As I was out in Sweden for Grizzly’s wedding I swapped my long run on the Friday to the weekend. I had originally planned to do it on the Sunday, but given the wedding was on the Saturday that was a pretty stupid idea. Staying completely sober during a wedding was frankly ridiculous, even if it was 2 weeks before the Ironman.
We arrived in to Malmo late on Friday evening. We’d flown from Birmingham to Copenhagen and then got a taxi across the bridge to Sweden. It nearly started off very badly. We’d met Grizzly’s brother Tom and his fiancé Grace at the gate and got chatting. We were pretty much the last ones to get on the plane and we were just about to board when I realised I’d left my laptop bag in the terminal. What a tit. The ground staff were less than impressed when I was banging on the security gate to get let back in to go and retrieve it.
We got to the hotel around 11pm. Deciding it was bad form to go straight to bed, Tom and I went out to join Grizzly at the restaurant he’d been at with the wedding party. When we got there they were all trashed. It was quite reassuring. It also meant I didn’t have to drink as they were all ready to leave, which was a bit of a bonus for my run the following morning.
I got up at 6am, stuck my trainers on and made it out of the door. Not really knowing where to go I just followed the coast until I found a straight road, and just ran. It was fairly damp and windy, but other than that it was nice to run somewhere completely different. My normal tactic when I’m travelling to somewhere new with work is to find a river and just run along it. The logic is that you can’t get lost if you just follow it. The wasn’t one in Malmo, so I just kept going in a straight line for as far as I could and then turned around when I got to a dead end. The only tricky bit was dodging all the slugs and snails that were out for their morning walk.
I got another 20 miles under my belt. The last couple were a bit of a slog but other than that my legs felt good. No cramp and no real stiffness. Result. It also meant I could go along to the wedding and have a few drinks.
It was a great day. The wedding was good fun, it was great to see Grizzly and Solli tie the knot. Even did some crap dancing at the end of the night with V. Spot on. Bring on the taper.