Tour of Sweden – day 11
Today was a hard day. It wasn’t supposed to be, but this late into the Tour, any day can be. The day started with a nice run with Jonas and Clas. About a mile and a half from the hotel was a nice network of trails up on a hill. We did a 2.3 mile loop, then Jonas said “let’s do another.” While we ran, he told me he wanted to race Survival of the Shawangunks a/k/a S.O.S. this year. He’d read about it in Triathlete magazine back in the early 90s and has always wanted to do it. He told me about the Stockholm Island to Island triathlon, which he’s written about on Slowtwitch in the past. "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.” (OK, I stole the quote from his article). I also learn he’ll be racing the Rev 3 half iron in Connecticut the week after next.
So, we complete the 2nd loop and Jonas says – “one more.” I’m actually feeling good and in the end we complete a hilly 9.91 miles in 1:11:12. I’m not too worried because today is “only” scheduled to be 140K and we’re actually taking a break at 90K for coffee at Jonas’ cousin’s house. We’re on the bikes at 10 am. It’s overcast and very windy and chilly. I pull out my rain cape to keep warm and we’re off. Once out of town we hit the highway. Clas is on the front as we climb for a long time and then Bjorn takes over. I’m third wheel and am digging deep to hold Bjorn’s wheel but its not long before I have to swing off. Clas comes through and the two of them are gone. With me are only Joakim and Tobias. We start working together in an echelon, trying to minimize the impact of the vicious cross wind coming from our left. Joakim is setting a fast pace and Tobias decides its smarter to go back to the bunch. He was right. I stick with Joakim and it’s a ferocious struggle with the wind. Finally, after 40K, I can’t come through. As Joakim is on his last day of the Tour, he just takes over and I ride his wheel for the next 50K. I know this sounds easy but you should know his iron distance PB is 8:40:45 with a 4:30:00 bike split. And he’s feeling frisky and fresh, having skipped some of the riding and the morning runs and knows it’s his last day. So, he’s turning me inside out just to stay on his wheel.
We roll into town and at a stop light he manages to fall over before unclipping. It’s just one of those things. The rest of the group comes along and we follow Jonas to his cousins’ where hot coffee and sweet cinnamon rolls await. His cousin has two daughters aged 16 and 14 which remind me of my own two girls at home. As great as this trip continues to be, I’m really looking forward to going home soon. After all the hard riding in a rain cape, my clothes are completely saturated. As it’s still cold and windy for the final planned 50K, back goes on the cape, which isn’t helping my aerodynamics in the wind. In an attempt to avoid the highway, we actually ride 10K out of our way, the first 8 or so right smack into the wind. I’m desperate to keep in the group and barely hang on. We finally turn and thankfully have a bit of a cross tail wind to work with. We arrive at our city but of course the Scandic hotel is on the far side of town. When we arrive, the combined rides equal 94.55 miles in 4:39:11. It’s 4:30 pm, and Joakim and I watch the finale of today’s Giro before dinner at 5 pm.
Jonas is off to swim with Clas and some others but I’m going to play it conservatively for tomorrow’s planned 134 mile ride. No swim tonight, no morning run. The dinner was excellent again and both last night and this evening our rooms feature heated bathroom floors! If you’re traveling in Sweden, stay at Scandic.
Today, when we detoured to avoid the highway, Jan and Marco kept to the highway and saved the headwind stretch and extra 10K. I wish I had joined them. Yesterday, when Jan got dropped, he made a video of himself alone in the forest. Here’s a link to his blog entry: supersvendsen.blogspot.com
A rough translation of the video: “I hate Jonas Colting, I hate Tour of Sweden.” He turns the camera up the road and says: “It’s a effin’ long way to go.” He closes with “death to Jonas Colting.” I can only hope I won’t be feeling the same sentiments tomorrow.
