Today two months have passed since I returned home after the icecap crossing of Greenland. Adjusting to normal life after spending over 30 days hauling a sled over one of the biggest icecaps in the world, up to ten hours a day, sleeping in a tent, having extremely set routines and for the most of the time feeling very free and priviliged, well, it isn´t easy. Not the issue of returning home. I have done that a few times. You have the feeling, nobody will ever understand this. Very few ever do, so I am used to that after 38 years of doing this. And I know, best is to get into your routines as quick as possible. Starting your day as usual. In my case, early morning, a cup of coffee whilst journaling, meditating, doing 30 min of rehab, stretching and yoga, then hit the work. Which right now is looking through a lot of very emotional material from three journeys. Defender X, the cycling with my daughters and the icecap crossing.
The hardest part for me, this time, have been finding my sleep and not overeating. The first month, I could only get 4, max 5 hours each night, and then feeling extremely tired throughout the day. It hasn´t helped that I have been partying on and off (well worth it!) and eating enormous amounts of food and desserts. My resting pulse have until yesterday been very high, over 50, now it is down to 44. Which means I have recovered fully. But it took 2 months.
Low pulse means good sleep. So, since I met my love, Hannah Pierce-Carlson, in Lissabon, my bad sleep has been overturned. Love and closeness makes a huge difference!
Overeating, well, so much good food out there! And after eating 6000 calories plus a day, most of it rubbish calories like sweats, crisps and so on, so at around 9 p.m each evening I have been extremely hungry! I am back on my normal athlete-diet by Marta Naczyk, and training is back to the level, yes, an adventure is coming up within a year.
Was it worth it, the icecap crossing? YES! Having made it over, feels way better than not! I know both….
So the only real “pain” has been that my girls thought I was away a little bit too long. Then again, it was a journey for them to and I can see they have taken on more responsability and grown as little human beings.
