I think many of us are getting quite caught up in Swampfox's life this Spring in Sweden. It sounds like an idyllic time - train, race, live in Sweden. A better description might be to say that we are living vicariously through Swampfox. As we live out our dull lives in humdrum towns (or, if we are lucky, in Lawrence) we can still eat, sleep, and breath the total Swampfox experience. I hadn't been experienced before. It's not quite like being in Sweden itself, but through the web, it's the next best thing... sort of.

Early one morning I was jolted awake when I felt a thud and sharp pain in my knee. 'What happened?' I thought to myself. Did I injure it running the other day? That didn't make sense. Nothing made sense until I read that Swampfox had injured his knee in a race. When Swampfox has a good race it is a good day for me. When he makes a mistake I lose a little sleep the next night and then start binging on ice cream at 3am. When he describes a race or a workout with his club, I feel like I'm there watching it happen. I can't wait for the Swedish Fire Rituals. This will be the first year I can actually take part!

Most days I will check in with One Foot in the Forest to see if there are updates. It is surely one of the best orienteering web sites around. It is a good day when there are updates, and a bit of a down day when there are not. I am watching the big 4 relays in Europe closely. Of course the first thing I do is to search for Swampfox's name. He's running the next big relay this weekend. He's doing well. He's going to be holy terror at US meets this Fall.

I'll probably get my own life one of these days, but until that time I hope Swampfox knows how much he is enriching all of our lives.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), April 13, 2000

Answers

I, too, am a regular reader of Mikell's home page. I also just got some email from him with the following note about the OK relay teams at this weekend's US Champs...

Good luck to you guys. I have no doubts ya'll can do quite well, and it sounds to me like Dan's ankle is well enough now that it should be fine for this. I did look over the start lists, and I see there are a bunch of good folks signed up.

.....

Again, good luck to all. Maybe it's OK's year!

--Mikell

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), April 13, 2000.

I'm a bit worried to see that IK Hakarpspojkarne didn't run the last relays as planned. I hope there's nothing seriously wrong. Can anyone find out about this?

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), April 17, 2000.

Swampfox ran the Stigtomta (which is not part of the big-4 relays). Apparently a lot of teams skipped the big-4 race and ran Stigtomta instead. The reason being that Stigtomta is better preparation for the Tio-Mila (which is one of the big-4).

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), April 17, 2000.