A bit nervous

Helsinki Half Marathon 2014

It's been almost one month since this year's first half marathon, Helsinki City Run. Even though it didn't go as smooth as I had hoped, there's a saying "there is always tomorrow - in this case, there's always a next marathon".

Helsinki Half Marathon is rather new as a running event, it's organized for the first time this year, so I'm rather exciting to go test the course out and how the services work. in- and out of the event. Looking at the map, there seem to be a lot of music for the runners to enjoy during the running course (This resembles Rock'N'Roll marathon -series).

I'm going to get my BIB and other stuff during friday and the run happens on saturday. Will see how it goes. I will definetely make a blogpost about the whole event.

I'm rather nervous though, I've been going to the gym lately a lot more and been running. My whole body is rather tingling though, maybe my muscles are a bit sore. I decided to rest thursday and friday and take it easy. Eat a bit of candies and drink carbohydrate drinks to fill me up on carbs for saturday.

The carbs drink I'm using is called Vitargo -carboloader. It works at least at the gym, giving nice energy for the muscle training. I haven't tested it for endurance yet, but this saturdays Half marathon will do just fine.

I'll make a new blogpost about Vitargo carboloader review. Definetely worth it, if it works as a energizer for endurance also.

You can find more informationa about Helsinki Half Marathon on their website.
Here

Wish me luck!

Playing Tennis

Tennis is actually quite exhausting sport!

Was playing some tennis with my friend. We had some pretty challenging adventures on our way towards the tennis courts and while we arrived at the sport scene, we found some quite tough problems to actually play the sport. Slight details like locked court doors and such...

Because we're young and full of spirit we didn't let these minor drawbacks take away our fun  playing tennis, we decided to have our fun time, at the football court next to the tennis courts. This was rather intresting, in terms of predicting the tennis ball course of action...

Since during sports, drinking is important, so you don't get dehydrated - we had our own suplements of great sports drinks. It made us smile and well, for some reason the game got slightly more challenging with after sip of the drink we had...

On our break I took the courtesy of filming this spectacular moment of tennis. This is really the sports for kings. I had fun. Take a look below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmFqgIFxq38

Doing sports with Timo always ends up in a different way it was originally planned for... :D

Thanks to Niilo22 for inspirating us and Samba lonkero for making us really happy while playing tennis. It was really good tasting long island drink. Shame it was too sweet for my friends tastes...

Personal Trainer (part 1/3)

So what does it feel like, to have your own Personal Trainer? Does having one help you achieve your objective or ambitions?

Awhile ago I won in a finnish Radio Voice-competition, where the main prize was a 12-time personal trainer package. The PT would come from a finnish fitnessgym called SATS and the organization behind the competition was Rexona/Unilever.

I will split this whole story in three different parts, where I'm going to tell what it's all about training with a PT, how does it work, feelings about having one and how this affects your motivation towards your goals.

Let's start off with how this all began.

I took a part in Radio Voice's competition, where the main prize was a 12-time personal trainer package. Three lucky person would receive this reward. The Personal trainer would be coming from SATS-fitnessgym and Rexona/Unilever was the one who started the whole competition. As you can draw a conclusion from this blog writing, I was one of the lucky winners to receive the main prize.

Probably the most funniest thing about this whole thing was, I had totally forgotten this competition and the Radio Voice's morning team called me, around 8'o clock, waking me up from my slumber. I was rather surprised and shocked about me winning this fantastic prize. I mean, personal trainer's usually cost tons of money to have for this many times (12-times). WOW! Luckyy!

How the things started to roll on...

My PT contacted me via email, asking what was my goals, ambitions and how often I usually train and what myeating habits are like. I was a bit embarassed to admit, that I just ate whenever I felt like... We also concluded when the first PT-meeting would be at.

First Personal trainer meeting.

I was a bit nervous before the meeting. Luckily for me, my personal trainer was rather trustable looking guy, who clearly had trained more than me in terms of gym and fitness. I was confirmed that I would get results and find the joy in gym and power training!

We started off with a small-talk, proceeded to make a bodybalance check, where we saw how my body was in terms of fat percentage, water, bone mass, strenght mass and what surprised me the most: my left arm is stronger than my right arm. Which is surprising, because I'm right handed (a joke only men understand... ).

At the gym we trained different warm-ups, stretching, techniques in lifting and new ways to train at the gym. Technique seems to be very important, for example in lifting, so your back won't sign off your contract, during older age...

