A Tour of the City in 108 Minutes

With all the visitors, we are finally getting a chance to see some of the highlights of the city. My parents have spent the last ten days with us, which gave us the perfect excuse for lots of fun outings. Of course, you have quite a different view when you are chasing a toddler around, but she does look cute in pictures so it balances out.

As expected, Stockholm has lots of tours - Hop-On-Hop-Off busses, boat tours sailing through all the islands of Stockholm, walking tours based solely on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, etc. But the tour I enjoyed this weekend required only a pair of running shoes - the Stockholm Half Marathon - with a scenic route hitting most of the sites. At the end of June, after getting a little lost trying to run around our island (a feat that I admit is very difficult to do, since in theory to run around an island, all you need to do is make sure you are next to the water), I thought it could be fun and possible to train for the 13.1 miles in 9 weeks. The one caveat is that I pretty much hadn't been running with any consistancy since Myrna's arrival, but still mentally thought that I could run a half marathon given four weeks notice. So, I got busy training, hoping I could sneak out in the morning before Myrna woke up, letting Chris sleep, a fleeting thought that worked only about 1 in 10 times. But, we some how all made it work, and I felt ready for the big day.


I wasn't so thrilled about the 4 pm Saturday start time. But I had a great cheering squad, as my parents were still in town (to date they have been at every 1/2 and full marathon I've raced in, traveling to Portland, San Diego and Boston and now Stockholm). Myrna stayed occupied by watching the runners and playing with a balloon.

The rain and wind thankfully stayed away, and I finished the race in 1:48:45 - not my fastest time, but not my slowest time either, so I was happy. I think I can even claim the spot of "Top American Woman Finisher" if I read the results correctly. Though, I felt completely Swedish as I enjoyed the post-race Bulle (basically a cinnamon roll), and it never tasted so good.