Sweden break and Malmö Half Marathon

Hello my friends!

It has been a quiet August here on the blog, mainly because I took a well needed break from work and the internet, jumped on a plane, and went to see my family in Sweden.

It was by far one of the best trips I have had back there for a while. It made me re-appreciate not just Malmö, but my family and the people I care about by putting some things in my life into (kind of) new perspectives.

I kicked off the trip by running the Malmö half marathon with Sam and Cata. Due to my detox regime that took up 6 weeks in May/June and then the heatwave hitting London in July, it is safe to say that my initial hardcore training had gone out the window, and I was actually scared and worried I wouldn’t be able to complete the race!

Not having the confidence to do it on my own, I decided to run the race with Cata since I knew that my dream of getting a sub-2 was definite no-go. The weather report had predicted rain, so I came dressed in long leggings and a tee – ALL IN BLACK – and when clouds fully parted and the sun popped out at around 7-8km I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of sweat and die. (DON’T BE A FOOL LIKE ME – HYDRATE MORE THAN JUST FEW HOURS BEFORE A RACE!)

Having Cata there by my side throughout the entire race really helped me mentally, and I got such a kick out of seeing my mum and granny just before the 10km mark (my granny has never seen me run before!). Despite the struggles we had along the way, we defeated our demons and I managed to scream enough at Cata the last 3 miles that she ended up with a PB, shaving off around 9½ minutes from her previous half marathon time!! I WAS, AND AM, SO DAMN PROUD!!

The race reaffirmed why she is one of my very few “ride or die” people in this world. I know some have their doubts about the whole affair, but I am so excited to be buying a flat with her. We’ve come a long way these past 10-11 years and I think we’re finally in a place where we really value each other and the relationship we have because we’ve realised how special it actually is. (Going a bit off topic here but…) It felt great to run our home town together – we left it together 8 years ago not knowing what London and the future would hold – and look at us now… :’)

The rest of the trip was spent mainly EATING (oh my god…!), seeing family and friends, walking around and shopping.

We visited some amazing restaurants, but to be honest, nothing beats the Falafel no.1 falafel that you can get in Malmö – one of the best in the world, mark my words!

We more or less overdosed on a lot of Swedish food like fish and seafood related products – mainly lax, gravad lax, Kalles kaviar, cray fish, shrimps, romsås, skagenröra and so on…

We even attended a traditional Swedish cray fish party 10 hours before our flight where we ate all the traditional dishes, drank proper Swedish snaps and sang snaps songs!

We caught some proper “Malmö weather” whilst being over there – meaning that it couldn’t make up it’s mind and kept switching from heavy rain to some sunshine. But we still had some fun adventures including exploring Copenhagen, discovering Malmö with a wonderful cycle tour around the beach, the parks and the city (probably one of my favourite days), as well as quickly checking out the Malmö festival!

I really needed this break and it felt so good seeing everybody and having such a relaxing time. Now I can’t wait to go to Sardinia with Cata for 10 days in the middle of September! It will be my first beach holiday in 5 years!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.