Return of the lazy one part 1 of 999

Year 2015, or year of the goat as the chinese astrology tells.

How does my topic headline, or astrology has to do anything with blogs or sports you may ask? Well, to be honest I wasn't really sure how I would start to write again after almost nine (9) months of low-profile and no writing at all.

Major reason of this silence was due to being busy at work, but also because I kinda got leg injury and had to stay out of exercising for awhile. I got the OK to start running again some time ago, but I didn't know how to continue. I wasn't even sure where i had left off and how I would go on from here.

Earlier this year I started running in a "easymode" if you could call it that, 30 minutes to 60 minutes of jogging, just to get the feel of the excitement of running again. I've also done bicycling for 45-60 minutes few times a week also. It's sort of relaxing to watch for example womens football match and ride a bicycle indoors while watching TV. I haven't really watched womens football matches before, but it was entertaining for sure.

How did I end up in this lazy state of trying to find my way back to competitions? Well, if you ever start a running or jogging as hobby, make sure you go to a professionals to buy your shoes from. If the person selling the shoes to you just know the brand name and that they are superpopular and fit for everyone - run, just run and go to some other store. I fell for this and since i am not the sharpest pencil in the pen case, I sort of continue to use wrong shoes for awhile, even if my legs told me to stop - well, result was insane pain and the like.

In any case, my goal is to start to feel the world of running again and I've set my sight on Helsinki City Run (half marathon) and Helsinki City Marathon (full-lenght marathon). If I participate and complete both runs on time, it is going to be my 3rd time participating in both (and managing to cross the finish line)!

My current employee has paid for my entry to participate in HCR. It was kind for them to support me, even if im not at the best running shape ever. Will be a honor to carry our schools name on this t-shirt I got from them. Oh, I probably haven't told this - but my contract was made permanent and my employee, is Stadin ammattiopisto, which belongs to city of Helsinki and is part of Bureau of Education. I've been working there for a year now and I couldn't be happier. I love the work community and nearly everything there. I can happily say I love my work. How many can say they can share thoughts and ideas and develop new ways to improve the working grounds they do? Not many, but everyone is treated equally and I have gotten the feel that superiors care for their workers.

It was refreshing to write this blog, after some time since last post. My teacher at university said to me, that the most difficult part of writing, is the start, you just have to let go and go with the flow. Words will come as you write. She was correct. This was my first blog post in year 2015 and I hope there will be many more to come as I hope I am now back permanently, in the world of running. Happy year 2015, as it is the year of goat!

Ps. I personally have born in the year of rat - do you know what chinese animal year you have been born in?

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?