Paul Rosenquist

I will try to sketch a drawing of how it is to participate in one of Sweden’s biggest folkfests.

Somewhere halfway, note the awesome sunshine, no hat, rolled up sleeves, rolled down rowing suit, and grin on face…

Imagine, the London tube at 07:30 in the morning. Kind of crowded and stressfull right?… Ok, now add to that, that everyone has 210cm long feet and a 160cm long finger on their hand. After having spent saturday wondering around in Mora and enjoying the rather funny atmosphere I felt pretty well prepared for it. Even though my 130km’s or what ever it was of training that I had in my legs probably is about 1000km’s to little I felt super ready. Peter at Ski-Go had taken care of my skies. Now this guys is seriously enthusiastic about ski wax. I think he eats it for breakfast. With heap of tender loving care he had applied layer after layer of the finest stuff in the business. My skies were in paradise. When he got them back he tried to tell me in one breath what he had applied on them, but he failed. It took at least 10minutes for him to talk me through the layers of violet glue, base glue, a bit of kick wax silver, soem powder here and some fluor there. The conditions were extremely challenging for the ski waxers. Wet, frozen, warm, fake snow, real snow, ice, blueberry soup. I also got some ski poles that were longer, lighter, and way cooler than the aluminium rodds that I have be working with before. The Power Bar guys dropped me of at the start (a 90minute drive). I thougt I would be early with being there at 06:45. But no. There was at least a kilometer of people allready lined up in the tracks. I took an other que. The one in front of the battery of porta potties. After having eaten about a kg of porridge with mashed bananas in the car this was definately more important for me than getting in the starting zone.
I looked att the guys at the back of the pack, and thought…no. I can not stand there. So I skid to about halfway the que and sort of jumped a fence and mingled in with my skies. Roughly 2500 people in front of me. Great. Not that I think of myself as a fast skier. But I just can not help to think that I should be slightly better trained than most them. A loud hooter went of and a buzz went through the dark, coldish, air. A few minutes later the crowed started moving. As a tube train that reached its fina platform. I imediately felt that my skies had the most awesome grip I ever experienced. They were also sliding rather good. This start has nothing to do with racing. A 3year old on a tricycle would be faster. Than after 500mtres comes the ironic thing. A really steep, really narrow, and really long uphill. I was a bit worried for this as tough upphils usually are really tiresome for me with skiing due to my total lack of technique. But not this time. The crowed moved up the hill in a snails pace. My grip was so amazing that I was not even using my poles. Just slowly walked up. I tried a few ‘Ur spår’ but mostly just in a bad attempt to be funny. After 15km’s or so I had passed a lot of people and the tracks were getting less crowded. Then came the first checkpoint. I threw a few cups of hot Powerbar drink in my mouth and staked of again. 400meters after the checkpoint I suddenly felt my right pole was weird. I looked down and to my horror I noticed the cage (point) was gone. Fuck!

