, praying to the public transport gods that the bus will come and I won't miss my tram connection to Skatås.

My prayers were answered. Not only did the bus come, I also caught an earlier tram, so that I didn't have to wait in town so long. I got off the tram a stop earlier with plenty of time to spare, and started jogging towards our group's meeting place, about one kilometre away.

If I counted correctly, 15 runners set off in the magnificent (if somewhat cold) weather. Among them, Mia, Hans and Johan, that shared with me the wonderful craziness that was Alingsås – Gothenburg last November.

Amazing sunshine, running in nature. Beat that.

Tricky had planned a route that would take us near my neighbourhood after 11 km. Inexplicably, the first 3-4 km were kind of a struggle. Perhaps it was the cold air that made it feel harder than it really was. In any case, I was reassured by Garmin that my pulse was normal. That, and reminiscing with Mia got me through the first half of the run, whereupon I got the legendary second wind and forgot I was running. Unfortunately by that time we had lost one of the runners, when he twisted his foot on the icy, uneven ground. After a quick discussion, he told us he would walk back to his car, that was thankfully not far away.

Running downhill in Mölndal

Once we reached Mölndal I found myself in familiar territory. We ran past the swimming pool where I train (or where I'm supposed to be training when I'm not being too lazy) and soon I had to leave the group to head home. When I was almost there, I ran past one of the local gyms and was stunned to see that so many people chose to train indoors on such a beautiful, sunny day. The parking lot was full of cars, and so was the street outside the gym.

I just don't get it.

My foot survived 16 kilometres in the end, and I treated it with an ice bath, anti-inflammatory pills and a chocolate muffin. Later this afternoon I'm treating it with a hockey game. I'm really spoiling it, I know, but it deserves it. Don't you think?