1. Stay indoors
So back in Scandinavia and facing winter again. Oh yeah. Not an easy task after spending a few years in mild climate in England. You may have wondered why I’ve been silent for a few months but that’s just part of my winter survival strategy. Isolate yourself from the world, stay at home, and concentrate only on a couple of fundamental things like keeping yourself warm and staying alive. Forget everything else.
When the first signs of winter came it hit us hard. First week meant freezing temperatures and black ice everywhere. My boyfriend had just changed his road bike to a mountain bike in order to continue with cycling through the winter but had no studs in his wheels and a nice Sunday ride on icy roads ended up with a broken patella. 8 weeks later and he’s still in early phase of recovery, walking with an orthosis and crutches, allowed to bend his knee only 60 degrees. I also fell and hit my knee, in the very same week, but got only a bruise and was lucky enough to get back to training after a couple of weeks.
So the start of the winter could have been better but after my own knee had recovered I really got a boost to my training when I realised how lucky I am being whole and able to run (working as a full time carer for a disabled certainly gives you some perspective). First weeks of January were actually really good since the conditions were excellent for orienteering. Marshes had frozen but there was barely any snow. I used that time wisely and orienteered probably more than I ever have orienteered in January. And I almost started to think that maybe winter isn’t that bad after all…
However, a few weeks later everything had changed and suddenly there was a whole lot of snow in the forest when we had a full training day with O sessions, workshop and Linné Cup stage 2 (GPS-tracking). No one complained and we ran the day as planned with a relay training in the morning and night contour corridor in the evening. It was good fun but conditions being what they were I was quite happy that there was a ski camp in Orsa Grönklitt in the scheme in the following weekend. It was a great weekend all in all with lots of xc skiing in excellent conditions.
I was over the moon after the last ski session in Grönklitt in -5C and sunshine but it was rather depressing to get back to Stockholm to ice and slush. To make things worse I had entered myself to a 10km road race on the following Saturday. We got some new slush during the week but mostly the weather was so warm and wet that I started to believe that roads could be runnable… But then it all changed once again at the last minute. Race was in the evening and it kept sleeting the whole damn day. An awful mixture of icy rain and snow. So wet and heavy that you would think it melted right away but it didn’t. Instead it got packed in deep layers of wet, icy slush that was much worse and slippier than ice or snow. Running on it was like skiing classic without wax. I had thought of running in racing flats but after jogging a bit on the route I decided to change to my heavy clumsy Icebugs. A smart choice. I guess it added some seconds to my time but at least I kept myself in one piece. Even better would have been orienteering shoes and neoprene socks. Atmosphere was great despite the horrible weather (did I mention that it rained ice all the way while we were running?) and it was a much better workout than I would have done on my own.
A couple of days later something very strange or extraordinary happened. It started to snow and it didn’t stop before it looked like Orsa Grönklitt here in Sollentuna. Why to travel several hours to seek snow when you can have it on your front door? I’ve lived in Stockholm before but never ever have I seen this much snow or been able to ski here. Well now I have. I’ve enjoyed the beauty of winter and tried to make best out of it. Maybe winter is worth the pain, ice, slush, and shovelling if you get a few nice and sunny days, who knows, but I’m still quite excited to get out of here soon to warmer latitudes and to get to orienteer in snowless terrain!
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| Orsa Grönklitt -19C |
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| Orsa Grönklitt - great spot for a stop |
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| Orsa Grönklitt - perfect conditions |
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| Winter in Sollentuna |
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| Home forest |
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| Norrviken |
