Äventyr
I helgen besökte vi Patriks föräldrar på Visingsö. Vi passade på att utforska ön under två dagars swimrun äventyr. På lördagen utforskade vi den norra delen utav ön. Vi sprang och simmade längs kusten och fick bråttom tillbaka när himlen började blir svart.
På söndagen utforskade vi södra delen. Vi fick skjuts ner till näs och sprang sedan längs kusten tillbaka. Det var ca 12 grader i vattnet så simningarna blev rätt korta.
Blogg
Vi skulle nog kunna säga att Kullaberg har blivit lite av en favoritplats för oss. Efter en natt glamping på Arilds Vingård (länka) åkte vi vidare till Mölle för en dags äventyr på Kullaberg.
I samarbete med Mabi hyrbilar har vi under sommaren en Kia Niro som vi åker runt i. Mabi har över 100 olika platser där du kan hyra bil. Kia Niro som vi hyr är en el hybrid vilket gör att vi kan ladda upp den med el. Den är även väldigt bränslesnål och enkel att köra och parkera.
När vi var vid Kullaberg sist var det rätt kallt i vattnet så simningarna blev rätt korta. Nu hade vattnet äntligen blivit varmare så vi kunde simma lite längre distanser. Vi körde på rätt spontant och simmade och sprang där det kändes fint. Se filmen så får du se mer från äventyret när vi upptäcker nya grottor, nästan blir attackerade av kor och mycket mer.
Vill du läsa om när vi besökte Kullaberg i januari och maj hittar du det här och här.
Blogg
Vi har fått möjligheten att testa den nya swimrundräkten från Head. Den nya modellen heter myBoost Pro Aero och är svart och guldfärgad.
Varför swimrun dräkt?
Behöver man verkligen en speciell våtdräkt för swimrun eller räcker det att man har en vanlig för simning? Swimrundräkterna är utformade så du ska kunna simma och springa snabbare på ett smidigare sätt. Det finns många funktioner och detaljer som skiljer från en vanlig våtdräkt.
Vad är speciellt med myBoost Pro Aero från Head?
Detta är en riktigt genomtänkt swimrundräkt från Head. Dräkten är utformad i ett flexibelt neopren som har en bas av 2 mm. Över bröstet sitter paneler av 4 mm ”air cell”-neopren som ger extra hög flytkraft och ett perfekt vattenläge när du simmar med skor. Runt armar och axlar är neoprenet endast 1,5 mm för att ge den bästa möjliga rörligheten. Till dräkten ingår även avtagbara armar i 1,5 mm neopren ingår, perfekt vid kallare temperaturer. I arm-och bensluten sitter 2,5 mm ”anti leak”-muddar som förhindrar att vatten kommer in i dräkten. Underdelen är av ett tunt och flexibelt 2 mm neopren som är nylonbeklätt på både insida och utsida vilket gör dräkten mycket smidig och skön att springa i samtidigt som den blir mycket slitstark. Med de multifunktionella innerfickorna på bröstet och låren kan du enkelt anpassa flytkraften efter dina behov genom att lägga i extra flytpaneler.
Det gillar vi bäst med myBoost Aero Pro
Dräkten känns smidig att simma och springa i. Då det finns en lång dragkedja fram och en kort på ryggen går det enkelt och snabbt att ta på och av dräkten i farten när man springer. Både bak och fram finns det nylonöglor för att fästa tillbehör och lina.
Minus med dräkten
Det enda vi ser som minus är att den fickan på ryggen är lite svår att nå när man springer och att visselpipan studsar runt lite.
Här finns två videos en med Head myBoost Aero pro och en med Head myBoost pro.
(det här inlägget är i samarbete med Head men det är såklart personliga åsikter)
Race rapport
Jönköping swimrun som går på hemmaplan och endast 3 minuter hemifrån oss ställdes in men vi körde såklart ändå. Det virtuella varianten.
Förra året sken solen och var folkfest på stan. (se förra årets lopp här) . I år var prognosen regn, regn och mer regn. Vi gav oss ner till start lite efter kl 07.00 för att starta det virtuella loppet. Vi hade kartan i klockan och sprang alltså hela banan lite mer som ett äventyr. Det var en ny bana jämfört mot förra året. Nya simningar och mer stigar. Första löpningarna och simningen gick bra. Vättern var kall men inte lika kall som förra året.
Vi hittade enkelt efter klockan och tiden gick rätt fort ända upp till Axamo. Där är vi vana att träna så det kändes som hemma plan. Från Axamo var det sedan nya stigar och och lite klurigt att hitta innan vi kom fram till Västersjön. Här var loppets längsta simning på 1 km och himlen öppnades helt. Regnet öste ner och vi blev super kalla. Sedan var det några korta simningar och vi fortsatte vara kalla.
