'Marathons are more like a warm-up for us'
'Marathons are more like a warm-up for us'
Two Swedish Easter witches are giving up the spring festivities in Sweden to run 3,000 kilometres from Istanbul back home to Stockholm with all their gear packed tight into a pram. Kristina Paltén and Carina Borén are The Local's pick for Swede(s) of the Week.
Paltén and Borén are eating a fruit salad of grapes, pineapple and melon at Arlanda Airport when The Local calls. Their flight for Turkey leaves shortly.
Firm friends since 2010, when they ran the first 70 kilometres together at the Täby Extreme Challenge, the two women are set to spend three and a half months on the road.
A query if they are veteran marathon runners is met with a friendly bemused scoff.
"Marathons aren't really our thing, they're more like a warm-up," says Paltén, who grew up in Piteå in Sweden's far north.
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The last few days in Sweden have been a flurry of events, last-minute preparations and saying goodbye to friends and family.
Borén's little sister even gave her a crocheted miniature running shoe, filled with notes from sister to sister to be read along the route.
"I don't know what the pieces of paper say, but I'm looking forward to reading them," Borén wrote on her blog carinaboren.se (see link below).
http://www.thelocal.se/46994/20130328/#.UVs9FDegSSo