27th May

Today I woke up in England and went to sleep in Sweden. Jack woke up 37,000ft in the air on his way from JFK to Stockholm. He also slept in Sweden, actually in the same bed as me. It was a nice day.

We both met in Stockholm after our respective flights, and loaded all our bags onto a very sleek Swedish bus. The bus took us directly from the airport to Örebro with beautiful Swedish efficiency, stopping for maybe 2 minutes over 2.5 hours. This was certainly no American greyhound. My experience with them has been 60 of the most eclectic individuals rammed tight onto a bus, a bus that is driven by a dangerously lax (and possibly alcoholic) caffeine addict. I once took a Greyhound that was 14 hours late. Comedian Theo Von had a Greyhound ride where the man next to him had a live chicken. This was certainly not that. Wide, comfy black seats, a first-class section, and a driver who obeyed all the traffic laws. The bus took us all the way into Örebro, where we were met by Lovisa’s mother and stepdad. They were both smiling immensely. It was truly a home comfort to see them — Maja has Lovisa’s smile. Maybe Lovisa had Maja’s smile? But I think we both find comfort in viewing it this way now.

28th May

Today we packed, ate, saw the caravan and the car, prepared the caravan and car, ate some more, bought $200 worth of canned food, and packed some more.

I also spent about 30 minutes swimming in their outdoor pool. This pool was unheated, and I deliberately tried to push myself into hypothermia. I was quite successful.

I did this for 2 reasons.

1. The hot tub was right there, so I knew I was safe no matter how hard I pushed it.

2. I’d rather know what it feels like now than when it is too late.

So, what does it feel like?

Firstly, there is the immediate shock. Cold water takes your breath away; no matter how hard you train, you will always get an instant wave of panic. Even with experience, that panic is always there. I understand why — I have entered water that could kill me — of course, my body would want to sound alarm bells. But with experience, you simply recognize it, wave it hello, and completely disregard it.

After this stage, the panic fades, and the pain sets in. This is when your face, hands, arms, body, legs, toes, neck (particularly the neck), really start to hurt, and your body forces you to become aware of it. Painfully aware, if you will. It is at this stage that I have the most negative thoughts. Thoughts of quitting, warmth, and salvation in any form. Looking for the tiniest bit of respite in each stroke. When my hands sweep through the water and rise up out of the drink and above the surface, there is a half-second they aren’t submerged in water, and my brain thanks me for that. Then it curses me as I plunge it back into the water to take another stroke. This phase lasts roughly 5 minutes, but that is a very long 5 minutes.

At around 5–10 minutes, this pain is slowly replaced by numbness and an active brain. The sharp stabbing switches to soft nothingness, and my head rushes with thoughts of my actions, my movement, what I am doing, and why. I am intensely aware of my hand positioning, how fast I am swimming, how I am breathing, and how each sensation feels. All of this data was analyzed and processed, and the answers give me a thermometer. Is my body shaking? No? Carry on. Do I still have feeling in my hands? Yes? Swim faster. Are my feet going numb? Yes? Kick harder.

It is this on repeat. Again and again, the feedback loop of scanning my body for signs and signals of hypothermia. Taking on information and making adjustments.

This is until the adjustments stop working. When kicking harder doesn’t enable me to feel my feet again, if anything, they get worse.

This is the first sign for me, and when the panic comes back. But this time, I don’t suppress the panic — I welcome it. I embrace the spur of energy my body is giving me to exit the water, and I finally follow my body’s instructions.

It was at this point, in Orebro, where I got out, dried off, and jumped into the hot tub.

I don’t know if you have ever seen anyone shiver in a hot tub before, but it is quite a sight. I recall I bundled up into a ball, complaining, and looking around to see if anyone else thought it was too cold. They all looked at me with concern as I shook and shook and shook. My skin had turned both pale white and bright red. The hot tub was 39˚C (102˚F).

29th May

Today we drove for 6 hours and experienced the nightmare of a campervan without electricity. We had left the fridge on the entire night, and it had drained the entire caravan’s electricity until we had no more left to even boil water. We also had the unfortunate situation of needing to charge our phones to act as our GPS while navigating Sweden, and more importantly, to constantly reassure our family that we were alive and well. I know in particular I have a very nervous mother and girlfriend (and rightly so, based upon what I am doing).

We didn’t realize the campervan had no electricity until we were cursed with finding the most picturesque and perfect spot. It was located on the bank of a serene blue lake, overlooking a spectacular Swedish town. The town revolved around the paper and pulp industry. I think it says a lot when a towering and sprawling gas-spewing factory is both elegant and doesn’t take from the town’s elegance.

