Never a dull moment

Life has been doing a Usain Bolt the last few weeks and sprinting by at world record speed. And by weeks, I mean months. When I'm not working, I'm training. When I'm not training, I'm probably doing something that can't be classified as wasting time or being lazy, like cleaning after the cats, or gardening, or going on weekend courses about running (ok, that last one was really enjoyable). Last weekend I spent a few hours volunteering as a photographer for Lidingöloppet on tour Skellefteå race. It was a fun, well-organised event. And a very different race experience when you're not actually running.

So there haven't really been any moments when I've had nothing to do. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Boredom is not a feeling I hold in high esteem or long for. But despite the fact that all these activities are voluntary and have been enormous fun (well, except the cleaning after the cats one), they have also entailed a certain rigidity in my schedule. So when I go on holiday on Wednesday, it will be nice to have nothing planned for a while. It will do me good to balance on the verge of boredom, and be able to spontaneously decide what I am going to do to land on the right side of the fence.

Yesterday, 7 runners from AIK and I drove to lake Göksjön, which lies about 50 km from Skellefteå, to participate in Allétrampet. Questions are placed around the 22 km that surround the lake, and prizes are given to those who somehow know the answer to which year the local school closed down and how a word in the local dialect translates to Swedish. Most people drive or cycle around the lake and stop at the aid stations where ice cream, sausage, Swiss rolls and waffles are served. But AIK consists of runners, and run we did.

The whole thing was like something out of Midsomer Murders, except, thankfully, in this episode no one died. The cute houses. The endless green fields. The friendly locals. The history. We logged kilometre after kilometre, hardly noticing thanks to the frequent stops and good conversation. The temperature was just right for a cone of strawberry-flavoured ice cream and the rain that was promised around 2 o'clock held off until we were sitting in the car on our way back. 

Prudently, I had taken a sandwich with me.

Highland cattle

You don't usually see such big butterflies around. And when you do, they don't usually sit and wait patiently for you to take their picture.

When we got back, I decided I'd run the remaining 3 km home too. I need to start logging some longer runs on the weekends again. My legs were tired but not overwhelmingly so, and I rolled down the hill comfortably. All in all, I ran 25 very kind kilometres yesterday. Today, we have to start packing for our Midsummer trip to Hemavan on Thursday. 3 nights camping in the valley among giants.