I immediatly stopped my stopwatch as I felt that I did not want this to tune me down. I ran back to the checkpoint where the service center was so kind to get me a new pair of poles. Not half as light, long and sexy as what I had before but I was happy! 10minutes later or so I was of again. The minutes I lost barganing new poles were not the worst. No, it was far worse seeing the thousands of people that flowed by. I knew I had to overtake every single one of them…again. Due to the conditions 2 tracks had become rather fast (icy) and 2 were ridiculously slow. Some weird mixture of new snow, heat and whatever made that people would just not go there. I had no choice. Get in the slow, but more important, empty track and hammer it. It was to slow to stake, so I opted for using my superior grip and just worked hard with the legs. Slowly working my way past the solid line of happy skieers. Every now and than I had to jump back in the fast gliding track and rest a bit. 10km’s later things lightened up. Finaly. From then on it was just a breeze. Great fun. The KM’s ticking by. I sort of knew however it would not last. 25km’s to go. One of the coolest things with these long races I think is the interaction between the brain and the body. In rowing this interaction is also there, but it is no good. It is only bad news you are getting from both the body and the brain, and you somehow have to just forget about both. That is good for 7minutes. Not for 6hours. Spread out over the body are sensors. They send a little signal, and then the brain processes that info and does something with it. It is so simple but really cool. For instance. Staking along like mad. BEEP BEEP: minor kramp in right tricep, end of message. Ok, thanks. I need to drink. Where? Now? Later? no now. Later might be to late. 3 hours left you. BEEP BEEP: left shoe feeling loose. OK, shoe lace loose?, binding broken? Stop and check?, no look on downhill section and monitor for more serious signals in short time. WOW…mood change. add sugar, add sugar. Fixed. That kind of stuff.
25km’s to go. Getting pretty knackered. The tracks suddenly turn into a wet missrable mess. Progress is definately slowing down and it is getting damn hard to stake. By now I only spot a skieer with a number bib every now and then. Kind of boring. 8km’s to go. The track are gone. It is either ice with 5cm of water on top (better) or a white porridge of icy snow (horrible). My shoes were filled with water and weighed a ton each. I had allready crashed 3 times in queit short interval and I was wondering why. The last time I got some cramp in my stumach muscle while scrambling back on my feet. Luckily I as only going slow. Just clumsy.
I looked at my stop watch as the 8km sign crawled by. 5:28.00 Ooh no. 32 minutes left to get a nice 6hour finish time. I dont know why I wanted that. It is probably a leftover from erg tests.
4minutes per km. That is doable for me in good konditions. Now it is a race, I decided and I should stop beeing a bloody tourist. EXACTLY 4minutes later the next km sign came by. I was doing everything I could to get my skies to go though the dirty snow as fast a possible. Unfortunaly no more downhills were waiting. I had to work hard for every meter. Ironically I exactly managed to keep to the 4minute tempo meaning I just had to continue trying. 1km to go. Unfortunately this last km has two very small climbs. On the little downhills I had to push in order to move. The snow was not fast. Then finally the last 500m straight throught the village into the FINISH. I was staking like a maniak and threw an eye on my watch. Nope…not going to make that.
I heard the speaker say, aah 5023. Paul from Solna, an international rower, and ooh, he is Dutch. Well he is certainly staking eagerly to the finish..will he be back next year?…I gave them a big thumbs up..meaning ‘U bet!’ My watch stopped at 6.00.58 I grinned att it. Funny. The drops of blood dripping out of my nose onto the snow slush between my feet gave this yourney an even more epic spice.
Well that was that. I just have to thank the familly ‘Jens and Bodil’ where I camped out and who’m have been so extremely hospital. Erik, Björn, Sten, Ingrid and Peter who’m all have been so kind with getting my kit in order and giving me positive vibes. They all had to work with the event, and I felt a slight yealousness.
I think with this result I sort have possibility to get a better starting possition in the actual race next year. With some more training it would be good fun to do it again.
I hope Lassie and Sten are up for some training weekends where I could learn how to actually do this. I must be doing so much wrong if I see skinny looking dudes just stake in front of me…and no way I can catch up with them…untill a nice upphill came.

Over and out.

My challenge for this weekend, on my quest to Swedishness…

Ok, when I moved to Sweden 6 years ago I figured that the only way to sort of become like a local was to do the Vasaloppet. A 90km cross country ski race in Dalarna. I bought ski’s and even roller skis as I figured I was about down 25 years of XC ski experience. I started rolling around on Djurgården and soon had holes, burn marks and war scars all over. No fear. I was going to be more Swedish than Gustav himself.

Winter came. Running, skiing, biking and doing whatever outside just as normal. I did not have a job (we did not) in those days and we thought to save serious cash by not having our electric heaters on. Dumb move. Together with all the training in the cold (not uesd to) and an average bedroom temp of about 8°C disastrous colds and dripping nozes were bound to happen. So come Vasaloppet I was sick as hell. Louise, being a real Swede, was ok and staked here way along the 90km forest trail. I supported here on bike which in hindsight seemed worse than the actual race. Having since then put most of my efforts into rowing, and having established a more hate/hate relationship with mr winter Vasaloppet ambitions slipped away.
2 weeks ago they suddenly re-appeared though. Dont ask me why. Henke and I had talked about it, but Henke has been coughing and sneezing for the last weeks.
Anyway, I have trained 150km km’s two weekends ago, so I must be super fit right???..
Up to yesterday nothing was arranged. Nobody wanted to go with me. The race is sold out.
Things looking grim.

BUT a breakthrough. Sten, my buddy who never lets me down when it comes to supplying me with Powerbars and all called his brother, and this morning a starting number, some brand new ski poles from SKI GO and a bed in Mora were ready!

I just bought a bus ticket to get me there and back. My return bus is at 17:30 so I better get my ass to Mora before that time.

A great thing is that Peter from SKI GO is helping me out with prepping the damn skis.

