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Stockholm, all is forgiven!
There are many days when Stockholm gives you good reasons to hate the city. And have no doubts, Stockholm will hate you back! November darkness and rain, the by traffic polluted grayish snow melting in the end of February, the fake spring days in Mars only to snow again first week of April.
But then, on a day like the day of Stockholm marathon 2008 all is forgiven. Just like that. No hard feelings. The water slowly running under the bridges between the islands that make up the city center of Stockholm never looks better then on a sunny May-day. I would argue that there are few (if any) cities in the world that can compete with the stunning beauty of Stockholm on days like this. This could be seen as a somewhat provocative and biased statement and I would have to admit that there are a few cities around the globe still waiting for me to visit. But I do not care, cause on a day like May 31:st 2008, my imagination can’t picture what would possible be a better place to be than the capital of Sweden.
The only downside really is that the 27-28 something degrees Celsius is not quite ideal for running marathons. I was in fairly good shape, having run a marathon only 6 weeks earlier and done a lot of running in between. I had signed up for the race together with a colleague and friend of mine Tomas. I knew that I was in better shape than Tomas, actually we both knew this. The other side of that coin, Tomas is an annoying character in the sense that he just does not give up, ever, this was also no big secret. So hence, even though we never discussed this, as we were standing at the start line we both knew exactly how the race would play out. Tomas would follow me until he basically passed out; as a matter of fact I did not rule out that he would keep going even after that. So I dragged Tomas around the sunny city center of Stockholm for a couple of hours. For each kilometer the expression on his face would change from half dead to more and more just dead. Every now and then I looked at Tomas smiling trying to paint the picture that I was not even close to be tired, the message I wanted to pass was something like “you can let go now, it’s ok”. After passing the infamous bridge “Västerbron” for the second time after some 32 km I almost thought that the more than half dead looking wreck next to me would actually follow me all the way. But after 35 km or so he finally had to let go and I ended up entering Stockholm stadium 6-7 minutes before Tomas did.
For the second time in only two years I manage to lose my keys to my apartment after the race. In 2006 this had fatal consequences as I had a flight to Sydney to catch the day after and ended up having to break into my own apartment. This year was a bit different, I was living in the US at the time and the keys I lost were not to my own apartment but rather to my girlfriend Åsa’s. What made things slightly more troublesome was that Åsa was attending a bachelorette party outside the city as well as the fact that I had also managed to lose my cell phone. At the end of the day it turned out fairly ok though, I managed to get hold of Åsa somehow and one unnecessary trip to the suburbs later I was back on track with the only real consequence of delaying a well needed shower for a couple of hours. Well that and a compulsory lecture from Åsa (“you should leave MY keys at a place where you know where they are etc, etc”). Oh yeah, and having to ask my company for a new cell phone for the second time that year (I had also lost a phone skiing in the alps in February 2008). Other than that, all good.
At night Tomas, myself and a couple of friends had drinks at a bar called Vimmel. I was congratulated not only for beating Tomas but also for the, apparently by many seen as, impressive achievement of again losing my home keys after a marathon. “Don’t forget I added a cell phone this time” I proudly added.
If I can forgive Stockholm for the horrifying things the city puts me through winter time, I think I deserve to be forgiven for losing a few things every now and then...
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