Vätternrundan 2012
17:th of June 2012 I went on an interesting cycling adventure. 300 km or 187 miles of biking around the lake Vättern in Sweden. Click on the map to see more. This was the second year I entered … You would think that the blog would come much earlier, while the rush of finishing the race still was effecting me. For some reason, I didn’t feel like sharing. I got lots of tweets and messages from lovely people asking for a report … Well, here it comes!
It was the toughest biking … or the toughest anything I have done so far!
It is not the actual physical endurance. after 3-5 hours, you are all done. In my opinion a race like this is all psychological endurance. You have the time to think, think and think. You talk to yourself so much you wish you could just make yourself shut up.
– For the love of God, shut up already … I said to myself after 7 hours of biking.
Here is a short summary of the race:
- I started right after 8 PM.
- Had a great couple of hours
- It started to rain
- The wind took off and got worse
- The rain increased
- The wind increased
- 8 hours past
- Now, everything increased, rain, wind, pain, wind, rain, cold, pain
I guess you get the picture. The organizers said that his was the worse weather since the beginning of the race, that is for the last 47 years.
The last 30 km is a delight. You know most of it is done and that it cannot get any worse. Now, you get used to talking to yourself. You start challenging your second voice.
I suddenly started to laugh, I was picking a fight with the inner voice.
The rain and the wind torturing me and I was saying to the inner voice, is this the best you can do? I go for a swim in weather like this. I have dinner outside in weather like this … Given these example you’ll get the picture of what was going on in my head.
Nevertheless, I made it and while passing the finnish line, I made my mind. I will do this again next year. BTW, I improved my time with over 2 hours compared to last year.
Comments are welcome as always.
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