A week after EOC we moved to Sweden,
somewhere between Trelleborg and Karesuando, to quote a friend. Or between
Stockholm and Uppsala to be a bit more specific. Initially we wanted to have a
villa with a lake view in Sigtuna but unfortunately our dream house wasn't available. Instead we had to settle for an old mansion (herrgård) in beautiful rural
landscape just a few miles from the busiest airport in Scandinavia. Contrasts
are huge sometimes. Once again we are happily surrounded by sheep, cows and
horses - and we feel like home. It's just temporary but it's really lovely.
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| View from the bathroom |
We always try to get close to these big
metropolises (such as Stockholm, Birmingham and Tampere) but somehow we still end
up living in the countryside. There is this strange connection between us and the
cows: we never get rid of them. It all started some years ago when we lived for
a while in Aitoo (a lovely tiny village some 50km from Tampere in the middle of
nowhere with a few hundred inhabitants) in perfect harmony with cows and sheep.
After that we have of lost our street credibility as urban citizens for good and
seem to carry this piece of countryside within us (meissä jokaisessa asuu pieni lehmä..).
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| Stalkers that we can't get rid off |
I summed up the time in UK a while ago in another
blog text but it wasn't before the last week when it really struck me. This is it, I'm
not coming back. I ran my last long run in tears thinking about all the things
I was going to miss. I had really learned to love England with its quirks and left part of my heart in the footpaths of Warwickshire. Luckily Sweden has
delivered too and made the adaptation easy. It's almost like Finland and has
offered everything that I've missed these years. First days I just spent in
delight eating all Finnish/Scandinavian food that you cannot get elsewhere in
the world. Best of all, you can even get Fazer's freshly baked rye bread in
Sweden! Then I realized how much weight I would gain with my nonstop eating and
refocused my attention to the gorgeous nature and forests around instead of ICA
Maxi shelves.
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| Heavenly good |
Just a few days after the removal, still somewhat
tired from the European Champs and the removal itself, I rented a car and drove
to Skåne to explore Sweden and have a go in the Silva League for the very first
time. The distance didn't look too bad on the map but it was a long drive
there. I had clearly forgotten the size of Sweden.. On the way there I stopped
in Eksjö to see how Tiomila training terrain looked like. It looked very nice
but I was so tired that all I could do was just to walk around there. On the
following morning I was feeling even more tired and had a bit of sore throat
and running nose. I was hesitant whether to drive another 200km to the event that
I most probably would need to quit anyway. But I decided that it was just
allergy and went for it.
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| Vitsippor överallt! |
The race itself was much tougher than I had
expected and in kind of terrain where you need to feel strong and push hard to
do well. My hopes of challenging orienteering and less physical race proved
false. I started well but felt tired right from the beginning. Early on the
course there were some thickets that literally took all out of me and I kind of gave up.
I managed to keep a decent pace in the nice parts of the course but I was too
tired to push through the rougher areas and it's there you make a difference. I
was thinking about retiring but then I caught up with Galina, which gave me
some hope and I decided to continue. I felt tired but did pretty well up to the
butterflies. Then I started to lose my concentration and did a small mistake to
number 15. Rest of the short legs went fine but on the way back to number 20 I
was just focusing on the route choice to 22 and forgot that there was one short
leg in between. By the time I realized skipping over 21 there was a long climb back
to the control and I hesitated whether to bother at all.. I went back but lost quite
a lot of time there. After such a stupid mistake I found it hard to focus again
and made small mistakes on the next two controls. So it was a long and hard way
home from the butterflies but I didn't retire and got rewarded with a respectable
10th place in my Silva League premiere. Not too bad considering the start
field. Indeed I was happily surprised that my bad day was so good!
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| Spriiiing! |
This week I've taken it easy but still enjoyed
having all these forests around me. I hope that I've managed to recharge my
batteries and will be ready for 10mila on Saturday. We have four awesome teams and
I hope we can challenge the other top teams. It will be exciting. Stay tuned!
