{"id":493482,"date":"2026-05-20T03:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/493482\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T03:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:36:19","slug":"how-a-mother-of-3-who-runs-a-restaurant-also-wins-gruelling-trail-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/493482\/","title":{"rendered":"How a mother of 3 who runs a restaurant also wins gruelling trail races"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">It is often around 1am when Petronella Harlin closes the doors of Embla, the Nordic fine dining restaurant in Hong Kong\u2019s Sheung Wan neighbourhood that she runs with her husband, chef Jim L\u00f6fdahl. Hours later, while her family and most of Hong Kong are still asleep, she laces up her shoes and disappears onto the trails near her home on Lantau Island.<\/p>\n<p>As she approaches her 40th birthday this September, the Swede describes herself as a woman in the midst of a \u201cmidlife awakening\u201d, balancing gruelling endurance races, a demanding front-of-house role in <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/chinese-culture\/article\/3351102\/history-chinas-hospitality-industry-and-how-its-inns-evolved-over-time?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">hospitality<\/a> and raising three children under 10.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">She works 40 to 60 hours every week at the restaurant named after their eldest daughter.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWorking in high-end hospitality is an endurance sport in itself. You\u2019re on your feet in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment late into the night,\u201d says Harlin, who has called Hong Kong home for the past decade.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">She credits her sense of discipline to growing up on a dairy farm in northern Sweden, from the same region as trail running legend Emelie Forsberg.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cOn a farm, there are no snow days, no sick days. The animals and the land don\u2019t care if it\u2019s minus 20 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Running has long been a part of her life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is often around 1am when Petronella Harlin closes the doors of Embla, the Nordic fine dining restaurant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[215170,215176,869,215174,215169,215179,215171,18,215167,148818,19,17,51853,127632,215180,215168,215172,82,215177,187024,215175,215173,215178],"class_list":["post-493482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-action-sprint-trail-series","tag-ake-harlin","tag-alzheimers-disease","tag-barclays-moontrekker","tag-chef-jim-lofdahl","tag-db-trail-girls","tag-discovery-bay-action-sprint","tag-eire","tag-embla","tag-hk100","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lantau-island","tag-marathon-running","tag-oxfam-trailwalker","tag-petronella-harlin","tag-she-races","tag-technology","tag-tigers-head","tag-trail-running","tag-translantau-50km","tag-wise-hong-kong","tag-yi-pak-bay"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116604815511620418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}