Hey blog readers ! I got a diverse mix of stuff comin’ at ya …

… more Johannes Poignant pictures (I think I’ll start an instagram account soon…)

… Paleo food and GPS watches

… a garage sale

… female drivers in Saudi Arabian (?!)

… and of course Raid Uppsala.

First, my chance encounter two weeks ago with Johannes Poignant, photographer from Östersund, has been a blessing. He continues to deliver some top pictures. Here are a few from this week and last …

 

 

 

Paleo Crunch Bars, a company based right down the road in Åre, is now on-board as one of my Partners. They make super healthy ”caveman” energy bars without raw sugar. Five different tastes and they all kick ass. They also make the Beet It juice with nitrates (see previous post).   So I’ve got all the endurance energy I need now:  Squeezy gels and caffeine energy bars for races and Paleo Crunch for long distance “fat-burning” training.

 

Suunto is also on-board and just mailed me the new Ambit2 multisport watch. I loved the Ambit, but this updated version has a few improvements: Their ”track back to start” function will be useful when I’m visiting Vietnam next time and want to head out for a run but still find my way home … I can pair it with my ANT+ cadence measurer on my bike … there’s also a swimming function that counts your strokes. I hate swimming, but I’m wondering if this could be used to count paddle strokes? …

Actually, the coolest improvement is this: Suunto found a way to fuse both barometric readings and GPS to get an accurate elevation measure. This has always been a weakness of GPS watches.

The Suunto Ambit2 Silver

 

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I’m selling my 29ner with 1 x 11 drive train. Weighs under 10 kg with pedals … http://happymtb.org/annonser/index.php?page=view&id=106048

 

Saudi Arabia … This has nothing to do with multisport but I find it absolutely fascinating. Women are not allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia (perhaps for their own health (?) – see below). So yesterday, 40 women dared to disobey. They posted 30 sec clips of them driving. Besides being among the most boring YouTube clips ever, they’re also some of the most fascinating and symbolic. But if you want to see a more interesting YouTube clip, check out this “No women, No car” remake of Bob Marley’s song (explanation: the lyrics about ovaries is actually based on a statement made by a Saudi Cleric … un-believable. Read more here)

This video has 1.4 million hits in just 24 hrs !

 

Raid Uppsala … Ok, political commentary aside, I did a multisport race last weekend together with Aaron Scott on a beautiful sunny and cold day (-5 C at the start). We finished 6th, which I reckon was a bit below our abilities. But I sure can’t blame anything on Aaron — I had a bad day …

Aaron and I racing as Team Squeezy had pole position at the start line at Raid Uppsala.

The race started with a 15 min run to the kayaks, at which point I had forgotten that it was below freezing, as I sweating like crazy. We put the kayaks in the water in 2nd place, directly behind the eventual winners Sonny and Christer. But my kayak had a mind of its own, steering itself directly into the river bank on the right. Damn, my rudder was frozen.
Aaron couldn’t bust it lose without flipping over himself, so I had to “take a little dip” and get my hands under the boat and crack it loose. It wasn’t the most enjoyable way to experience the otherwise picture-esc river. And it wasn’t a quick fix either – I was up to my chest for several minutes trying to break it loose. When I finally started paddling again, the wind chill hit me hard and I lost not only heat, but also power. At one point Aaron paddled by me and suggested I jump on his wave (A diplomatic Kiwi way of saying “get the friggin’ anchor out of your boat and let’s get going, Scott!”).

 

10 minutes in to the paddle, I was powering hard to get the heat going. I’m in the Carbonolgy Flash Surfski, and Aaron is just behind in the Orange Zedtech (screen shot from Johan Hamilton’s Vimeo Film).

I let up on my throttle just a bit to let Aaron glide by. When I glanced back at his wave to find the right spot to “stick my nose” I lost my balance and found myself in the drink … again ! And, yes, it was even colder this time.
I climbed back in the boat and started paddling as fast as I could – but it was not fast. This started a strange almost “twilight-like” feeling where my mental capacity dropped as fast as my physical ability. I was shivering and working on survival mode, which meant my body did subconscious things to prevent another swim. I lost my paddling technique and nice long “reach” with the paddle. I lost my rotation. I lost my power. I lost my speed. And without a motor to generate heat, it only got worse.
About 45 minutes later, we got to the end of the paddle and I was just barely holding on. I didn’t have the strength to carry the boat 10 meters up the sandy beach. My legs were cement and my mind wasn’t with it. I realized I was in a race, but I really didn’t have any good comprehension of why I was there.
It was one of those feelings you might get on Day #4 of a five day, sleep-deprived, non-stop adventure race. But this was only 90 minutes after the start! Aaron and I must have spent 10 minutes in the transition changing clothes after the paddle, which is an eternity in a short race like this. Out on the bike, my teeth were chattering and my engine still hadn’t got warmed up. Aaron kept biking away from me — I couldn’t stay on his wheel.

I wasn’t the only one taking some time in the transition … but I didn’t have warm blueberry soup like this team did. But I will next year … (screen shot from Johan Hamilton’s Vimeo Film).

I finally sucked down a few energy gels (I refused to drink  during the paddle because the cold liquid in my life jacket bladder made me shiver even more). Things slowly started to come back. I started to lose that  desire to steer my bike into on-coming traffic to make the pain go away …
We recovered and I did a decent job of orienteering (something I don’t always manage to do…) and Aaron kept me going until we crossed the finish line 6 hours later. We never got back in the ‘competition’ of the race, but we had a good time laughing about it. And we agreed that at least now we had a good story to tell this winter …

For those of you who follow my blog you may remember that I also took a swim in last year’s Raid Uppsala, when I flipped over the Acron Canoe with Carolina Andre in the front. Luckily she thought it was funny … and I even caught it on my GoPro here.

Finally, thanks to all of you who attended my presentations in Uppsala and Stockholm last week. I had a fun audience and I enjoyed all your questions! Hope to come home in the spring with some ‘new’ New Zealand pics and film …

Showing my favorite “upside down” cyclecross picture at my presentation at Mornington Hotel last week.
Well, I’m leaving the country in 7 days. I got a lot of packing to do …

Train hard
Scott
PS One last chance to see my presentation this Wednesday in Östersund at Friskis&Svettis. Read more here