A running weekend with no running

I had been looking forward for this weekend for some time. With all races and trips cancelled I had looked forward for a small road trip together with Helena. We had the weekend booked at Järvsö, where we meant to be  trained by coaches at Team Nordic Trail. Learning more of how to best run up hill. So it was a weekend needed, both for the reason of having a fun weekend with Helena, but also the the new learnings. I need to be better at up hill.

The week had started well. I had managed to get about 43K in already , and looked forward to potentially break my weekly record.

Friday evening we headed up towards Järvsö, through a Sweden that mile by mile became more colourful and there is no longer any doubts. The autumn is here.

Being out in the forest, seeing the autumn (or any new season) come is a great feeling. You enjoy how the color changes, how the forest smell and  the feeling of a new period is coming. Time to prepare.  

And I had prepared… I had booked way too many running gear, 3 head lamps, 3 pair of different Altra shoes, plenty of energy and clothes.

During the night of Friday to Saturday, I slept poorly and woke up feeling low on energy. I hoped that it was just a feeling caused by high work and training load over the week so I got dressed, had a lovely breakfast with Helena and a mixed feeling of excitement and “shit, this isn’t going to work.”

After breakfast, we met up with the rest of the training camp and headed out for our first tips and tricks session. With experienced training coaches from Team Nordic Trail, everything started great. A fun, inspiring and meaningful first hour where I learnt more than I thought I would. Pontus Vallström, Jocke Nordfelth, Edvin Karlsson and Anders Kleist gave us plenty of reasons to be here at Järvsö this weekend and one could see how people relaxed and with excitement looked forward to the rest of the weekend. Everyone but me ;-(

During this first hour I felt that there is no point of continue. During the afternoon, I got worse and slept most of the weekend with high fever. Oh well.. I got the rest at least. I’m already now looking forward for this weekend next year. Then I won’t get sick.  Coming home after the weekend, I spent a further two days in bed before I started to feel better and I waited a whole week!!!! before I ran my next run.

I did take a Corona / Covid-19 test this week just to very, and I’m happy to say that it wasn’t Corona. Just a “normal” fever.

The only running that I’ve done this is the slow long run with Team Nordic Trail in Hammarbybacken and I’m planning for a road running session through Stockholm this Sunday. The Saturday long run was beautiful. Several happy, excited runnings chatting about running and life in general through a forest that is starting to show its color, also here in Stockholm.