Vi fick upp lite värme innan vi var framme i Tabergsån. Här simmar man liksom inte frivilligt. Vi höll upp våra huvuden och plaskade oss framåt ut mot Munksjön. Det var mer som en sim safari med grenar, stenar och annat grejs i det iskalla vattnet. Väl framme i Munksjön var vattnet lite varmare och vi simmade mot uppgång. Bara två simningar kvar sen. Vi sprang kalla och sela mot de sista simningarna. Munksjön som var spegelblank imorse var nu stökig och vågig samtidigt som regnet öste ner. Vi simmade över och sprang till sista simningen för att sedan avsluta med en kort löpning innan vi kom i ”mål”. Vi fortsatte jogga men och direkt in i duschen! Kalla men nöjda och glada.
Äventyr
Vi besökte Kullaberg tidigare i år och blev fast direkt. Naturen är fantastisk och det finn många möjligheter till äventyr.
(Se inlägget från januari här)
Planen denna gång var att upptäcka området genom swimrun och att även hinna besöka Nimis.
Dag 1 – Swimrun
Den första dagen parkerade vi bilen nere i Mölle för att sedan springa längs kusten ut mot fyren. Vi följde först stigen längs vattnet för att sedan följa orange led. Vi stannade och simmade korta sträckor där det såg lämpligt ut. När man kommer ut till fyren kan man springa längs med kusten på andra sidan tillbaka så det blir en runda eller ta samma väg tillbaka. Vi valde att ta samma väg tillbaka. Vattnet var kallt men inte för kallt för att simma. Vi hade pannband under våra simmössor och ett linne under våtdräkten men annars inget speciellt mot kylan.
Dag 2 – Nimis
Nimis är ett konstverk av Lars Vilks. Konstverket består främst av flera träkonstruktioner, resta av drivved, plankor och trädgrenar. Nimis ligger placerat längs kusten och det är lite knepigt att ta sig dit.
Så här tar du dig till Nimis:
Leta upp Nimis på Google maps.
Parkera vid parkeringen och följ blå led.
Efter en stund kommer det ”N” markeringar på träden som du ska följa.
Terrängen blir tuffare och tuffare och till sist är du framme vid Nimis.
Blogg
I helgen var det dags att testa swimrun ute för första gången i år. Strålande sol, en kall nordlig vind och ett par minusgrader. Toppen tänkte vi och åkte iväg mot Axamo motionsområde. Ett område som har en egen swimrun bana som kom upp förra året. Banan har relativt korta simningar men vi tänkte att dessa nog skulle vara för långa då det var lite is i kanten av sjön.
Vi sprang en bit som uppvärmning innan vi hoppade i för att simma runt bryggan. Det kanske var lite väl kaxigt att börja med en 100 meters simning. Det iskalla vattnet gjorde oss snabbt påminda och när vi började springa igen var våra händer som isbitar. Just händerna är det vi tycker var kallast.
Det blev en kort liten första runda och vi hoppas såklart det blir fler snart.
Blogg
When someone explains for you how shoes and feet work we think the most people react the same.
– But why haven’t anyone told me this before?
When we look at our feet and how they should look like and compare this with todays shoes it doesn’t match. Most of the shoes are not shaped after our feet.
Background
Patrik use to run a lot with barefoot shoes a couple of years ago. Building up the feets since he had problems running, and pain in the legs. Nothing he got from the doctors worked and he read on the internet that he should try out barefoot running. It was like starting over and he finally found something that worked and he could run again. 5 year of crossfit later he had a lot of different shoes with more cushion. The last year have been much more focus on running and swimrun, so he want to come back to barefoot running again. He love the feeling of running barefoot and feeling the ground under the feets. With Vivobarefoot he can accomplish that feeling again. The ambition is to get used to running with minimalistic shoes and do long races “barefoot”. Vivobarefoot seams to be the perfect match for that.
Fanny have a background from horseback ridning, kickboxing, boxing, climbing and ninja warrior training. She have always loved running but have been struggling with different kind of running related problems since she was around 13 years old. Shin splints was a big problem for many years and the solution was always insoles. She have had 4 stress fractures also been struggling with runners knee. She thought the solution was bigger shoes and more support but she was wrong. Last year she took the time to not stress to comeback after a injurie. She took away a lot of workouts and focused on getting stronger feet and legs with time for recovery. She was up north in Sweden and running/walking in mountains. A lot of barefoot walking and running in thinner shoes. She realised that she started to trust her feet more and they got stronger at the same time.
What are we doing now ?