After the first PT-session, i had really good feelings about the whole thing. I was motivated like never before. Going to the gym was actually fun and the time flew like it had wings on it's back.

What kind of feelings these PT-times have brought to me personally?

I have visited my PT five times now (yes, I was supposed to make a blog post about this earlier... ), so new techniques and differet methods to train at the gym has been more familiar to me. Most of the new methods are fun to do, even if you get all sweaty and (can I say easy?) intresting to do. Some of the methods are just so annoying I want to roll on the floor and cry... One of these is move called Turkish Get Up. You can Youtube it, if you want and try it yourself.

My PT made me a food program (which after I saw it, I was rather shocked. Having to eat 3k calories during the day.. FEELS A LOT!). He also made me a training program for gym and cardio. These will help me improve and help me on my way towards my goal of participating Ironman triathlon (and finishing it under 17 hours). It feels quite amazing to visit gym nowdays, when before it was something I had to force me to do... Maybe because it's part of knowing what to do there now, instead of just chilling around.

I have a lot more positive thoughts and feelings about going to the gym now. Also my motivation for training was slightly missing in action and during Feb-April, I had eaten a bit too much ice cream... :D. The feeling can't be described with words, when you find your burning inner flame, to continue towards your ambitions and goals, towards that very dream which you want to make true.

This being said, I can recommend hiring your own personal trainer, to support you towards your goals. At least at the start. Be aware though, having your own personal trainer can be slightly addicting. The price/quality/efficiency is totally worth it, than just doing something at the gym, without knowing half what methods you could use (like using dumbells). I'm actually thinkin to purchase new 12-time personal trainer package, after my "trial" :D ends.

All thanks to SATS, Radio Voice and REXONA for making this happen. I am very pleased to have this opportunity. Thank you!

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?

Walpurgis night (Vappu) adventure 2014

Walpurgis night, or more commonly said "Vappu", this glorious day for everyone. Vappu gathers all kind of people to celebrate and no alcohol is wasted. My personal vappu went me being sober (for once!) but little blogger inside me, wanted to commemorate this moment for everyone to see.

After I got out of work, I decided to go home and get changed to some slightly more "nicer" clothing. Once I was done with that, I left to meet up a friend and see what this years celebration would look like. The weather wasn't the best, but it's never stopped people getting drunk anyway!

Unlike normally, I was early to arrive to the meeting point. My friend had me informed, that would be late, so I had some free sparetime to chill around the centre of city. I'm usually the one being late, so I guess I had to taste how it tastes to wait on someone...

There is a tradition "jesus speaks" sermon to be held at Rautatientori, so I went and listened to it for awhile. The familiar Finland for Jesus bus was standing firmly at it's old place and the people lecturing us about how He loves us..

Bus for salvation?

In tradition, Vappu is also a day for drinking, for us finns. But to be honest, since when we needed a certain dates to get drunk? haha.

Common sight in Vappu, in Finland

My friend arrived and we set off, to walk around Helsinki's center. This tour, or adventure, will be later known as a jog/walk.

While walking around the sightsee places, we met lots of happy people, getting drunk as suspected. We crossed over a bridge and found this really beautiful lock, showing the love of two people. I wish I would get one of these to my gym lockerroom. Would be fantastic!

Carved, beautiful lock showing the love of two people

While we were on a walk, we also came across to multiple playgrounds and the inner child in me, got loose and I just had to go play around. I did some pull-ups too! In my clothes, it was slightly uncomfourtable, but luckily there wasn't any judges to give points on style of the completing movement.

Five more, go go! I wonder how many I did so far...

In another angle. Look at the firm grip, the gaze of an eagle and the happy smile. Forget about the points for style!

After the adult inside me kicked in, we left back to continue our vappu adventure journey, to burn off some calories. On our way, we came across to some beautiful sceneries. Finlands architecture can be quite a sight in the evening, with all the lights on. Even for tourists!

A slightly bigger picture of the whole sight

The night was on us, and we decided to start moving back towards the train station. On out way, we noticed the party was still going strong and Cinderella had lost her shoe. There were no signs of price, the pumpkin wagon, or mice. I wonder what happened?

Cinderella's lost shoe

Before we decided to be on our separate ways, we went for a quick window shopping at Kamppi's shopping center. We found quite fascinating items for sale. Here's few of them:

Cuteness overload!

 While I admit I laughed at this fascinating piece of art for a cloth, I started to wonder, does someone actually wear these kind of clothes?

