Recap of running in Sweden

My lord I'm a poor excuse for a blogger.  Seriously, this is why I haven't gotten any money yet for "monitizing" my blog.  I could list a slew of excuses, but instead, on with the race reports!

But before that, I should talk about the three weeks we spent in Sweden and the running I got to do there.  Overall, it was a good trip.  The kids had fun, though they got a little tired of having no one to play with but each other, and we enjoyed ourselves, though we were exhausted pretty much the entire time.  The weather was fabulous coming from the hellish heat and humidity that was Pittsburgh.  I didn't care if it rained every day, it was such a relief to be out of the heat.  And good weather made for some very nice runs, including one in Visby where I got to run inside the medieval city walls, which were built in the 12th century.  Seriously cool.

This trail was right near the house we stayed in for two of the three weeks we were in Sweden.

My training schedule got a little messed up, so I had an 18 mile run to do a couple of days after we arrived.  After looking over some maps and such, the hubby picks out a route for me that should follow a trail that goes out near the water and *looks* like it should be really nice.  And the beginning of it was, but then I quickly ended up bushwacking my way along a trail that was little more than a goat path, trying to find my footing over boulders, and doing a lot of backtracking when I couldn't find the trail.  I finally found a nearly 3 mile loop that was largely runable, though not quickly, and ran that a couple of times.  When it started to look like it was going to rain, I decided to try to head back home and found that along the road it was pretty straight forward.  I still had 5 miles to go, so I ended up doing loops around the cul de sac where the house was.  The hubby made fun of me pretty mercilessly because I kept getting lost and it had taken so long, but I was vindicated the next day when he tried it himself, and ALSO got lost and had to run slowly.  So there.  Sometimes he should just listen to me, I'm not *always* just being a wuss.

The lucky hubby got to do a 10k called the Midnight Run while we were there.  He bought someone's bib and ended up back in the "slow people's" corral (I grumbled when he said that, because those are *my* people, damn it).  It's worth mentioning if only for the blindingly orange shirt he had to wear during the race (they ALL had to wear them, and I think half of Stockholm must have been blinded).

I love that you can barely see his face because the shirt is so freaking bright it's sucking up all the light!

After my 18 miler out in the sticks where we were living was so messed up, we decided to do my other long runs in the hubby's parents' neighborhood, and those went much more smoothly.  However, I discovered a couple of things that make running in Sweden annoying, as opposed to running at home.  First, though it was seriously wonderful to have so many paved walking trails all over the place, there was NO public water.  None.  I had to take a detour into a shopping center to fill my water fountains in the rest room!  Secondly, free rest rooms are kind of hard to come by.  Yes, it's pay toilets all the way, so I was sure to take some kroner with me when I did my second 18 miler on that route.  It all worked out, but as some who plans my routes based around the availability of bathroom facilities and water, this put a damper on things.

I'll stop there while I formulate my race reports from the Run Around the Square 5k and the Montour Trail Half Marathon (which doesn't sound like nearly as much fun as the Ikea Half Marathon, but it's the same race, just renamed).

This photo has nothing to do with running, but see?  Lots of fun in Sweden!