It began with a wheelbarrow. At fifteen, I worked two years lugging tourists' luggage with something I had constructed myself, making fifty quid a day and discovering that work, weight, and repetition could make a person.
Then came the hills and mountains, the Zugspitze in Germany, the ridges in Austria, all fast-packed with sandwiches, cowbells, and aching shoulders. And then the years of hitchhiking and sleeping out in Europe, stretching coins, working odd jobs, and discovering how far a person can go if they must.
But by 2010, the distances had increased. I pulled a 240kg wheel trailer 1,600km across the Mongolian steppe without motors or shortcuts until injury forced me out. The following year, I traversed 1,600km of the Gobi Desert with camels – heat, silence, distance. In 2012, Death Valley presented me with my greatest miscalculation I lasted a day before packing up and heading home.
The water years followed. A 42km unsupported finswim down Ireland’s Kenmare River. A 52km loop around Gozo with a donkey and a dog. A 5.7km channel swim from Gozo to Malta. XTERRA 50km Gozo Ultra, numerous triathlons and a 10km Swimrun in 2017.
Then IRONMAN Copenhagen in 2019, and again in 2021. A 12km swim under the Öresund Bridge. A 24-hour time trial on the bike: 782.6km in a single effort. Two attempts at the Öresund Strait between Denmark and Sweden, 8.8km in 2021, 16km in 2025, both cut short by currents that didn’t care about intention.
Somewhere in all of these years, I learned to hold my breath and freedive. Freediving was also a way to find silence, discipline, concentration, and serenity. I have freedived to 48 metres on a single breath. Now, I work on the safe side of the sport as a professional AIDA-certified pool and depth safety freediver.
The running years continued.
Kullamannen by UTMB in 2022: 100km of trail. Halland Ultra Beach Trail the same year: 100km, two river crossings, no fanfare. Tjörnaparen Ultra Trail: 100km through winter. And then the first attempt at running the length of Sweden in 2022, 256km with 40kg of kit before injury forced me to stop.
In 2023, I returned to the long distance events: Trans Scania, 246km across Skåne, finishing at 168km. Kullamannen by UTMB once more, this time 100 miles. Tjörnaparen once more, 100 miles through the Swedish winter. Every one a learning experience in what will hold and what will break.
In 2024 I ran 2,000km from Karesuando to Smygehuk with an 8.9kg backpack in 27 days, 5 hours, 4 minutes – the fastest known self-supported run of the entire length of Sweden. 3 weeks later, I ran 381km around Lake Vänern, Sweden's and the European Union's largest lake, self-supported with nothing but a backpack, in 4 days, 13 hours, 14 minutes. No team. No shortcuts.
2025 saw more attempts.
Another Trans Scania, 246km. Another 16km Öresund Strait crossing battling currents. And Kullamannen still stands in the middle of it all: harsh, lovely, and merciless.
Through the deserts, the straits, the lakes, the winters, the failures, the finishes, the process was always the same. Arrive. Move. Return. Not for recognition, not for reward, but because for all of my life, distance has been about finding the strength to keep moving forward, even th face of failue, when it has always been easier to stop.
I still attempt personal challenges for myself alone, not for reward, not for gain, not for anything to win. For the process, the distance, and whatever it will teach me.
This is not the story of winning. It is the story of not giving up, not giving in, not giving out. Not giving out on dreams, not giving out on challenges.
Every challenge here is about obsession, about discipline, about curiosity. Every challenge here is about finding something to fill spare time. Every challenge here is about staying alive to myself.
