The long-distance kind of ice-skate. Photo: Patrik Eriksson/Flickr.
In my quest to make the most of these cold months, I have finally challenged my fear of bare ice and gone ice-skating. When I went to school we did it, but using the ice-hockey kind of skates is a whole different story than the long-distance kind people use outside. All over the Stockholm area, tracks are now cleared for skaters, sometimes more than 10 km long.
20 centimeters
For some time I have been sceptical. How great can it be to slide around, with the ever-present threat of falling and banging one’s head in stone hard ice? And what if the ice breaks?
After months of patient persuasion, I finally followed a friend out yesterday, fastened a pair of borrowed long-distance skates on my feet and gave it a go. Knowing that the ice was more than 20 centimetres thick I thought that it is now or never.
It is not easy. But after the initial Bambi-like attempts, legs going in their own directions, I actually started to like it. Gliding over the black ice, the only sound coming from the edges of the skates, trees full of snow around the lake, it is a very special way of being in nature.
Easier to work
After that excursion it was actually a lot easier to return to the office to get the latest issue of our climate magazine Effekt ready to go to print. During the last month we have been working hard, researching, writing articles about peak oil and what the implications of more expensive energy might be for society, editing articles from freelancers, finding photographers, etcetera etcetera. Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be any time to go outside. But with time I have learnt that spending too much time in front of a desk actually makes me stupid. If I get stuck with a problem I usually won’t find the solution until I give up and go out for a walk.
Good for the brain
And yesterday I read an article confirming my theory: When changing the body temperature, blood flows to more parts of the brain than just the one you were desperately trying to activate. And when more parts of the brain are processing the problem subconsciously, a solution might just appear unexpectedly.
That is why there is no coincidence that many good ideas are born far away from the desk. Which is also a very good excuse for me to keep on taking my strolling breaks.
Below a video of what long-distance ice-skating in the archipelago of Stockholm can be like. Let’s just say that I am not quite there yet…
