I´m participating in the Trans-Alp MTB stage race in a few weeks. As in participating I really mean trying to survive. As in trying to survive I mean not getting myself killed.
That´s how much gnarly downhills scare me.

I was going to do a lot of races this year. At least I was hoping for and aiming to. But I have weird shit going on with my right hamstring and hip. I know there´s a calcification to the side of my sitting bone. But there´s probably other problems too. At 43 there´s always a fire to put out somewhere.

So apart from the soon-to-come Alpine adventure I don´t know what I´m training and preparing for. But I train. And I prepare. If nothing else, for life.

In order to get some stage race feel I rode 145 km yesterday afternoon, point to point Borås-Halmstad. Fasting day so no food since the night before and just water. Of course it was a headwind all day. Steady, still. Some great food and wine salvaged the evening and balanced out the relative misery of the day.

This morning I was still aching all over. I overdid my combined swim session/strength workout the other day and it left me silly sore and stiff. I like to overdo things. Hence, the price I paid for days after. But nothing like some hard swimming to bounce back and as part of the half-Ironman in Halmstad there was also the option to just race the swim. So we did, me and my partner in crime, Thobias Pettersson.

It hurt way more than expected and I had a bout of existensial crisis during the latter part, questioning the rationale behind participating in activities that kick my ass as much. Also, I burped a lot of bacon. Which made me question my choice of breakfast.
I did however finish a distant 2nd to mr T who is pumping his guns for the prestigous Vansbrosimningen in a week. I took solace in the fact that he didn´t ride 5 hrs the day before:)

We hung around watching the triathlon for a while before we straddled the hogs for the ride back. Now with winds at least slightly co-operating. We made good time and I was happy to see higher watts and lower heartrates.

Back home I was going to do some foam rolling but I drank some more wine instead. There has got to be at least some balance.