Despite the white peaks of distant mountains, there was no snow on the ground in the Arctic Circle. At least not in Swedish Lapland at the end of May. A week earlier, however, Lake Vuoggatjålmjaure was frozen, and its newly defrosted water was icy cold.

No wonder I was concerned.

The next morning my son, Penn State grad student Matthew Hollingham, was going to swim across this dangerously chilly lake. It would be the start of his 3,500-mile Arctic to Africa Challenge in honor of his fellow grad student and fiancée, Lovisa Arnesson-Cronhamre, who was hit by a car and killed in 2023 while jogging in State College.

Like any proud mother, I had flown from the UK with his father to support Matthew. But because the water was around 40°F, I picked a fight instead.

“It’s too cold. You could get hypothermia.”

“I’m wearing a wet suit.”

“It can’t sustain these temperatures for a two-and-a-half-mile swim. I’ve Googled it.”

“Stop worrying. I’ll swim the first half, see how I am, warm up, and then if I’m OK will swim the rest.”

I tried another approach.

“Why don’t you go in the other direction? That way you’d cross the Arctic Circle near the start and if it’s too cold...”

“Mother.”

A warning shot had been fired. He would not change his mind.

“I know it’s brutally cold,” Matthew said, “and when I get in it’s going to be a massive shock. The wetsuit absorbs some of that and water’s going to leak into the wetsuit, but that’s fine. It’s gonna warm me up. My face is going to go red and numb and I’ll start hurting but I’ll adapt. If I’m in trouble, I’ll signal.”

The next morning, Matthew waded into the lake and started swimming. I watched, anxious yet touched by his determination to honor the young woman who inspired this tribute.

Lovisa Arnesson-Cronhamre, from Orebro, Sweden, was smart, beautiful, sporty. She was also loved. Her mother, Maja, stepfather, Jakob, and youngest sister Alvina were in the Arctic Circle, too, and Lovisa’s father, Peter, had lent Matthew a car and caravan. It was truly a family affair.

This wasn’t his only support. Penn State engineering grad student Jack Hughes, from Texas, was doing all the driving, logistics, social media, and filming. My husband had taken a small boat course to accompany Matthew across the lake with Jack in case of an emergency. Plus, there had been help from his Penn State family in Happy Valley.

At the halfway mark Matthew emerged from the water with a red, swollen face. Jack and Richard shivered from the cold but Matthew was in good shape. By the end of the afternoon he had completed day one of the world’s longest triathlon and narrowly missed a moose, which charged across the shallow lake shoreline minutes beforehand.

Just 37 daily marathons in Sweden and 24 daily 100-mile-plus cycles across 10 more countries to go before reaching Morocco.

That evening, in a small cabin, we ate home-cooked food brought from Orebro. We all wore blue Everton shirts—a surprise gift from Jakob—each with “Hollingham” on the back. Everton Football Club was Matthew’s soccer team, as his late grandad Bill, my father, had once played for their under-21 team in the 1950s. Now we were all Team Hollingham.

The next day we cheered Matthew off on marathon number one. He made a poignant sight, jogging into the distance, dwarfed by the landscape. A sole runner along the grassy banks of the E45, Sweden’s longest road. 

Matthew’s first issues were with reindeer. They may look cute but can be dangerous during the spring when calving, and he admitted to being more than a little worried. 

“They’re scary,” he said.

But he completed his first 26 miles unscathed. The next time we’d see him would be at Lovisa’s family home.

Following his progress from the UK was more nerve-wracking. On day four Matthew got an unexpected knee injury. It involved his IT band, a strip of tissue running from the top of the shin bone down the outside of the thigh to the hip, and is a common injury among long distance runners. He also sprained his quad. After two years’ training, it was tough.

It was clear that Matthew was in a lot of pain. After advice, he slowed the pace to a near walk for a couple of days to recover. 

“I’m not stopping,” he said.

I asked Richard why our son was so “bloodyminded” and received a pointed stare. 

