Hej Från Sverige! (part II)br /br /Well, judging from all of the fan mail I got from writing the last blog, I better write another one to describe yet again the tales and foibles of my happenings in the beautiful land of Sweden. But foibles aside, I have to say that my experience in Sweden has gotten better and better the more I have lived here and the more I understand the language. Among the most exiting things that has transpired during my stay here was the Vasaloppet. br /The Vasaloppet is a 90k classic race that has to be something equivalent to the Boston Marathon in the running world. With 15,000 competitors, it took me five minutes to walk from the back of the starting line to the front. I shall recap the race thus: 90k to go: Wow! I’m skiing in a double poling tidal wave! 80k: Ok, the pack has thinned out. Hey, look, I’m skiing with the “elite” bibs that’s pretty cool! 70k: Hmm. They seem to be drinking twice and much as I am. Hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me. 60k: 2/3 to go. But do I have 2/3 left in me? 45k: Tied with the longest race of my life and half way there. 35k: Time for a huge mouthful of energy-bar… and then turn the corner and get to ski up a steep hill with a huge mouthful of energy bar. 20k: Well, elite bibs are gone. Why is it hard to breath? 10k+2 energy bars and 2 GU’s: Can’t… full… sentence. 1k: That wasn’t so bad. br /Suffice to say that I am doing it again next year, but this time with a crew to give me feeds. Mostly, life this winter has been traveling to different towns in northern and mid Sweden on the weekends and racing really tough competition in perfect snow conditions. So, in other words, heaven. I recall at one point I had to take a weekend off because I had raced every weekend for 2 months and was feeling rather worn. The season finally ended last weekend up in Bruksvallerna and I am now enjoying the long, lukewarm days of Swedish spring. I still have a month and a half before I come home but if that goes as quickly as April has gone, it should be no time at all before you hear my loud, obnoxious voice disrupting the serenity of the Vermont countryside yet again. br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/S9IqMNTTUPI/AAAAAAAACtM/v6wZsusBo10/s1600/DSCN0324.JPG.jpeg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H2SCM3lmKm8/S9IqMNTTUPI/AAAAAAAACtM/v6wZsusBo10/s400/DSCN0324.JPG.jpeg” border=”0″ alt=””id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463475687171248370″ //adiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-5145414430609371324?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
