Multaiset polut & Kultaiset lorut: From the scorching ashes of ©Transvulcania into the frigid & rainy forest of ©NUTS Karhunkierros (PART 1 of 2) ENGLISH VERSION

Greetings people! It's been a while, so let's take a quick recap. So i started to write this runnin' blog four years ago, thanks to couple of my friends, who encouraged me into this. It's has been three years, since my last post. To point out, the reason from the beginning why i write this blog is to clear out my mind and emotions, and yet as a "by-product" to provide a runnin' blog to you guys out there.

In a nutshell lot's of things has happened in the past three years, such as gradutation from the Emergency services academy Finland, getting a job from the local fire department, relationships, loss of loved ones, on the other hand newborns, fullfilments, empty feelings, learning, forgetting things and daily basis and naturally running itself. Also i've faced three big disappointing ultra race DNFs, which can be one subject to talk about in near future. Well let's get to the chase!

Transvulcania will be held in La Palma island annualy in the beginning of the May. There is four different distances, "Ultra" ~75km +4300m/-4000m, Marathon 45km +1900m/-3300m, Halfmarathon ~25km +2100m/-700m and "Vertical race" 7.6km +1200m.

Originally plan was just to join my friends company and enjoy my holidays and make the last preparations for the upcoming race, NUTS Karhunkierros 166km in Ruka, the race that going to be one of my main goals this year. But after realization that to participate halfmarathon didn't required any ITRA-points (Internation Trail Running Association), so i thought it was a good opportunity to run my very first trail race abroad!

We took off to La Palma on Tuesday, thought with different flight routes. I was able to find fairly cheap flight last winter for the boys transit in Berlin. Myself i flew via Amsterdam. Funny little thing happened just weeks before the trip. Boys flight from La Palma to Berlin had been canceled due to flight company's bankruptcy. Luckily Eetu and Niko had long holidays, an sourceful minds, so they decided to continute their vacation on Tenerife after the week in La Palma, so problem solved!

Adjovimar's pool garden

Then we took a rental car from the airport, which is located next to the capital, Santa De La Cruz at the east coast to the town of Los Llanos (Local Heinola city) close to west coast of La Palma island.

Apartmentos Adjovimar where we stayed the whole week provided a peaceful enviroment, clean rooms and really good custom service!

So we arrived on Tuesday night and on Wednesday right after breakfast all three of us went to check me and Eetu's last part of the race.

Tres monos! Three pale Samba-monkeys and Los Llanos in the background

First 17km of the race was basically uphill (+1900m) and last 7km downhill (approx. -500m).
We started from the finishline to headed hight point of the race (1950ish masl ) and from there we came back by the same route. So we got nice relaxed 2.5h jog with +800m/-800m of ascent and descent underneath the scorching sun.

Local "Malminkartanon jätemäki (wastelandhill),".

On Thursday and Friday we just took days really easy and relaxing by the pool. Ate well, sip few local beers.
And on the both mornings we went for a little run 30min each or so.

Keepin' yourself moving few days before the race is excellent way to keep the running vibes high as well the race spirit. Allthought be careful not to do too hard movements few days before the race.
Race bib's we collected in the Thursday morning while we went for a small morning jog.

During these days atmosphere was mellow and laid back.
Some lousy jokes, acting silly and laugh a lot.
In Friday night we ate lot's of pasta, because halfmarathon start was 7:30am on Saturday, so it was smart to let body calm down on race day.

After checking the race gear, eating well was time to go sleep, cos alarm was set to 04:30am...

Icecream, candlenight dinner and some love with boys is all you need to prepare youself for the race!

Race gear : Salomon Trail Runner Twinskin Shorts, Nike's Tanktop, few Maxim's gel and few Cliff bars, 2x0.5L Salomon flasks + 1x0.5L Salomon flask with High5 Zero-tablet. Runnin' poles : Blackdiamond Carbon Distance Z, cap, running sunglasses, mandatory race equiments and mobilephone. Runnin' shoes : Salomon Sense Pro 2.

I slept roughly 5 hours or so, despite that i felt really good when i woke up at 04:30. Made the preparations and made some coffee. So i drank a big cup of coffee + lots of water and ate one banana. 05:15am i met Eetu in front of Adjovimar, from there we walked to Los Llanos bus station, which took us around 10min. to get there. The busride itself lasted around 1hour to start of the race. . We had plenty of time before the start, around 50min. It was still dark outside, but the tempature was allready around 20'c. Strong wind kept us moving and we made thorough warm-up with Eetu.

After darkness the first appearance of light in the sky before the sunrise and last cheer-ups with Eetu.

And the race started at 07:30 with 550~ runners !

