Explorer Mikael Strandberg

The Greenland Crossing: A Month Later

3 years. That is how much I have aged during the Greenland crossing. According to my Oura ring, which measures one´s total physical conditioning daily but also over time. I have had it for over 4 years, so it does have validity. See the picture here? Yes, I know I look like a midget working as Santa Claus, but this is minutes after stepping indoors at the hotel room in Nuuk. After returning from a 33 plus days Expedition. I felt very happy, but like I had been run over by an Australian road train 106 times. First thing I did after a shower, was to put on my Oura ring which I had sent on in advance. It showed my resting pulse was 59! I had never, since I started using the ring, had such a high resting pulse. And I thought:

“It will take a year to recover from this!”

A month has passed by now and two days ago, my resting pulse went below 50 for the first time, 47. My normal resting pulse over the last 2 years have been an average 42. And, surprisingly, I feel that I have recovered to 90%.

Initially I just couldn´t sleep. Max 4 hours a night. The body just couldn´t relax. It craved lots of carbs all the time, so during the first three weeks I ate and ate. I am not sure how much weight I lost, but I know Villads lost 15 kgs! And when I visited him in Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago, he said he still felt weak, had problems running, his strength was low and he felt at loss.

“Who can I talk to who understands all this?”

I knew exactly what he meant! Right at this moment I feel very content with life on all levels, much due to the fact that I went to Istanbul and met all my great friends at a Kensington Tours event. A recovery trip of sorts. But before that, I felt that loss too. I know it very well from before. It is part of the experience returning back to the so-called civilization. I don´t think I lost too much weight honestly, even though I felt very hungry the last week. Maybe 3-4 kgs. I can see that on a photo I sent to Hannah when no clothes on, moments after this photo you see here. Since I don´t have a scale at home, I don´t know, but the hotel in Istanbul had one and it -to my great surprise- I weighed almost 80 kgs! 5-6 kgs more than normal. Slight overeating….

Initially I had no strength, couldn´t do more than 2 dips at the gym. I couldn´t run more than 2-3 kms. Not due to VO2, but bodily pains. Now, I am back on Marthas special diet (no meat), train 6 out of 9 days and I specifically enjoy the running. All feels better than normal!

So the conclusion is, the Ousland method did its job, all the training before the journey did the job, the team was as perfect as Lars Ebbesens weather reports and, yes, I am ready for another huge journey!

None of this could have been done without the great support of Jeff and Kensington Tours on all levels.

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