The conditions seem te be awefull, and I think it is going te be Klister. MEaning some tacky kind of glue that should glue me to the mountain. No iddear how this works, so better leave it to the pro’s.

Super thanks to Erik and Sten for the help!

Oh yeah, I have had some pain in my left achilles now for long time. It is just manageble and when warm I dont really feel it. But thinking, ‘ok now comes this long ski thing, I better start doing something about it’ I started with some excercise. I heared that excentric excersizes on calves are good for the achilles. So after last weeks cirquits I stood on a bench and worked my calves for 10 minutes. Calv muscles beeing the only muscle (well nearly at least) not used while rowing are hugely underdevelopped on my vehicle of life. The result is a pain in my calf that makes me limp like an old bastard. Yesterday I ran home from work and did 5 tough hill climbs on Haga backen. This morning I had to crawl to the toilet. Great! One could say, yeah but your right leg is ok isnt it?….No it isnt.
There I have a hole in my heel. Last weeks hill running with Ruari on the frozen hill gave me probs. I was using me damn Icebugs (spike shoes) which I though were runn in. But no. After 5,5 intervalls I had to take them off and witness a bloody mess at the rear end of my right hoove.

So double thanks for the folks helping a: Dutch, half cripple, allready blistered, over weight rower with this effort.

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Friday after work David picked us up at home. We threw our skis and two mammoth bags into the little Alfa and headed of. 6 hours of driving through fog, darkness, ice, snow and forest brought us to Idre. This place is just like any other small town in Sweden. 2 petrol pumps, a pizza place, and not much more. However the surroundings are awesome. Wide open vieuws with the fjells looming around.
Louise went on an adventure and toured in the back country around some bigg fjell. the second day she also cimbed one. Being all alone she really enjoyed the feeling of beeing outdoors and having a bit of an adventure. Dave and I kept to the prepared skiing tracks and basically skied untill we dropped. I managed to squeeze in the odd 130km’s I guess. Weather was perfect.
Shot some pictures. Klick here to see them

Fed up with this bloody dark, wet, windy and warm winter.
This week I felt something has to change. Sitting on ergs after work is just to depressing. So, more running and paddling.
Been running to work this week. A nice route along the lake and over Hagabacken. I nice little hill. Yesterday I thought I should test paddling home as well. I perhaps picked a bit of an dumb day to do this. I rant to work in the morning (10km). Than, rushed around town with a trailer to pick up our new sofa. Back to work, helped my new collegue out at the warehouse with filling a truck with 24 kayaks and the racking system that they lay on. Than back at the office struggling to install my new Macbook.

Between all this I ate something, but not a lot. At 19:00 I chucked a Kevlar XP into the water, put my head light on and pushed of from work. Its a nice paddle. The XP is a fast Sea Kayak and I’am actually pretty fast in that stable craft. In pitch blackness I paddled into the city along Karlbergs kanal. Mirror flat water. Than to the old town that is slightly more eery. The lock between the salt and sweet water was open…this means water is flushing through it in grade 2 or 3 white water style. It beeing 2° o so in the water and beeing alone I made the mature decision to lift the boat around the lock instead of flush through it like a turd in a toilet bowl. People (tourists) looked slightly confused seeing me tiptoe along with a kayak on my shoulder. 5minutes later I was on my way again. Along the nationialn museum and into the so well know training waters of Djugården. After a total of 60 minutes of paddling I passed the rowing club. 11kms to go. 2 km’s later I was really tired. Shoulders were just dying. I always have the ambition to keep the XP on its sort of maximum cruizing speed. Not be used to paddling, and probably not having eaten well, totally finished me off after 75 minutes of paddling. DAMN; a very long 10km’s lay ahead of me. In the harbour I met a small tanker ship. Cosy. When FINALLY I glided into the narrow channel connecting the lake we live at with the sea I felt nearly ready to faint. So freeking hungry and cold.
I found a great little grassy beack and quickly jumped out. Stepping into the water with my five finger shoes
I could not really care about the freezing water. Like a ninja I strapped the wheels under my boat and jogged home. Our neighbours just stood outside and was wondering what the hell I was up to jogging home with a kayak. Dont ask I said and fell into our kitchen were Louise had a steaming home made union soup ready.
This is going to be great, paddling to work every now and then! Just make sure I have more energy in me and perhaps do it in daylight next time. Damn country.
This weekend we are heading of to Idre for 3 days of XC skiing….YEAH! David, Louise and me. Look forward to some snow, sun and fun.