You can’t just switch to barefoot shoes over a night without getting injuries. We have started to use Vivobarefoot shoes more and more in our daily life and right now are we both using Vivobarefoot daily. Patrik is running with them almost every session and Fanny are variering shoes at the same time when she are trying to get stronger. Barefoot shoes makes your feet tired and we are using a foot massage from Flowlife to get the best recovery for our feet. We are aslo spending more time barefoot without shoes.
What we like about Vivobarefoot
We like Vivobarefoots vision about reconnecting people and nature. Sustainability is having the health of ecosystems and people embedded in its DNA.
We also like that the company thinks a lot about sustainability. By 2020 they want to use 90% sustainable materials across their product range. You can read more about it here.
Our favourite shoes from Vivobarefoot
We have picked out our favourites below.
Patriks favourites:
PRIMUS KNIT LUX MENS
MAGNA TRAIL MENS
Fannys favourites:
KANNA II WOMENS
PRIMUS TRAIL FG WOMENS
This post is in collaboration with Vivobarefoot.
Blogg
November in Sweden is normally gray and rainy and this year was pretty much the same. A weekend in Malta with sun, crystal clear water and a swimrun race couldn’t be better.
Thursday
We started our trip to Malta with a short stop in München. You can find direct flights but the best one for us included a short stop and food break. When we arrived in Malta we had a pickup to take us to our hotel, Dolmen Hotel. We got a big and nice room with a view over the sea. The hotel was central and there was a lot of restaurants and some supermarkets close to the hotel.
Friday
We started with a great breakfast buffe at the hotel.
At 09.00 the guide picked us up. Our guide was a nice old lady who has been working with guided tours for over 44 years. We started with a walk in the old town Medina also called the silent city.
Medina is located in the Northern Region of Malta with enclosed bastions, and the history dates back to more than four centuries ago. The town was the old capital of Malta, and with its narrow streets, few inhabitants and beautiful views over the Island it is truly a magical town. There’s a lot of known films that have been recored here.
Our driver picked up us and drove to our next stop. A visit in the capital of Malta, Valletta. There was more people here but still not a busy town. We started with a short visit in one of Valletta’s best views, Barrakka Garden.
St.Johns co-Cathedral
Malta and is known for its giant domed churches, and the most impressive of all is St John’s Co-Cathedral. It looks pretty normal from the outside, but when you come indoor it’s a magical place. Every surface is coated with colour and sparkling gold and everything is handmade.
The cathedral – or co-cathedral as it shares the job of Bishop’s residence with the cathedral in Mdina – was built for the Knights of Saint John. But it was revamped in Baroque style in the 17th century, and they really went all out on the decor.
Lunch – We had lunch at the King’s Own Bar & Restaurant. The food in Malta is a little mix of everything and we tried some socialites like goatcheese, Snigels and of course grilled tuna.
Adventure
We spend the afternoon with activities. The original plan was kayaking but since the weather could be a little stormy during this time of the season we changed it to abseiling.
MC Adventure doing a lot of different activities and we had a guide that took us to a super cool place.
Abseiling is a real adventure. Standing on the edge of a steep incline, with the rope disappearing off the edge to the bottom somewhere beneath you.
We started with a small one before Patrik tried two longer that was between 45-50 meters.
There is so much more adventure to do at Malta. We didn’t have time to do more but if you have time we suggest to do more cool things.
Saturday
We started the day with a short swimrun and gear session to check so everything felt ok.
We had a great breakfast at the hotel before we went to the ÖtillÖ event area, hotel Golden Sands. Our plan for the day was checking out the sprint and experience race during the day.
During the afternoon we also attended a clean the ocean event. A important event to make awareness about the problem.
We picked up our race kit and at the race briefing we got to know all about the ÖtillÖ race. We also got to know that is was storm and rainy weather so they did some changes along the course.
Sunday
Raceday and woke up early and it was storm and rain outside. We had some breakfast before we had a taxi to the startbus. The bus took us to the start in Valletta. We started with running and swimming in the city. This day was very special and though race and you can read all about it our race report from ÖtillÖ Malta here.
Monday
We woke up and both of us felt tired. In 6 hours where we out running and swimming and that makes you a little bit tierd. We had a great breakfast before it was time pack our bags and check out and travel back home to Sweden.
Short about Malta
Travel: It’s easy to travel to Malta. We took flights with a short stop in München but you can also find direct flights. When we arrived to Malta it took around 30 minutes to the hotel. Malta is perfect for a weekend.
Language: Most natives speak Maltese, and nearly 90% speak English, while another 50% also speak Italian.
