Island To Island – The toughest one-day-race in Sweden!

September 15, 2008

Jonas Colting reports from the unique Island to Island event in Stockholm, Sweden. Teams of two cross the Archipelago area of 20 islands and the water in between them.

"It’s an easy enough concept to understand; get yourself and a team mate from one end of the Stockholm Archipelago to the other end under your own steam. And since we’re talking 20 different islands of various sizes and a lot of water between them, getting from one end to the other of this course requires you to run and swim. A lot!

This full day of exercise offers 10km of swimming and roughly 50km of running. And to make this challenge even more special one needs to appreciate the fact that this race is an impromptu aquathlon without transition areas so you swim in your running shoes and run in your wetsuit. Because, let’s face it; who’s got 20 different pair of running shoes for 20 different transition areas anyway? It’s not like Imelda Marcos is racing…
The initiation of this race came about, surprisingly enough, under the influence of a lot of alcohol and a bet. Now, let me see…haven’t I heard about other races taking off this way? And who said alcohol and sports don’t mix anyway? The originators of the Island to Island event took two days to complete the inaugural version and for the first two years of the actual race the severity of the course only saw two or three teams complete the course and these poor souls were basically finishing in the dark. And folks, this is not Hawaii. It’s September. It’s Sweden. It’s cold. So for the third annual race, the organizers had reluctantly decided to include a bike leg of roughly 15km to be held on the only paved and semi-paved sections on this course in order to shorten the run and hence the race time somewhat to allow more teams to finish. So we’re really talking triathlon here! A triathlon as close to a never ending Archipelago XTERRA as we’ll ever see.

I teamed up with my best training partner, Pasi Salonen. Pasi was once the star of Swedish triathlon and won a few national titles in the late 80´s before succumbing to the demands of family and work. And eating ice cream. And candy. If that’s not a demand, I don’t know what is. So it wasn’t until lately that Pasi upped his training again, lost 10 kilos and bought a new bike. And then decided to race the Swedish Ironman Championships in Kalmar. Which he completed in 8.53 and placed 5th in the Championship. Not bad of a comeback and not a bad Ironman-PR for a 43-year old! And here is the thing…this would be our third try at finishing this beast of a race. The course had beaten us twice and sitting on the ferry back last year we vowed to never return to this long day of misery, torn bushes, slippery rocks and really cold water. Really cold! Our change of heart came when we both realized that the organizers had stripped down the list of mandatory equipment. Previous years had for instance forced competitors to wear a safety vest for flotation. On top of wearing a wetsuit! Needless to say, swimming became a tad bit clumsy…not to mention running. To make a long story short, we went minimalist during this year’s race. Fins were allowed, and you could always use the option to wear those or simply take your shoes off during the swims for faster speed while toting them in your backpack or whatever. We, however, would have none of that! We were going for fast transitions by simply avoiding them altogether. That meant wearing what little equipment we had to carry in a small fanny pack and just swim in our shoes without having to spend a minute or two on every entry or exit into water. With 40+ of those that would be giving away chunks of time. As we’ve already learned.

As race morning dawned I was a little concerned as to whether my legs would hold up as I was coming of a 5th place finish at the ITU World Championships- Long Distance, the week before. I had run my heart out for those closing 30km and I was sore to touch all week. But I figured that all that swimming in-between running would be great cold water therapy for them, so let’s get it on! The first run is really a very short warm-up for the longest swim of the day and after only a few minutes of running you can look forward to a swim of pretty much a mile. The water turned out to be cold but not freezing. Not yet anyway… A section of very rocky and slippery islands with no trails followed and you just follow the markers the best you can without tripping or stumbling. This is easier said than done for me, as I encountered my worst injury ever by stumbling over an obstacle and breaking my arm during a run back in 1995. I knew though that if we would just get through these first islands, of which each were a few kilometers long, we’d be golden for the first long run on trails and gravel roads. We traversed along best we could under my frequent muttering about the need of more asphalt and less multi-sport for this race. After eight sections we hit the longest run of the day and we transitioned past the two leading teams and encouraged by our successful tactics and the fact that all of our limbs were still intact we hauled ass over the beautiful trail and following road.

As the day progressed and we kept motoring we got splits that gave us 20 minutes back to our competitors. A lot of the other teams had some sort of military background and even the Navy Seals were represented by a team, as were the Swedish equivalence. The Stockholm Archipelago and this race offer a wide variety of terrain and nature. Some of the runs are on trails, paths or even roads, whereas some of the runs aren’t even runs but rock-climbing, traversing, orienteering or simply fighting the forest. The course is still well marked and one rarely has to bring out the map. As the day surprisingly enough didn’t have any rain, the rocks and cliffs dried up enough to not be as slippery as they would have been with wet algae and moss on them. The wind picked up throughout the day and our speed in the water slowed considerably as our shoulders and arms gave out more and more from the cold and towing an anchor of heavy shoe-clad feet across the ocean. My legs had since long been aching but went in to some sort of silent protest mode. Man, I wish I had packed some ibuprofen… The worst swim of them all is a 1400 meter stretch with a vicious chop and some ungodly currents. Already our first year on this course we had nicknamed this swim, but it’s neither translatable nor printable. Let’s just say we don’t like it! It took us more than half an hour to make this crossing and I had to stop quite a few times to wait for Pasi who wasn’t, ummmm, at peace with his inner child. Or something.

The volunteers are awesome and it’s always a treat to come across an aid station in the middle of nowhere and being fed some high-quality candy or a Red Bull. Not to mention the three or four larger aid stations that served fresh cinnamon rolls or muffins. Give me some!

I’ve never been so excited to reach the bike leg of a race as I was, when after eight hours we got to hop on a sturdy tourist bike toting a basket. Which was awesome since you’d be surprised the amount of cookies and candy that fit in there! Also getting to see some asphalt was nice and we did our best of our little two-man time trial. We must have been quite a sight; riding along with crazy spinning legs in wetsuits and leaving a trail of cookie crumbles behind. All the fun though must come to an end and soon enough we had to ditch the bikes and once again foray into the wild on a barely visible trail. By this time we were very gung-ho on finishing first and we made an effort to move along quickly even on the sketchy islands with plenty of options of slipping. I always get a little bit paranoid leading a race for this long and pretty much expect to see any and all pursuers breathing down my neck and licking their chops in anticipation of beating me to the big prize. A big prize that turns out to be about 1500 USD to the winning team and all the bragging rights in the world! We were counting down the last few sections, as we were island hopping over very small stretches of land interspersed with short swims.
Finally after 10 hours we hit Utö, the last island, and the road that would bring us to the finish line at the hotel! We took the time to bask in the glory of not only winning but actually just finishing this monster. And although it’s a long day with a lot of misery, it’s also one of the few races I’ve ever done that is completely unique and a true journey from start to finish."