Amsterdam Marathon 03:53:30

Nailed my second Marathon last sunday. This time in Amsterdam. Crossed the line at 03:53:30.

Few weeks prior to the race I began having some problems with my lower back/bum. Something to do with iskias I presume. Luckily with continuous stretching and a massage session I got things back in order right before d-day.  Everything went well during the run, but I think I should check my lower back and start streching regulary.

There were quite a few Finns running in Amsterdam and it was nice too see some white-and-blue flags along the way. Anna and I had an aprés-race dinner with friend (Riku and Sami) who also had attended to the race. We ended talking quite a bit about running and while sipping our well earned brews Sami (self)-analysed our medical case: moderate drinkers with a running problem.

Now I´m looking for upcoming skiing events and a racebike. Cervélo and Finladia-skimarathon and/or Pirkka-hiihto on my mind.

And not to forget the tunes! I started the race with a Twit-podcast follwed by few hours of  “uplifting melodic electronic epicnes” Hypem jewls crowned with Finlandia-hymn for the last strech. Feeling good just thinking about the finish at Amsterdam Olympic stadium. So much fun!

Pääkaupunkijuoksu

I participated to a “pääkaupunkijuoksu” half marathon today. Weather was ok and the track circled through beautiful trails of Pirkkola Park. Nice tour, but the arrangements could have been a bit more professional.

Service:

I arrived at the site few minutes prior to start and noticed a table with some sports drink on it and tried to take a sip. To my surprise the guy behind the desk commanded me not touch the cups and told me that they would wait there when I arrive. He also offensively asked me to drink at home? Not quite a “cheerful organiser of the year” –standard activity I would say.

Track:

The first two k´s were very crowded which I guess was expected. At the back people were walking so I was waiting for a start gate which never came. Only gross times for the whole group. Well at least I did not rupture my muscles at the start. Result: 1:54:45 (gross).

I had some sort of a food poisoning in Brussels few days ago so I was happy to run feeling well. No problems at all. Looking forward to Amsterdam.

Business as usual

Been a little lazy on wordpressing lately but here is a short summary.

Skiing: The winter passed by and the season at my hometrack at Herttoniemi was reasonably good. I attended to a 1k sprint @ Paloheinä and Finlandia Skimarathon @ Lahti. 1k -> 3.03 and the Finlandia 50k -> 03:34:56.  All skiing was done outdoors so no tubeskiing this winter.

Walking: In April we pulled the highly anctipated 100k/24h walk. 102k ->22:33h. Super-Fun! I gps´d the route with my FRWD machine (though the last 42k was corrupted in a way that I could not pull out all the data I would have wanted).

Tri on my mind: Recently I have been thinking of widening my “scope of sports” a little so I did some surveilance work on the summer holiday: Tour de France start @ Monaco, IronMan competition @ Nice and Wilier bikefactory-visit @ Italy. Looking for propper bike for next summer.

Running ahead: This fall will mosty be spent on sneakers -> 100 days to to Amstedam Marathon.

Fueling up

Gone mobile

Here it is. First mobile post on WordPress. With iPhone. So Simple.

Gadget spring

Its been serious gadget time! First discovery was Hakkapeliitta GPS navigator. Didnt own one earlyer and this one had a reasonable pricetag + “open” MS CE OS for some tuning. I have spent few nights tuning it and it works nice. Games, Speed-o-Meters, different navigation apps. There was some problems with the display but Verkkokauppa changed it for a new without any hickups.

Then just week before the big bang I finally said good bye to my psp. No need for old hw – say hi to the new boss – iPhone is in the house. After 3 days of active use it would take some serious convincing to get me back to my Nokia. 3G data, GPS with googlemaps, iPod, real browser, youtube, hundreds of cool apps (facebook, wordpress + useful things like virtual pint, lightsaber etc. ). Hard to think what is missing. People whine about the camera but guys who wish to replace their camera with tiny plastic cellphone lens should… get real. 2Megs is enough for mobile fun.

Two cons: There are obviously some problems with WEP protected wi-fi routers. DNS problem maybe. Tried Sonera Homerun and it worked perfectly but having problems @ home. Second problem is the sync with Outlook at work. I need push email and I cant live without synched calendar so this needs to be taken care of soon.

From Karhu to Karhu

The last skiing session in the end of march was a very enjoyable dark evening 20k at Herttoniemi. The track was icy and fast. Good fun! One could say perfect. Since then I have tried to motivate myself into running (after a few weeks of healing some stiches in May). The motivation obviously starts by gearing up.

I have replaced my Karhu skies with Karhu M10 sneakers. Karhu´s seem to be quite popular among growing Finnish jogging population and when a credible runner colleague of mine hyped these “revolutionary” shoes I had to give them a try. And I am still trying. So not love at first try.

They look good and feel ok, but somehow I am still looking back at my Asics Nimbus. There is always a risk of changing from a good pair to hopefully better ones. Salesclerk promissed that I would find new muscles. At least that part of the story was right so maybe there really is some “technology inside” of the shoes tested in collaboration with the world famous University of Jyväskylä.

These shoes should lower the runner’s heart rate up to 4 beats per minute and decrease oxygen consumption by 4%. Watch out! Here I come.

Marathon @ Herttoniemi

To me Easter is mostly about eating well and visiting friends and relatives. After all the delicious meals it was a good time for some easter training. This year the location was Herttoniemi 400m skitrack that was still in good shape. Three hours and 105 rounds summed up to 42k.

A marathon on such a short track required some counting up but according to FRWD replayer I did quite well (pic).

It was big fun. Sun was shining and I had some good audio in my player. This time it was podcast-only-day. No music. My long time favorite is Leo Laporte and his crew at TWIT (This Week in Tech) and TWIL (This Week in Law) mixed up with something from liberated syndication. Libsyn carries just about everything from french lessons to erotic novels, so there is a lot to choose from. At TWIT they advertise audible audiobooks. I´m not a big fan of books (too neurotic: ), but I think that I´ll give it a try soon.

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Herttoniemi Skilab

There is a 400m skitrack open at Herttoniemi sportspark. A new aspect to skiing in south of Finland. This is a true Skitrack, but like in the indoors skitube it was fun. Spinning around and around for 52 times to reach my goal (half Marathon) for this sunday.

“Kokkikolmonen” was there as well, so one more tick to my sportscelebrity checkbook. Old man skiing with style.

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Spring in February

If last year was a bad year for skiing – this year is… well it isn’t at all. There simply is no snow in Helsinki.

Zero. Nada. Niente. Aucun. Nothing at all. Except for some manmade slush.

On Thursday I attended a skiing competition on a 1k slushtrack at Paloheinä Helsinki. Sky was blue, sausages were warm and our team was in good spirit. It was a 10×1k race and we came third (out of four teams). I pulled one stretch wearing President Kekkonen look-alike costume with a cloak which helped to gain some speed.

In general the past weeks/months have been quite lazy. Some occasional fives and some gym training but I am loosing my touch.

Today I pulled a 10k at Herttoniemi. It seems that skiing is out of question so I might as well concentrate on gym for a change.