Cards or Cash: The best thing is to have a mixed of both. Most big retailers and restaurants accept cards but you still want cash on hand for small purchases. They use Euro
Climate: It’s never too cold in Malta because they have a Mediterranean climate. We traveled in November and it’s a little stormy and vindy period.
You find your best Malta tips at visitmalta.com
Blogg
What a race we got to experience. This was our first World Series race! We have done ÖtillÖ sprints before that you can read about here – Hvar , Utö , Engadin. We did this race powered by Mr Green.
If you want to read about our whole weekend in Malta we have a longer post about it HERE.
Saturday
The forecast was storm and rain and the sun was shining. We looked at the sprint race, attended the Clean the ocean event, picked up our race kit and got to know all about the race at the race briefing. It looked like the stormy weather was coming for our race day and they changed the course a little bit. We were happy for that afterwards.
Fanny felt extra nervous because she felt a little bit sick and didn’t know if she would be able to do the race.
Sunday – Race day
We had an early breakfast at our hotel room and at the same time it was rain and thunder outside. Fanny felt better and we decided to do the race! We had a pick up that took us to the race bus. The bus took all participants from the finish line at hotel Golden Sands Beach to the start in Valletta.
The start was in the middle in the city Valletta and we started with 1300 meters of running.
We started out pretty slow in the start due to the slippery stones and came far behind on the first swim. It was a great wake up call to realised how many teams who were in this race. Over 200 teams and 400 people. It was crazy in the water. So many people everywhere and it was a real struggle. With that in mind we should have pushed harder from the beginning so we’d swim with those with a little more speed than the ones we fought with. We came up whole and kept on running. The other swim was much better and the field had split up a lot.
After that it was a really nice course with quite short swims and running a long the coast of the town. We met a running race and everyone was cheering on each other in the rain. We came to some longer swims and it was a little bit hard to see the end point. The waves and the rain maked it harder. We switched who was in the front when we were swimming. We both felt a little bit more tired than we use to do.
We think everyone who did the race will remember mudland. Holy shit. Tough mudder, Tjurruset etc, you have nothing to compare with this. It was a real struggle but we manage through without falling. Some long swims later and we had done like 2/3 of the race we started to reach the top of the island and the stormy side. Yes, it was like Koster Swimrun 2018 all over again, but worse. It was sometime a little bit hard to see the markings because the wind took them down but overall it was an amazing job from ÖTILLÖ marking and remarking the course. We ran about 100 meters wrong at one point but we had our map in our watches so we just checked the watch and realised that we need to run back to find the right path.
The last bit of the race was the most interesting bit. Amazing trails on the hills of Malta. It was a real adventure. We both felt much stronger uphill and could run slowly uphill when we normally needed to walk. We came to the third last swim and that was the one they had taken away. When we saw how the water looked like we were really happy that we were running and not swimming at that place. The waves were big.
We ran a bit more before we reached a village, Popeye Village build for a film. We had some energy and got some motivation words from Rikard at Mr Green before we should do a short little swim across the bay. It was like 100 meters. The waves were sick and hard currents under the surface. Patrik swam first on this one and when we had around 10 meters left we couldn’t swim to the ladder, we stood still. Fanny came up with the idea to swim to the side and climb the rocks up. A dangerous stunt but we managed it. We came up and we both were really tired. Just some more teams got to do this swim before they closed it and the other teams had to run around instead.
We just had the last run left before we should reach the last swim. They had done the last swim shorter and we thought it should be a short and nice one. We hade it all wrong. When we saw the entry of the last swim we were like, omg are we gonna swim in that?! Yes we are… it was really hard wind and the waves were like 1,5-2m high. A man stood there and screaming. “You have to swim out first then to the beach or else you’re going to hit the cliffs. Omg?! Ok let’s go!
We started to swim out and the waves were big and when we started to change direction to the beach big wave started to hit us hard. We went down under the water and Patrik loosed his googles. Fanny got some panic and just wanted to be still and wait for the waves to leave. It didn’t go fast but we made it to the beach and to the finish line.
This race was and adventure of its own. We have never experienced anything like this before. Thank you MrGreen, Visit Malta and ÖtillÖ for an amazing race.
Blogg
We started to swim with @crawlcoachen this spring. We learned a lot in just a few sessions and now it’s time again. Indoor swimming can be a little boring if you compare to open water swimming but it’s a great time to work on your weaknesses.
Today we did a sim analysis so we would know what to work on in the future. We were filmed while swimming both with and without paddles and we immediately got a lot to practice on.
The next step is a coaching session with Ann-Louise (Crawlcoachen) and after that we have to practice on our own. Nothing comes for free, we need to work on our weaknesses.
The feeling when you feel that you are getting faster is wonderful so we know that we have to do the homework.
