Important factor in running - how you feel about it, HCR 2014

Specsavers Helsinki City Run 10.5.2014

 

The most favourite half marathon event in Finland, the Helsinki City Run has been held once again. I had big hopes and major goals for this years HCR-run, how did it go?

There are bad news and there are good news. In the movies and tv-series, they always start with the good news. This year HCR was so surprisingly positive as a event, so let's leave the good news as last and start off with the bad news.

Bad news...

There are many factors that affect your running: Training, eating properly, sleeping enough, your set goals, how fit you are, avoiding injuries, correctrunning techniques and what matters the most - how you feel about it. If you don't have great feeling "everything will go perfectly 110% today!", then you can expect everything to go as planned.

I haven't had feeling like that for awhile, well particularly for HCR. That might have affected the outcome of my run. Last year, around December, I was high in spirits and was looking forward to breaking my personal records big time. I even dared to challenge one of my former schools teachers and a good friend of mine to participate in the run. Both of them initially accepted the challenge and I decided to train faster harder better, so I would beat them 10-0.

Closing in on year 2014 start of the Helsinki City Run, it came clear to me, that neither of them was going to take part of this challenge after all. This might have affected on my feelings for the run, but there were other reasons aswell. Bad preparing, eating badly and not enough proper training. Excuses one could find endlesly, but in the end you have to man up and look into the mirror and find the reason why the race went as it did. No excuses. Let's leave them to the policians.

Year 2014 Helsinki City run ½marathon time for me was 2hours,04minutes. Far, far from my goal of 1hour45minutes.  As I laid there on the Olympic Stadiums grassfield, I just thought of many things. Many things. Some of them aren't fit enough to be written on a blog with all age people reading

The sight as I was laying on the field...

Luckily for me, human learn from mistakes. That should hold true for me aswell. Learning for this, I need to start working towards the next marathon and make it even better. No excuses. That's my new motto. Run like you've never ran before. The most important thing is that you finish what you start. The worst thing possible you could do, is to quit without proper reason (like injury)!

Thumbs up for next years City Run!

 I have around one month for my next marathon. Let's see how I do there.

My socks unsigned their contract.

 Then the good, positive sides of Specsavers Helsinki City Run 2014

Ok, so I wanted to leave the good side of the event as last. There were many, many good things about the running event to tell about.

The starting groups: HCR took advices from other internation running events and organized more starting groups for this year HCR. There were more than ten thousand runners expected to participate on this event, so the smooth start of the run was needed. This was done very good this year. Everyone seemed to think so. Even I enjoyed this years start.

Helsinki Cityrun 2014 official race shirt was orange-coloured.

 The race route was correct lenght this year. At least it felt a bit longer :D - last year it was missing a good few hundread meters. So techniculy I ran my full-lenght first HCR half marathon this year. The route was challenging enough, beautiful landscapes. The last few kilometer uphills were quite pain for the legs though...

The supporters along the running route was magnificent as always. The weather wasn't the best, but people were cheering like it was a hot summer day. This is veryimportant factor for runners to keep going.

Finishing line and last service point after finishing was organized differently this year. It's good to see the organizes listen to feedback and do properly things. The servicepoint in the goal was working like a dream and no major queues for the bananas etc. was in sight this year - unlike last year, which took 15 minutes to get your final drinks/foods.

My item storage bag and goodies I received after finishing the race.

 The item storage was done differently this year also. We were handed out green sailor bags, which we just put our running number sticker and put our stuff inside the bag. Then we gave the bags to a certain fenced area. There was security to keep the bags in place and it worked really well. Previously we just  have had to leave our stuff laying on the benches inside olympic stadium, which did give some excitement, as would you get your stuff back. So this years fenced solution worked really, really good.

Item storage place. Items were put in bags, which was given to the officials.

 This blog post was a bit lenghty, going from emotional whining to happiness of enjoyable running event, but that's how it goes sometimes. Now I just need to get my focus back and continue to train. Next year I will get under 1hour 45minutes in HCR!