Atmosphere at the start was phenomenal! (No sounds unfortunately)

This year i decided that i take my races much easier , because in past all the races where i had had too good feelings at the start, i have started with too fast pace... First hour of the race i ran really slow and steady listening to my body carefully. Mainly i ran all the easy uphills, but all steep ascents i powerwalked to keep my energy levels up.

(No sounds [Have some speaker problems on my iPhone])

Morning sun started to shine after 45min~ after the start, and you could allready feel the temparature rising.
To myself running in a hot weather doesn't fit at all. I'm prone to cramps and i totally lose my appetite. I felt great and after an hour or so i decided to start run a bit faster towards first service point wich was at 7km mark. After 1hour and 10min ai allready reached the service point. Running felt amazing and i still had lot's of energy left.

Earlier Eetu told me that the chanting was crazy at 7km service point which is in the middle of Los Canarios town. Seemed like all the habitants from the village was there to cheer up runners in the race. All you can hear was "Vamos, vamos!, Venga!".

Hitting my steps on cobblestones trough the crowd service point, filled water flasks fast and continued my race.
..
Heartrate had climbed somewhere around unaerobic threshold , so i decided switch to walk to lower heartrate and calm my body down, so that i could intake energy sufficiently and faster. i managed to eat one whole Cliff peanutbutter bar and one Maxim-gelin during the following 30min. Supplements i took tasted well, but the rising temperature of afternoon reached allready almost +25'c, where i started to feel overwhelming heatness in my body.

Clear sky and the soaring sun straight from the zenith started roast in big time. There was still +1100m and 10km ahead of me until the next service point. Kilometres from 8 - to 14.5 still went according to plans, but from there on clash of the titans started. My tights started to cramp , dehydration, depravation of energy, heatness and sweating under the scorching sun started to taken it's toll. It was "Do or Die" situation, so only option was to put warrior mode on and take one step at a time...

From here on some runners went by, but at the same time i also passed few runners. I particularly remember one young Spanish boy in his early 20's who clearly had some major problems, i thought my pace was slow at this point, but when i saw this boy from far distant how he faltered and struggled to move on. Someone gave him some water and when i finally reached him i also passed some water and said to him "mas aqua?" with my poor Spanish skills, obviously he had run out of water. He gave me a humble thanks and the race continued...
At this point i still had roughly 2.5km and +300m of ascent left to go 'till i would reach the last service point. It took me around 40min to reach the service point, which felt like a lifetime. Also racetime showed exactly 3h:00. Felt bit dizzy as well my legs felt powerless, but i went to the bush to make small poop. Against my principles i decided to drink sports drink from race organizers which tasted surprisingly good managed to gulp around 300-400milliliters + some fresh water. I only consumed 4min in this service point. Still 100m of ascent and i finally reached the highest point of the race!

Such a peaceful and calm feeling on top of the mountain. Only 7km ahead and almost nothing but a downhill from here on, around . +150m of ascent and more than -500m of descent.

Be warned! Some sensitive information in the video.

To consider the problems i had, last part of the race was strongest for me. I feel like i'm a better downhill runner than uphill. Determination was really strong and step after step i slowly started to run and gain more speed in these downhills. My body continued to dehydrate and sweating was really strong. From here on i only could just drink water, because nothing else tasted anymore, but running tasted quite nicely, but then out of the blue at point when i run on a few rocky steps i got an infernal cramps in my right leg's hamstring. I decided that this wont going to stop me from finnishing in this race. I pumped myself against the ground as fiercely as i dared to and harshly after 30-45 seconds luckily the cramps stopped and i walked slowly but steady for a while at the last small hill before rest of the downhills.

After realizing that not much to go i gave all've got left in my soaring body, so the last 1-2km was surprisingly vigourous and pure joy, i gain easily 10 to 15 runners and managed to pull 4min/km pace...

Then last sprint and i could hear the big chants and cheers from the audience, no more than dew hundreds of meters and i finnished in time of 4hours and 8 minutes and got a position 152 of 500 ~ runners in the race.

My very first trailrace abroad and after difficulties succesful race!

All three of us managed to pull great perfomances, Niko ran marathon distance in time of 7h03min~ finishing in 183/653. And huge applauses one more time to Eetu, who ran his best race this far and finished 10th! The halfmarathon had world top level runners, Eetu only lost by one second to Cristofer Clementelle who has been two time runner-up in trail run world championships and only got 11min33sek behind the winner. It was time to celebrate and we did! Drinkin' local rum and dancing in disco. Big salute to Niko and Eetu for the company! Also big thanks to all my friends who keep supporting me as well my beloved siblings!

From here on it was time to focus this year's main goal NUTS Karhunkierros 166km, where i had exactly two weeks time to recover from Transvulcania! Was it enough time after all ? And two consecutive DNF's from past two years kept me thoughtful... Stay tuned.. To be continued...