Det går jättebra att du skriver på svenska! Bra träning för mig. /Mike

Oh dear. What an awful, awful experience, losing your friend in such a traumatic kind of way. All losses are of course devastating, but I can only imagine the pain you, your friend’s family and all the other close ones must have gone through following. I wish you all the best in moving forward and letting go of grief. Running can certainly work as the best kind of therapy – I’m glad you’ve found it useful this past year.

Haha, one of the things we ”fear” about having kids one of these days is the lack of time to pursue our dreams and goals – it feels inspiring to hear how you’ve managed to combine it all so far. And it warmed my heart, reading your words about the importance of being a present parent. Your tribe is lucky to have such a father!

We’ll definitely let you know of any endeavors south of the city! The same goes for you, if ever heading north-east.

And well done recovering after that run. Again, so inspiring!

Hope you all are having a great weekend so far 🙂

Det där med svenskan klarar du ju galant! Mycket bättre än vad jag skulle klara av att stava på engelska (läsa är inga problem). Ditt synsätt på att det är ett bra träningspass är ju helt rätt. Vad skönt nu behöver man inte ha dåligt samvete när man skriver på svenska. Have a great weekend.
Best regards David

Hej! Det är Michael här. Jag pluggar svenska nu så jag ska försöker skriver en lite svar. Tack för dina fina ord. Det blir tufft att springa UV90 två veckor efter fjällmaraton, eller ett annat perspektiv är att fjällmaraton blir en riktigt effektiv träningspass för UV90. Åtminstone hoppas jag så. Vi får se 🙂 Vi har inte hört av Silverleden 64k, men det ser rolig ut. Du måsta berätta oss efter hur det var. Hoppas din träning går bra.

/Michael

Hej Sophia (and Michael, if you’re reading as well 🙂 I’ll do this in english since you already have a challenge in the comment below from David 🙂

My friend, who I knew was in deep pain and depression unfortunately committed suicide and although I knew him very well, this came as a complete shock to me as well as his family (wife and two kids so yes, it hurts and it’s been a struggle I am still fightning on an every-day basis. Running has been more important to me than ever ever since but not from a competetitive point of view, I hardly raced at all last year, but from a healing piont of view, taking care of myself, meeting my emotions, letting go of stuff… etc

You’re very kind, I have been running for years but more regularly since 2006, before that I just ran periodically. There were no special reason why I started, after the birth of our third child I just felt I needed to exercise a bit more and have an activity that was just mine, if you see what I mean, I think you will later on, when or if you have kids 🙂

My kids are not that young anymore, 20, 18, 13 and 9 and the oldest even moved away from home to study in august and the others don’t require us to be there for ”nursning” purposes, they are quite independant by now, byt at the same time, with teenagers, parents being present is very important. My wife likes to train as well, although she’s not that much into running so we try to priorize time for that because we know how good it is for us. Mykids are into sports and there are plenty of opportunities to find time for training, e. g. while they train etc. It just takes a bit of planning and often, a bit of extra will power (read: those early winter morning whey you instead would like to stay in bed…).

It would be so great to cheer on you while running the streets of Stockholm if not before, If you ever plan to go just south of Stockholm, for example to explore Sörmlandsleden for trail running, please let me know!

Speaking of that long run, it was surprisingly fast, I normally don’t go that far that fast unless its a tune-up race before a marathon, but if felt quite easy, for some reason. It left me a bit sore in my quadriceps the day after. I ran 12km easy pace the day after and had a rest day completely off running the next day and I have been all fine since then. Ran LT intervals both tuesday and wednesday actually and it worked just fine.

Kram Staffan

I loved reading this, Staffan – despite the fact that it breaks my heart how you’ve lost your training companion, of course. I really can’t express enough how sorry I am. Ever since my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer 1.5 years ago, I’ve definitely changed my outlook on life. What’s important, what really matters in the end, what should be prioritized. Thankfully, my mom made it through the treatments and is stronger than ever now, but the worries and burdens along the way took their toll on me. I’m actually struggling with a touch of hypochondria now – I’ve been the exact opposite of a hypochondriac my whole life, but these days I diagnose myself with new diseases on a daily basis. Reading about how you’re finding your way back to running and feeling good about it again makes me so happy – and both Mike and I are keeping our fingers crossed you’ll be able to stay in this positive mindset and have a great season!

We’re both equally impressed by your PB:s and achievements over the years – you’re so fast! Question: for how long have you been pursuing running at a competitive/professional/semi-professional level? An all-my-life kind of thing or less than that?

And speaking of impressed – how you manage to juggle full-time work, four (!!) kids, family life AND running as much as you do is nothing short of incredible. I mean, I’ve always regarded myself a very disciplined, time-efficient character who gets her stuff done – but I think you might outdo me! Is your family into sports/outdoors as well?

It’s very likely we’ll pop into the city to spectate the Stockholm marathon, so let’s stay in touch – we’d be happy to hand you any refreshments along the way as well, if we’ll be around! Until then – good luck with all the training (we hear you on longing for spring conditions now) and we’ll be cheering you on from over here, as far as reaching those insane time goals of yours. You’re an inspiration. Thank you for stopping by!

Kram Sophia

PS. Saw the quick 30k run you did a week or so ago – do you feel fine afterwards, or a little worn? While we could pull it off, we’d need some recovery time after (we’d feel more like post-race), and I’m just curious how you feel. Obviously I know you can go even faster, but still!

(Ledsen att det blir på svenska men Michael måste ju också få en utmaning )

My main goal this year is to have a ”normal” running season again since the way-to-early death of my best friend and training companion since more than ten years back left me completely drained on all energy last year. I am still recovering from that but slowly returning to a normal state of mind again. I have no ambition of increasing my mileage, if I can runt 50 km/week as a full year average I would be more than happy, this mileage is about what I can manage (If I can squeeze in a weekend long run I sometimes can manage 70-80 km/w but not every week), with kids and work and it doesn’t make me focus too much on my running.
I will however, increase the intensity in my training runs once spring is here, I am actually longing for those hard, long tempo runs, long intervals, long runs with the last 10 k’s at marathon pace etc and I know that running 50km/week and have a quite high intensity in at least two of the workouts can keep me at a really good level where I can compete at my age group level.

I will likely run Stockholm Marathon again for the eight time, not as a ”A-race”, more because I really like it, its a great experience and I would like to run a decent time meaning in the 2:55-range for me.

Perhaps I’ll run the half marathon Kungsholmen Runt in Stockholm as a tune-up race before the marathon, a few local, shorter (mainly 10k’s) together with folks from my running club, and I will likely also run the Stockholm half marathon in september.

I am aiming for about 5-8 races in total this year, I have not defined any A-races. My PR’s are mostly from 2014 and are a bit too far away at the moment, but I would like to run close to 2:55 at the marathon, a 37 minute 10k and the half marathon in at least 1:21-1:22 range or at least being able to run faster than 4 min/km for the full distance but the time goals are not the most important.