This year Helsinki City Run was 10/10. I recommend to participate if you haven't before.

Helsinki City Run 2014 Medal

Kulta Katriina offered free coffee! Yes!

 What about my lovelyreaders, have you participated in HCR before? Was this your first time, How did your run go?

New year 2014 promises

The promises of a new year and the progress how it's going so far.

 

Almost everyone makes new year promises, at least once in their lifetime. But how many how those promises are actually being kept and what is the reason people make them? Why is it that hard to keep up on promises of something that is good to you in long terms, like healthy lifestyle?

Well let's face it, making promises is easy - Keeping them isn't. That's the basic concept which I came up with (aren't I a smart  one :D ). Too high goals, without ambition and drive to complete them isn't the best mix. That is the very reason one should make decisions, or in this case promises, to have long term goals that benefit you. It doesn't matter if you have the ambition to drop eating candies, or starting to go gym regularly, if you are just going to drop it once you slip from your goal. Missing going to gym once isn't the end of the world, the choice to not go at all because of that one slip is though.

This exactly why I have made a counterattack to my lazyness(!) Instead of just one or two difficult promises, I made fifteen (15) promises! Yes you read that correctly. I made fifteen promises, so breaking few doesn't still sink my boat of awesomeness. I even put all of them on my Facebook cover, so they reminds me of their existence. However, the person I am, I'm trying my utmost best to keep them all happening. This is something a rap artist would response "keep it real", but I am keeping it real - at least I dream of making all those goals once in my lifetime.

Promises to do in year 2014

I'll adress here few of my promises I intend to keep (or at least try to):

• run a full-lenght marathon (42km) in under 4 hours
• run half-marathon in under 1 hour 45 minutes
• no alcohol, candies or chocolate
• participate on ironman competition
• learn to dance

and 10 other very intresting promises, like getting a girlfriend (":D"), but some promises are just meant to be broken. I however wish the dream to compete on ironman would happen. The investment for the bicycle might be a bit too much though, we will see.

I'm especially proud of the no alcohol/candies/chocolate promise, it's been 18 days already, so this is now counted in weeks, soon to be counted in months. Just to test my ironwill, I purchased a candy box before I started this diet. Later on I found out Fazer Amica (a factory in Finland, makes sweets, doughs, food etc. )  remembered me with a some brand new sweets. My will of pure iron is on test here, but I will stay strong.

On other note, my Christmas holidays were a blast, ate too much and got some sweet, sweet gifts (which I purchased myself, but hey!). 

 

These included:

•  a brand new pair of Asics Gel Nimbus 19 

• new gps-multisports watch from TomTom

Just married Janne and Asics (shoes), my new equipment for keeping it strong!

So at least my equipment for new year is in good shape. Hopefuly I stay healthy and my motivation is as high as it was last year.

What promises/gifts you guys got or made? Did the promises get forgotten right off, or are you still keeping it strong like a strong athelete you are?

My treasure box

My precioussss... 

Lord of the Rings quotes aside, I said I show you my competition medals (well, they are finishing prizes really). Here they are:

 

My preciouss... Year 2013 finished medals/diplom & competition number tags

The finishing prizes/medals are (not in order):

• Helsinki City Run (21km)
• Helsinki City Marathon (42km)
• Pääkaupunkijuoksu (21km)
• Espoo Rantamarathon (21km)
• Kaisaniemijuoksu (21km)
• Midnightrun Helsinki (10km, it's the certificate/diploma)

I even came up with fixing them a treasurebox to store them into. Hopefuly I don't end up throwing them into garbage bin because of the box. I should decorate the box, any ideas how to make it cute? Or athelete type? Lots of sweat and blood and it's finished? Good idea, maybe I visit some hobby crafts shop for items to make it look better.

Once the photosession was over, here how the prizes ended up like. Maybe I should invest in a trophy cabinet. Time will tell, maybe in year 2014...

 

In the treasurebox they all went, waiting for new friends to arrive from their journey...

Finishing prizes

How is your trophy cabinet/ where ever you store your medals looking like? Or do you even keep them in store anymore?