Stockholm long run

A tuna sandwich. That's right, a 2 1/2 hour flight, a 2 hour delay and all I got to eat on the damn plane was a tuna sandwich accompanied by a can of Heineken. The best part of Sunday spent on a plane and all I ate was a tuna sandwich. This is not the sort of treatment that endears me to Air France.

I checked into the hotel and 5 minutes later I checked out in my running kit and hit the streets. I had imagined a nice scenic route around Stockholm and now it was time to try it out. I don't know whether it was the pent up frustration with the journey, with airplane companies in general, or with wasting Sunday for business, but I started out at marathon speed, completing the first few kilometres at 4:15 pace. I then told myself to slow down as I knew that with the few calories that I'd ingested, the distance after 20km would be difficult to manage at this pace.

The weather was humid but the rain that had been forecast held off leaving the temperature around 20°C. I headed to the east of the city to begin with along Lake Malaren and along to Djurgarden. This was the route that I'd run in June so I knew what to expect and it's very pleasant along by the canal and then back along the south of the island. When I came back off the island, I'd already run 13km and calculated that with the 3 km back into the centre of town and then the 7km around my circuit of Malaren, I was on for a 23km run. I was feeling a little more tired now and my pace settled down to 4:30 speed.

I pushed on back through town and then it was a relief to head to the south side of the city and beside the lake where the city is a lot quieter. I relaxed along here and maintained my pace at 4:20 - 4:30 pace except for the few hills where I dropped the pace dramatically. It's quite amazing the impact that hills have on me when I'm tired like this as een the slightest rise causes an immediate drop in pace. I headed up over west bridge and back to the north side of the lake and an extra loop of the park to increase the distance before heading back to the hotel.

24 km all up in 1:50 or 4:35 per km on average. I was pleased with this especially as the 1900 calories burnt more than eliminated that tuna sandwich.