Race report: Raasto Kymppi in Turku: 10000m - DNF
Long time without a blog-post: The reason that I was out of Jyväskylä and visited Miikas home place in Parkano. We went there on last Thursday and on Friday we continued our journey to Turku to compete in a 10.000m race.
It turned out that Friday was not my day, because I dropped out of the race after approx. 4,5km. The splits until this point were 3:11/3:06/3:12/3:11. I never really found into the race and somehow I was not ready to push myself to the limit. Now, there would be a lot of reasons to explain this "black-out" (e.g. the late starting time of 21.25) but that doesn't change the fact that I dropped out. There were some good results, for example the big PR of Miika how won the competition in 30:11,83min so it can't be about the conditions. Of course I am asking myself a lot of questions now and you just think that you are doing everything wrong but I try to motivate myself by running a competition next weekend again (hopefully).
After the competition we stayed one night in Turku and then went back to Miikas house. It was a nice time and it's just so relaxing to think about nothing - no deadlines, no emails, no commitments. After a medium-long run on Sunday morning we went back to Jyväskylä by train. After all it was a nice holiday for me (except for the competition - maybe too much holiday feeling :) and it was nice to spend some time on Finnish countryside in a Finnish family.

Race report: Paavo Nurmen kisat in Turku: 5000m - 15:29,89
Facts first: kilometer splits were 3:01/3:05/3:07/3:13/3:04. Place was 21st and the weather and conditions were very good.
Yesterday I went to Turku to compete in a 5000m race. It was a real big competition with an international field and a lot of spectators. I just realised what I did when I warmed up on the track and felt the competition atmosphere - I was not expecting to run in front of such a big crowd and against the best Finnish distance runners (+some Kenyans). Well, the race unfolded quite as expected and also the time was just what I expected. Afterwards I just blame myself for "falling asleep" during the 4th kilometer (3:13) behind another runner and not pushing the pace myself. Anyway, I can't remember to be lapped after not much more than 3km in a 5000m race - that tells a lot about the quality of the field. The winner (Silas Sang/KEN) ran a 13:36 and with Jussi Utriainen and Matti Räsänen 2 Finns went sub-14. Mate Miika was the 3rd Finn and ran a PB of 14:28,11. Respect to all the performances achieved in the race.

What else happened in the last week? Germany lost the final in the EURO 2008 (if you haven't noticed yet) and I am working on the marathonscene-project. Besides there are a lot of other small things - mainly related to business or the question "How to survive without a fixed income" :).


Also training is going into the right direction again. Last week I could log 12 runs and ~150km.