Back in the Caribbean

The Kullamannen ultra now seems like a distant memory, albeit only a little over a week ago! My lungs, muscles and brain recovered quickly, with almost everything feeling back to normal within 3 days of the event... almost everything except an inflamed ITB (iliotibial band) that is!! The ITB is the long band that inserts into the hip and at its base into the outside of the knee (to the head of the tibia). About halfway through the Kullamannen it was starting to feel quite sore, but my stubbornly competitive nature convinced me to complete the event, perhaps unwisely!! 

The four runs I’ve done in the past week have all ended with more pain and inflammation in my knee, a clear sign that this is shifting from an acute to a chronic injury – the classic ‘runner’s knee’!! Fortunately, it’s happened at a good time, the point in my preparation where I’d planned to switch from just running to full on IronMan training, and it turns out that my knee feels just fine when I swim and bike, so I’ll put my running shoes on the shelf for a couple of weeks and focus on the other two events!!!!

Looking out from the apartment in Ocean Park, Puerto Rico

My wife Camilla is also 'IronMan training'. Her event is little over 2 weeks away in the south of France, so last week she and I swam and biked together. Cam’s an awesome athlete, so good that she made the Swedish women’s team last year, finishing 9^th at the world championships and top 10 in several other IronMan and half IronMan events in her age-group. Her next race is on a particularly challenging course that includes more than 2,000 m elevation on the bike, climbing up through the foothills of the southern French Alpes. She raced this event 2 years ago, and I myself raced it twice about 20 years ago, so it’s something of a favorite. Despite her achievements, Cam’s pretty new to triathlon. The IronMan in France, exactly 2 years ago, was her first ever triathlon (of any distance!!!), and five months prior to the race she couldn’t swim! But Cam’s an incredibly driven and athletically gifted woman, and so she learned to swim, trained hard on the bike and running for 5 months, and went out and hammered the IronMan, finishing high enough to qualify for the world championships the following year. Truly amazing!!

Late last night I arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a four-day visit to the University Hospital in Rio Piedras, where our clinical trial is based (see post below). It’s my first visit since January and much has happened on the trial since then. The US Government sponsors the trial and took some major decisions in March concerning how we should proceed, which have required considerable reorganization. The team here in Puerto Rico has been doing a stellar job coping with these new challenges, led by my co-Principal Investigator Prof. Kaumudi Joshipura. Today I’ll met with the team to hear how they’re fairing, and to receive updates on progress with data collection and participant interactions.  This is very much a real-world trial, with participants recruited from a population in desperate need of health intervention. The trial is focused on helping these pregnant women manage weight gain during their pregnancies and to teach them about healthy diet and other lifestyle habits, which we’ll help them sustain during the first 12 months of their babies’ lives. Behavior change is always a major challenge, especially in tightknit communities where social pressures to eat lots of unhealthy foods and refrain from being physically active prevail. But as much as these factors make this trail hugely challenging, they also make it extremely important. So the work we’re doing here, will, I hope, have numerous positive knock-on effects, which in some shape or form will help improve the lives of these women and their children.