Viking break

There's been a bit of a lull in my dance project, for a number of reasons; one is that I'm working on some long-term challenges that have come from my group of belly dance friends, who have called me out on relying too much on improv and that perhaps I should actually dance to music rather than sticking it on afterwards... ;) And that it would probably be a bigger challenge for me to actually choreograph something instead of improvising. Point taken, so I'm working on that.

But the more major reason for the lull is that I was preparing for the race Tough Viking Göteborg on the 26th of April, which was a fantastic experience both as being my first race and as a physical challenge. It included 20 obstacles (mud! ice baths! barbed wire! tunnels! ramps! electric shocks! climbing! fire!) over a stretch of 7.5 km of mixed terrain trails and park paths, which felt right for me - lots of energy spurts and focus needed to clear the obstacles, and (the dealbreaker for me) not so much running. IT WAS AWESOME! I was super excited the days before and quite some time after. :)


Our excellent 5-person team from work, TFANK! (short for the courteous motto in swedish "Thanks for coming!", which we directed at everyone running the race) chose to stick together for as long as we could, although towards the end we separated into our preferred respective running paces - still, in the end, we all made it within 20 minutes of each other! Really good considering our different levels of physical fitness and that one of our members joined with 4 days notice to replace an injured original member, who resorted to becoming our designated photographer. She was chasing us around the park on a bike in a manner most impressive :)

The excellent Team TFANK! sporting our medals after completing the race

Actually, the parts that were hardest for me mentally were the flat park-path asphalt stretches... without the extra oomph of needing to climb/swim/crawl/be mindful of my footing, I tended to lose steam... which one of my dear teammates tried to coax out of me by coaching me (mid-race) to never resort to walking, but keep running even if it's ever so slowly. (Said teammate was running in circles around me while delivering this message, which brought to mind a mildly annoying yet encouraging golden retriever who you can't dislike because he means well ;). I kind of failed at following his advice then and there so after a while he ran ahead of me, but at least my mental running challenge for the long term is clear. ;)

I intended this a s a one-off, but now many of my teammates are planning to run "Toughest" in October, which is a similar race with double the number of obstacles, presumably over a running stretch that is twice as long. I'm both tempted to join and not, mostly because of the running... we'll see. :) 

As for preparations, I'm not much for margins, so approximately one week before the race I ran my very first mile (as in 10k, for you imperial-system people)! That's the longest I've ever run, so for me it was a big deal, but it was equally a great boost because I ran with a friend for the first time in my life (thanks Ila!)... although we agreed on a no-talking policy, because neither of us is famous for our running stamina ;). Still, we were pretty proud of ourselves. :)

So that was a really fun and fulfilling experience - and not too bad pain-wise afterwards, to my great surprise.

For maximum contrast, the next adventure in physical exertions coming up is... a belly dance performance this coming weekend, complete with group choreography and costume (which I finished sewing last night). Don't put all your eggs in one basket... :)