With this predicament, we moved the campervan to a campsite with electricity. We drove, we scoured, we found only a locked reception and electricity outlets secured by key. Bollocks. We then had to drive to the next campsite, a painful 30-minute drive back the way we just came. It was around 21:00.

Once at this new campsite, there was also a locked reception. This was something we were willing to surmount. What we couldn’t surmount was the hill to enter the campsite, and we left about 8 dents, each 3 inches in depth on their gravel path. On the final attempt, we rose to the top of the hill after a long run up, going 30km/hr over a speed bump, and made it to what would be our lovely camping spot. Fortunately, this place didn’t have key locks on its electrical plugs, and we reasoned that we could just pay them in the morning (and, as it turned out, in the morning this is very normal and explicitly permitted on their sign).

After arriving, I dipped in the nearest cold river, Jack made some pasta, and we ate meatballs. The canned meatballs were fucking horrendous. Truly, just fucked. Also, what was worse — of that $200 we spent on canned food, it turns out what we thought was canned chicken was actually an incredibly rich chicken paté, of which we have now have 6 cans.

29th May

The next day, we woke up early and headed off to the next stop, and the next. Another 6.5 hour drive that day. It was a calm journey, broken up by petrol stops, lunch in another lovely town, and an interview with local Swedish media. In the evening, we arrived at another campsite, again with a closed reception, and fortunately with unlocked electricity boxes. We also reason that today we can pay in the morning, but we found their online portal. I forgot that this is Sweden, and even the most remote campsite in the Arctic Circle takes Apple Pay.

This was also the day I found out my story was on the BBC World Service. I believe they average a million daily listeners. I was after a story on the Iran-US war and Ebola in South Sudan. All very important people, and my god, I feel out of place.

This evening I plunged into a cold river, ate some chicken and left over pasta (without the meatballs, thank god), and slept a glorious sleep.

May 30th

I started the day with 6 boiled eggs. It is the day before the start. Nervous would be an understatement. We packed away the caravan in our typical routine and drove a final 2 hours north, crossing to the most northern point of the trip we shall ever reach. It is bleak up here, but in a rather spectacular kind of way. You can tell that life here is difficult to maintain. The trees look barren and afraid, the sky is an ominous grey, and the rocky outcrops feel as though they were carved out of ice only last week. This is a place humans should not live. It does not need to brag or bluster to make me fear it. It has a cold indifference as to what I am about to do.

I also paid my rent today for my apartment back in State College. There is something a little absurd about being here, doing this, and yet something so normal in life goes on without me.

May 31st

Today I swam just over 4km across the Arctic Circle into the regular Circle? I’m not sure how to define where I am now, but tomorrow I will run a marathon from that exact point. The swim was split into 2 x 2 km legs due to hypothermia risk. My wetsuit is rated for 45 minutes below 5˚C, and swimming for 1 hour and 30 minutes in front of my mother seemed irresponsible. It was certainly the right call, as I was starting to lose feeling in my fingers and toes by the end of the first swim. For the second swim, I ended it dizzy, stumbling over myself as I removed my wetsuit due to the cold and the water in my ears. I don’t say this for pity; I was certainly not hypothermic, but I could see it in the mountains waving at me.

The swim(s) felt strong. My arms felt suitably weathered from the training, and the wetsuit did a good job of protecting me from the cold shock of the water (but not well enough to prevent me from shivering 30 minutes in). There was a vast, imposing, and snowy mountain range to the west that I handrailled for navigation, always trying to swim parallel to it to keep me straight. I breathed bilaterally. To keep my mind occupied, I ran through the alphabet from A to Z, listing 2 boys’ and 2 girls’ names. I got stuck at Q for women and X for men. I also had the song ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ stuck in my head, alongside the chorus of the Pina Colada song.

I am so unbelievably grateful for all the support. My parents and Lovisa’s parents flew/drove all the way to the middle of nowhere just to help me. Jack has been working like a dog, and my god, the messages I have received have been absolutely lovely, not to mention the donations. What a time to be alive…

June 1st

1st marathon down. I’ve been ruminating about Lovisa, and my shoulders were more sore than I thought — paddling hard through the cold, plus fighting the wetsuit to even just extend my arms, really left its mark, but oh well, I don’t need my shoulders to run. Now, after the first marathon, my hips are the most painful aspect, completely distracting from my shoulders, so that’s a quiet victory. Feet and legs are feeling fine, just some small blisters around my insoles. Nothing that I haven’t dealt with before. The only inconvenience today was that when I arrived at the finish line, no one was there… luckily, 2 minutes later, Jack and my mum arrived. I am really just grateful that they are here.

