After
Tiomila I travelled to Finland to take first part to two Huippuliiga events in
Lohja and Tampere and after that I continued to Koli for a week and then to
Vuokatti for another week to train in the WOC terrain type. It was a good journey, worth every penny, and I'm
glad I did it! I trained well, mostly orienteering, and got to enjoy the Finnish
summer at its best. Weather was just perfect all the time and training
conditions were excellent. Drive to Koli in Pohjois-Karjala direct after
a hard race felt a bit longish but Leevi and The Leavings' fantastic song Pohjois-Karjala got me into right mood :)
Training
went well and there were no real setbacks this time. Well, if a bear doesn't count. In one training that
I did with the Swiss Team there was a mother bear with her baby bears that almost attacked us but she changed her mind and turned away after Daniel Hubmann came and scared her. You can read more
about this famous bear in Blick or in Turun Sanomat.
I was fortunate not to see the bear myself and quite happy that way. My biggest concern was just whether my o-shoes and braces, which had given signs of falling apart already after the first weekend, would hold up until the end. With some tape and good luck they held up just until the last training. After the final session (a long distance training race) I barely touched the braces, they just fell off my feet and I could see my toes pointing out through the shoes. I guess that was a sign to stop training. And so I did.
First week
I stayed in a small cottage by the lake Pielinen enjoying the beauty and
quietness of the surrounding nature. I orienteered mostly just once a day and ran
on afternoons. One day I climbed up to Ukko-Koli to admire the views (my real
attempt was to try to beat the cyclists tempo times but I failed). Swiss O-Team
was training in Koli region at the same and I was glad that I could join in
some of their hard trainings for middle and relay. In Vuokatti I trained with
the Finnish (and French) team(s) and got to run a few more training races. Two
long distance races at the end of a long training camp was quite tough but because
they were the best possible long distance trainings before the champs I ran
them both. First one went surprisingly easily but in the latter I was pretty
tired, at least mentally. Nonetheless I was happy to get it done because it definitively
gave me more than it took. All in all I'm very pleased with the whole training
camp.
I also got
selected to the Finnish team for Nordic Tour,
a World Cup tour with races in Oslo (NOR), Stockholm (SWE), and Turku (FIN). First
races are already on the coming weekend!
Some of the recent TV sendings you can watch online:
