2005-04-17 Länsiväyläjuoksu (18,24 km) 1.15.16 I won a coworker, who's always been faster than me on long distances. Too bad this was effected by him getting slower, not me faster. There was no knee or foot trouble, despite pre-race worries and funny feelings in both. Of course, my calves and the small hip muscles connected to the ileotibial band were completely shot by the end, because all my training has been on a bike.
2003-06-14 Jukola (11,4 km) 1.44.37 The first orienteering competition since 1999 went reasonably well. Serious lapse of concentration on the second half: placing at 5,1 km 467., at 11,4 km 758. Details including relay by relay splits and the maps here. My foot is still not healed properly, I'm probably not going to run a marathon this year.
2003-04-13 Länsiväyläjuoksu (16,5 km) 1.09.30 The weather was pretty good, the only remains of the winter still visible is the Baltic still iced over. Despite preceding talk about 4 minutes for a kilometer, the actual pace was much less. Preceding possible repetitive strain injury in my right foot, because of which I've been more or less at rest for the last three weeks might have something to do with it.
Surprisingly enough it wasn't my legs slowing me down but a general feeling of having hit the maximum possible speed. My analysis on this is that my VO2 max is too low. I need to do more speed work if I want to do well later during the year (and what else is new). At least I got the race season underway.
2002-10-27 Modeemi-cooper 3220 m The great idea was to try for 3400 but the half inch of snow on the track thought otherwise.
2002-10-06 Pirkan hölkkä (33 km) 2.41.28 Ten minutes before the start it began to snow. The temperature never got very high, but the weather was otherwise pretty good. Even the slight snowing proved to be intermittent. I initially thought that I'd run around 2.35, but even before the half way time of 1.20 I decided against it. Towards the end I started to walk up the hills, which saved enough strength for me to run the last 3 km under 13 minutes advancing dozens of places.
2002-09-29 Pääkaupunkijuoksu (20 km) 1.25.24 In spite of a week's illness after the previous race, I all but met my aim of 1.25. Meeting the aim wise this was clearly the best race this year. With a 10 km split of 42.20 I declare my speed well distributed and the final time pretty much as good as possible in my present shape.
2002-09-03 office 1000 m 3.06 After years of winning times of over 3 minutes this year's winner ran 2.46, with the second 2.52 and my third place at 3.06 from a total of 11 participants. The first two ran their own race from the very start and the next group was a group of four with an overenthusiastic start (0.32 @ 200, 1.50 @ 600). I settled into the second position in the group after the first curve, and accelerated out of the group in the final straight.
2002-08-17 Helsinki City Marathon 3.40.23 This year's race I started perhaps slightly too fast (48.20 @ 10, 1.40 @ 21.1, 2.22 @ 30), as I had to slow down after 30 km to avoid total collapse. I walked about 500 m on the 39th kilometer, after having a sharp joint pain in my left hip (quite similar to last year, except then I had it on both sides for 12 km...). The rest of the course slowed down constantly but not very much (2.55 @ 35, 3.40 @ 42.195). Leg stiffening was really the only problem this year, which I attribute to not enough distance in training.
The west part of the HCM route was run in the opposite order to the traditional this year, in an attempt to have a faster race.
2002-08-03 Tampere Marathon 1.36.09.0 A reasonably steady speed for the whole race except for the first two slow kilometers led to a constant flow of runners to pass. This seems to be beneficial for keeping up a steady pace. After the climb up the Pyynikki the final 2 km is downhill, which I ran under 7.30. Apparently the pace could have been faster from the start, but this was the first race this year and was pretty much intended to serve as a time trial.