The support has been amazing. I got to list out those who donated over $1,000 and for whom they did it. Two were for Melissa and Tim, who have helped me set up the fundraising, one for Peter and Annika (who is Lovisa’s father, which led to somewhat of an inception as this thing is really for her), and finally, it was my academic adviser, Dr. Menefee, who has been our biggest fan and incredibly supportive of her two Ph.D. students doing this insane triathlon.

My aim is to sleep well tonight and email everyone I know to get them to share it!

It’s also the first time I have done anything like this, but this is also not exactly true.

In 2024, I hiked Mount Nittany up and down 49 times until I accrued the full 29,100 ft height of Mount Everest. It took a continuous 35.5 hours. I called this hike ‘Mount Neverest’. Before that, in 2021, I walked 450 miles from Glasgow in Scotland to London, England, and in 2022, I walked across Hadrian’s Wall in the north coast of England non-stop over 70 miles in 30 hours. They were all done to fundraise for charity, but Mt Neverest and this upcoming triathlon mean a lot more to me personally.

In 2023, a speeding black sports car in a 30mph zone jumped up the sidewalk and struck my fiancée. I lost Lovisa Arnesson-Cronhamre that night. That is my why.

My why is that I want to tell the world about Lovisa. I want to scream her name. Kind, considerate, caring, fiercely intelligent, hardworking, and both physically and mentally strong. Lovisa was, in all senses and connotations, the perfect daughter. A smiley Swede, with wavy blonde hair, usually matched with a floral skirt and a skip in her step. She also studied a PhD in Physics, while able to deadlift 320lbs. What a woman. She would insist all these aspects were exaggerated, but they aren’t.

I implore you not to compare your why to mine. Comparison is the thief of joy. Running because you enjoy your life is equally valid, as is losing 5lbs, beating a parkrun PB, or purely trying to have an impressive Strava post, in the same way that I try not to compare my grief to those who have lost more than me. Any person who has lived a full life has lost more than I can fathom. But what I am trying to say, is that I try not to run from my why. I take Lovisa on all my runs.

However, I am worried about my why. I am worried if my why will be enough to take me the full distance.

I am worried I am not training sufficiently. I am also worried that I am not giving my day job the effort it requires, because my training has taken away from the full attention it deserves. I know I cannot do both, and be one man. I guess I have to do both as best I can. That’s not very satisfying.

Any advice?

I want to make it very clear that Lovisa died pursuing her dreams. She was running on the sidewalk, and she died. She did nothing wrong, and there wasn’t anything more she could have done in her situation. She was airlifted to hospital, but it was too late. I was lucky enough to be able to hold her hand when she was pronounced dead. She was still beautiful.

I don’t think I will ever be able to process that moment, and I don’t think I want to. But when she died, she died in full pursuit of her dreams. Can you imagine the relief that gives me. If that happened to you, could you say the same? You probably don’t think it would happen to you, and I still believe that it would never happen to me. But it could happen to those you love and is that something you are willing to live with? I don’t know if I could.

Lovisa came to America with me to pursue a PhD in physics. She was following her dream. It was her fascination from a young age, right up until she died. Can you say that about your life? I don’t know if I can say that about mine. Sometimes I went where life took me. Lovisa had aspects of that as well, and I think we all do, we cannot fully control our lives.

However, Lovisa lived as an example for us all. She took control of her life. She lived how she wanted to live, by sheer will. The physics department, when she applied, didn’t have the funding to support her, but she was so capable she willed her way there anyway. She, along with the support of everyone who saw her passion and capability, found a way to make it work. She was accepted for a PhD in Architectural Engineering, doing machine learning applied to chemistry while she took physics classes. No one has done that before, and it’s not in the University rules, but she found a way, by sheer will.

So if Lovisa can help you in any way, it’s that you too should take control of what you can, and if there isn’t a way, do what Lovisa did, and will a new way.

Spend ‘Kompis time’.

I barely eat, I scream and cry every night, I get headaches from dehydration because I am crying so much, but through all of this, I smile, because I had the best time with her, right up until her death. And that time wasn’t something extravagant. We didn’t do a whole lot. We just cleaned the flat, had coffee and watched a film. But we did that together, and [we] took the whole day for each other. No work, no stress, nothing more important in our minds than spending that time. Every Saturday morning we had ‘Kompis time’ (Kompis means ‘buddy’ in Swedish) blocked off in the diary.

It’s still in our diary, and I’m not going to remove it, because it’s non-negotiable. When I think back on my life with her, it’s this time I think about. Every Saturday morning we were together. From waking until midday, normally longer. The fact it was non-negotiable was her idea. Nothing was more important than that time, and it could change as to what we were doing that morning, but we were together.