Despite carb loading, Matthew was visibly losing weight. The daily physical toll causes extreme fatigue. His life is eat, run, eat, sleep. In between, he records videos for Instagram, which Jack edits with impressive speed. 

The small town of Skattungbyn offered a welcome routine break after marathon 20. Locals in traditional costume and flowers in their hair raised a maypole and danced around it for Midsommar. 

By the time we returned to Sweden, on June 23, Matthew’s knee pain had subsided and the outlook was more positive. After marathon 24, he was reunited with his British and Swedish families. Lovisa’s home would be our base for several days, and that night he ate three huge portions of Jakob’s ragu bolognese and several slices of Maja’s cheesecake.

“It’s completely refreshed my mental state,” Matthew said.

Later he played the piano beneath a picture of Lovisa taken at a Midsommar, her head tilted back in the sunshine smiling, a wreath of flowers on her head.

There have been plenty of media interviews along the way and, before Matthew flew to Europe,  LaVar Arrington, the Penn State legend and former Washington Redskins and New York Giants NFL player, got in touch. He filmed an interview with Matthew at the Penn State Arboretum, near the tree planted in Lovisa’s honor, to be broadcast on ROAR+ in August. But Arrington also wanted to do a live Instagram feed while Matthew was having a massage that Maja had arranged after one of his marathons.

There, in the living room of Lovisa’s family home, Arrington did a livestream from L.A. with Matthew lying on a massage table. Throughout the broadcast Arrington was warm and unbelievably supportive. The interview was interspersed with laughter, especially when the masseuse hit a particularly tight muscle and Matthew winced with pain. 

“It was a surreal experience,” Matthew said, “and also resulted in donations, which is great. He’s a real professional, a really nice man. You can tell he cares about it.”

Since Richard and I could help with logistics, Jack got some deserved down time but was still editing social media videos. 

“It kind of takes the pressure off because I go from being the only helper to having a real team, and that’s lovely, but then it re-centers you on the goal,” said Jack. “In marathons people do all over the world, there’s a finish line and a parade and a party at the end. But he’s doing this every day, and there’s never a parade and there is never a party. Being here is the parade.”

I asked about the emotional aspect of being together during this intense period. 

“Every day has a different challenge,” he admitted. “We’ve done as good of a job as any two dudes whose frontal lobes aren’t really fully developed yet.”

The individual donations and messages are motivating. They range from “Thank you for working to create a ray of hope out of such a dark incident...” to “WE ARE...very proud of you. From an alumna who reads the CDT and the Penn Stater. Stay strong.”

Others, like “This is in honor of your quad! You can do this!!” made Matthew laugh. 

Many show an understanding of why he is putting his body through this. It is to honor someone no longer with us—something many of us understand. 

“Some people in the donations have mentioned someone they’ve lost. One woman wrote in memory of her husband, TJ, who died of cancer,” said Matthew. 

“Another person donated a mile to the son he’d lost four years ago. He was someone I’ve worked with, and I never knew that, so it’s been really incredible that people get to feel that love again. I’m very grateful.”

The messages have touched him beyond belief. So far he’s raised over $22,000 between Centre County Youth Service Bureau in PA and the Save the Children charity as well donations toward the Be More Lovisa scholarship set up by her parents at the Eberly College of Science.

But Matthew’s fundraising aim is ten times that. Naturally he’s an overachiever like his mother. Many are waiting for the finish line before donating, but this is the middle wilderness phase—so give him a boost if you can.

All the parents will next meet up in Cologne, Germany, during his cycle phase. Richard and I will head to Tangier on July 30 for the end of Matthew’s epic challenge.

Many of us want to honor those we have loved and lost. Matthew, at 25, is doing this earlier than most through Lovisa. But as a mother, I can’t relax until he gains weight, puts his feet up and has a pedicure. His feet look pretty disgusting.

Sue Nelson is a British journalist and Matthew’s proud mum. To support Matthew’s fundraising, which benefits Centre County Youth Service Bureau, Save the Children International, and the Be More Lovisa Graduate Student Endowed Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science, go to "Arctic to Africa" at happyvalley.com.