Espoo BeachMarathon

My first ½marathon as a rabbit!

It's been a week since last run, but I got the chance to participate as a rabbit on Espoo BeachMarathon. Free run as rabbit, fame & glory so why not!

That and from last run (Kaisaniemi marathon) there was no signs of injuries or anything. I was good to go and try being a rabbit.

Rabbit... hopefuly I don't end up laying on the floor chilling like this bunny does

Espoo and my way making it to the running location

Espoo (area in Finland) isn't that familiar to me, as a place, so I had to leave early from my home so I could make sure I wouldn't be late from anything important. Though we had a rabbit-meeting the day before, where all the relevant information was told to us. So I had a hinch where I should be and at what time. But it's never bad to be 110% sure, that everything goes according to plan.

I got on to a bus from Centre of Helsinki, that was heading towards the running place and started making my way to the next best experience ever.

Lot's of other runners took the same bus as I did, so I didn't have to worry about where was I needed to get off from the bus. That's probably one of the many great things in running events, lots of people wearing sport clothing packed in same place, headed the same way as you are.

I got to the running place and took quick sneak peek at the place. I found all the important places (like the officials cafe... free food and coffee, yum), got my staff access card, then proceeding to swap my clothes to my running outfit at the officials changing rooms.

Officials access-card

 I was one hour too early, but it's fine, since I had my smartphone with me and there was connection to internet. My trusted Samsung S2... Great phone, need to upgrade it later on to S4.

I didn't need to wait too long, before other rabbits started pouring in to the changing rooms and I met my other team mates, that would ran with me as rabbits.

Lucky for me they were pro's and veterans in running Espoo BeachMaraton. So I could take it easy and just follow their lead. I'm such a lazy guy it makes me blush sometimes...

We took a balloon with our estimated net time on it and took few photos to post on Facebook. After that we proceeded to go where the warming up exercises were held by Fressi (fitness company, gym etc.). Some of the moves they did looked so silly, that I didn't quite follow their warming up session, but the audience seemed to be 110% into it. Good job Fressi!

Me with the 2.05 estimated running-time balloon

Fressi warming people up!

Some people were brave enough to start moving the way pro as girls from Fressi were doing

After warming excercise, we headed to the starting line where we would start our journey to the unknow. Or at least around Espoo. Whichever comes first.

Starting line

AND THE RACE STARTS!

No big surprises here, ran went smoothly, beautiful view of landscape, beaches, yachts, boats... and stuff. Really good journey to the unknown.

I'm not sure was the race itself really hard or were people just trying too good times, because there were many injured people/ ambulancess called and even one helicopter was ordered to pick up person who was being cpr on. I really, really hope he gets better... Also there was one person who apparently gave up few kilometers (~1 mile) before the finishing line... I wanted to go shout at her "YOU AREN'T GIVING UP HERE, GET UP AND START WALKING!", but she probably had told the staff members about she quitting already... Which is really, really shame. Good luck to you next time miss!

The funny part about the race was that the end of it would be running uphill road for a while, which the other rabbit team member told me about. Well, I didn't really think the uphill would be that tiring... But it was quite interesting to notice how before the uphill, there was lots of people behind us and after the uphill there were just few running with us, going for our estimated time...

Well, after the uphill there is always downhill (even in life, sadly), which made the last hundread of meters seem peace of cake.

Hi!
(Our balloon broke @Hansasilta)

LOOK AT ME IM A BUNNY, I HOP *hops*

Hopping is surprisingly tiring...

aaaaaand we finished the race in time! Yay, way to go team 2.05 rabbits!

 

Team Rabbit!

Medal <3 I'm like a kid on x-mas eve, when it comes getting medals :D

All in all my first experience as a rabbit was very good. I'm happy I joined the Espoo Beachmarathon Rabbit team. and definetly will come here again next year. Even if the rabbit spots are full, I'm most definetly wanting to join us a regular runner (and beat my earlier records, hehe).

 Random stuff

Lots of people particapated!

Thanks for reading! next blog post will be something else than running!