Triathlon at Retirement

Stockholm Midnight run!  Still running at midnight! A 10km road race at night around Stockholm one week after the Vasa MTB race. This is a hard, but really fun race with over 30,000 participants.  As my sister's apartment is practically on the racecourse, I had the advantage of walking to start. The evening was perfect, no rain and the right temperature around 18C (65f). The start is very festive with music, fireworks, lasers and everyone wearing the same shirts and being in a good mood. I had a fairly early start group at 10 minutes past 10 in the evening and warmup felt good. I still decided to take it slightly easy as I recently had 5 weeks break in training from illness. Last year I set a load of speed records on this race, and I ended up at 6th place in my age group which is not bad as some of the best runners participate.  I positioned myself in the middle of my start group and I felt like I was cruising all the way until I reached the hills at Katarina church aroun...

But not if it's about Covid.  A few days after flying back to Texas, I got a "cold" that got very nasty and of course it was covid. For a few days, I was very sick. Extremely tired, I slept most of the time for two days, headache, body ache, sore throat and a thick cough.  This is my first real illness in the 5 1/2 half years since I started training seriously for triathlon. I have also been almost injury free this time, I have not had to decline a single race that I have signed up for, and I have completed all my races in style! It had to end.  I also have a knee injury, I first noticed it after the Cykelvasa . First, I thought it was due to one of the falls, but I soon realized it was an overuse injury. I have not been to a doctor, but the symptoms fit something called "bicycle knee." My last race in Sweden was a 10k road running race in central Stockholm at midnight; Midnattsloppet one week after the Cykelvasa . It is huge, this year about 20 000 competitors...

Back in early October, the triathlon season was almost over, and some of my friends and I decided to take a challenge with an off-season running competition. We signed up for the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll race. I committed to the 10k, and my friends to the half marathon, (they are a lot younger than me). It looks like I have a hat! Since then, I have focused more on the running doing weekly10k workouts. In order to not get injuries, I only run about every 4th day, alternating the long run with a shorter and faster workout. In October, it was still very hot, so I did 4 loops of about 2.5km from my house, and I kept drinks and gels on a garden wall to pick up as I was lapping. I am realizing more and more how important it is to stay hydrated, but I don't like to carry anything when I am running. Every week, I was a little faster than the week before, going from about 1 hour to 56 minutes in a few weeks on the slightly hilly loop course. Mid November, I tried the local river t...