So I ask you, in Lovisa’s memory, to take some ‘Kompis time’. Spend that time with someone you care about and be uncompromising. Don’t miss it because you are tired, or you are working or doing something else, because I promise you, when you die, that is all everyone around you will regret. Take Kompis time, schedule it in, because that’s truly the legacy you leave.

Make things nice.

Lovisa made things nice. If her life was to be summarised crudely it would be that, and that’s the best way to live. If we were having breakfast, she would light a candle and make lovely food. If we were in a room, she would make sure she met everyone with a smile and made them feel welcome. If she had a shower, she would play music and really take the time to enjoy it. If she was doing something she was all in, and her environment reflected that.

Make things nice, Lovisa would have wanted that.

Remove your ego.

There was no room in her brain for ego, the kindness pushed it all out. She took ownership over her life, her future, and anything she could control. She was unbelievably well qualified. She left University having worked a year as a software consultant, created a Swedish language course, worked with two different particle physics research groups, and with a Masters in Physics and Astrophysics. She also was the third strongest University student in Scotland for her weight class in powerlifting. And she did this with zero ego.

If you asked her if she was smart, she would say she was average. If you asked her if she was strong, she would say she’s “ok”. If you asked her if she’s done enough, she would say “I could have done more”. She went into every situation with zero ego, and that’s what made her so capable.

If you can learn anything from Lovisa, have self-belief but don’t have an ego. She got so far because she wasn’t scared to admit what she didn’t know, and she never lied to herself pretending she did know. Admit you don’t know, remove your ego, and grow as Lovisa would want you to.

Die trying.

Lovisa died trying. She died trying to follow her dream and trying to make the world a better place. She had a book of 3000 questions and, every now and then, she would write in an answer to a question as a way to relax and journal her thoughts.

The book asked, ‘Do you have a calling in life?’

She answered: “I think I have many callings: to be a mum, to make the world slightly better, to contribute to physics, to love people and make them feel loved.”

She died following all of those, every single one. And notice the language, she didn’t want to be a great physicist, she wanted to ‘contribute to physics.’ She didn’t want to change the world, she wanted to make it ‘slightly better’. She didn’t want to just love and be loved, she wanted people to ‘feel loved’. There is a difference.

Say ‘I love you’.

Lovisa and I said we loved each other, I am not joking, probably an average of 30 times a day. That might seem stupid, and it would seem like it would invalidate the word and dilute it, but it didn’t. When you think about your loved ones, if you thought of them all the time, there are probably 30 different times in a day you could say you love them. So say it.

I have no regrets that Lovisa and I said it as much as we said it, because you never know when you will last see someone. When she died, I have no doubt in my mind she knew I loved her and she loved me. No doubt, and that keeps me going. I cannot begin to imagine how I would have felt if I even held back one ‘I love you’. So say it, to everyone you love, even if they don’t feel the same way back, because you never know what will happen.

Be more Lovisa.

About Lovisa.

Lovisa Arnesson-Cronhamre. 1998–2023

Lovisa Arnesson-Cronhamre was struck by a car on Tuesday 13th September 2023 and was pronounced dead in UPMC Altoona, holding the hand of her to be Fiancée Matthew, just one month into their new life in America.

From the family of Lovisa.

Lisa. Our Lovisa.

It is with heavy hearts that we write these words. We know that many of you knew Lovisa. A beloved daughter. Sister. Fiancée and friend.

This is not how it was supposed to be.

Early yesterday morning, Swedish time, we learned that Lisa was hit by a car at a very high speed. The injuries were so severe that her life was lost.

It’s impossible to comprehend. Every part of my being resists the unbelievable. You are no longer here.

The last time I held a speech was at your graduation. If only I had known what was to come, I would never have let you go. But you were living your dream. Our brave girl. You had barely spent a month at Penn State.

Then it ended. Abruptly and far too soon. Not everything that happens truly has a purpose.

Your life had only just begun. Now it’s over.

We will love you until time runs out.

Our Lovisa.

From her to be Fiancé.

Lovisa,

We had already discussed we were going to get married.

I was going to propose in the fall, I was going to find a nice clearing in the trees, and when the first snow of fall came in, I was going to get down on one knee and spend the rest of my life with you.

We had it all planned out together.

After our PhDs, we were going to move to Stockholm together, to be closer to your family.

She wanted to be a mother, and we were going to have two kids together.

I just want to see you one more time.

Lovisa was the kindest person I have ever met, she was considerate in every way she could be, and she loved greatly, her family and friends.

You had so much life left to live, but in your time, you gave more than enough love and kindness to last 1000 years.

I will always love you Kompis.