eftermiddag

I am very grateful to the organizers of the Zurich marathon, because for some reason they've decided to extend the time limit from 5 hours to 5 hours and 30 minutes. I have a lot to show for my marathon training so far - one completely disgusting black toenail, a strange blood blister on the other foot, really frustrating shin splints that have only finally gone away, and an unparalleled understanding of Stockholm geography and bridges and paths along the water - but that does not include the ability to confidently assert that I will finish the marathon in under 5 hours without severely hurting myself (my shins).

Yesterday I did a really pleasant 6 miles on the treadmill at Sturebadet, plus a lot of strength training that makes it painful to sit down today. This afternoon, I did another really nice 6 mile run, this time across Långholmen and Västerbron (the Western bridge, literally - it connects Södermalm to Kungsholmen, basically). I ran down Norr Mälarstrand and then got to see the gardens/courtyards of Stadshuset, city hall, which was really beautiful. There's some strange gold mummy statue on one side of it. Then, to Gamla Stan briefly and over the bridge back to Södermalm, along Söder Mälarstrand, once around Reimersholme for good measure, and home. It's sort of incredible to me that I went to so many different places yet only covered 6 miles. The geography of Sweden is so expansive, yet Stockholm is really so compact.

Now it's late afternoon and I still haven't done any work. I had a horrendous week last week, for no good reason other than getting really homesick and lonely and fussy, and got nothing done, so this weekend I'm trying to make up for it. The project I'm working on right now is the one I developed on early life factors - specifically, birth weight for gestational age, birth length, maternal parity (how many other children has your mother had), parental social class at birth, maternal age at birth, and I can't think of what else right now - and later risk for suicide. It's a slightly grim subject to be spending so much time on, but I do think it's really interesting and important. I was hoping to focus more on the affective disorders/depression outcome, and hopefully we will still get to that, but suicide ended up being easier to start with because it's a more simple outcome to analyze. The next two articles to read in my queue are called "Medical Illness and the Risk of Suicide in the Elderly," and "Antenatal maternal stress and long-term effects on child neurodevelopment: how and why?"