Hi

This was a slightly different Vappu than I'm used to, but I had lot of fun walking around for 3 or so hours. My head thanked me the next day, while havign no hangover and I did some recovery training while sightseeing.

selfie

How was your Vappu, did you celebrate it? Or walpurgis night? For record, in Finland we celebrate Vappu at 30th of April (get drunk, since the enxt day is off work for everyone)

Season starts in Espoo...

Summer is just around the corner and running season has officially started.

27.4.2014, My first Länsiväylä run, in Espoo.

The running event is called "the start of finnish running season" and it certainly had quite a few participants. I also saw few finnish politics either running or campaigning for euro elections.

Grumpy Janne before the race. I forgot my water bottle somewhere, so had to purchase something to drink...

This time I started the season with a quick run, only 6 kilometers run, but it was enough for me. At least for now, as they say - you get more hungry, the more you eat ;) Time was around 30 minutes, I didn't enter to run competively anyways. I was with a friend who just started the running hobby. So I tried to run around the same time. Well that didn't really work and in the end we went separate ways :D.

Maybe next time I just say "see you at the finishing line!"

Overall Länsiväylä juoksu (run) was organized really well, there were signs everywhere at the starting location for WC, where to get running bibs, etc. Definately will try to participate next year also.

The weather was also great. Sun was shining, so hopefuly people remembered to take care of their suplements and that they drank enough water!

I read that the 6 kilometer race was also re-modeled from last year and this year the route was different. I'm not sure how was it previously, but I enjoyed this years route. It was definetely a great 6 kilometers to run.

Finisher with a medal, sun is shining and everything is good!

I've also started going to gym more frequently and I even have a personal trainer. I will tell you about this more in a later blog post.

Have you already started your running season?

Jogging makes your thoughts more clear...

Spring is coming, the snow is melting and scaredy-cat of cold Janne is running outside even more.

While you're out there jogging, your head is cleared of thoughts and thinking becomes easier. You have time to think things like "why didn't I purchase chocolate flavoured proteinflour, instead of these special themed flavours...

There are many, many flavours to proteinshakes. Finding one that suits you and is easy to enjoy, makes drinking that drink ascending from heavens a lot easier. Why drink bad tasting proteinshakes, even if it was the best of the best?

I seem to fall for these special themed flavours, such as "lemon-yoghurt" and "ice coffee". Ice coffee as a flavour was sort of intresting at start, but once you drink that stuff daily, it starts to taste bad. Positive side of it was, that it mixed really well with water. You needed to look out for overdose of caffeine. Especially if you used other supplements, like ripped hardcore...

Lemon-yoghurt tastes kind of intresting. It's tastes fresh, but at the same time I don't like it. It's hard to describe, but I don't like the taste when mixed with water. As a snack it works miracles with quark. If you need something to flavour your protein quarks, this is the choice you want!

Best special flavour I've taste is the Cookies and cream -flavour. It's sweet, really sweet. Tastes like cookies. But at the same time, it's a bit too sweet. Mixes well with water and tastes good mixed with quark. Also works with milk... Cookies and milk, time to get nostalgic visiting grandmothers place... ;)

In any case, i should get real and purchase protein flavours that I can actually count on, safe bets like Strawberry and chocolate. Those don't fail, no matter what the season is!

It's time for shopping soon - I planned to start working on my project: "get in beach shape for year 2021". So I'm buying some suplements from local (well the origin is Sweden) supplement store, called Fitnesstukku. Best choices in Finland!

Do you use proteinshakes? What flavour is your choice? Or are you still looking?

Armin van Buuren Intense Tour Finland, Helsinki

Ladies and gentlemen let me present you with Intense Tour: DJ Armiiiiiin van Buuuuuuuuuren!

 

So how does music concert has to do anything with sports you may ask? I'll give a hint: "jump, jump, jump" - for 5 hours. That ought to burn some calories. Add on top of that a visually spectacular, breath taking play from one of the best DJ's in the world and you have pretty much a amazing time at your hands.

I'm not going to write for long this time around. I'll let photo's speak for themself. 

How did I end up at Armin Van Buurens concert? Well, I received free tickets to the show and I'm not one to miss a good opportunity to have great time, listening to good music. While I knew Armin is a world famous DJ and I knew some of his tracks, I didn't expect him to be that good of a DJ. I honestly thought, that he would play couple of hours at max, but instead he played for nearly 5 hours straight. What makes it even better, he even brought various artists he has done work with with him.

Also the shows visual effects were just breath taking. The show lasted for 5 hours, but it felt like watching a good movie, with the stage capturing your eyes all the time and music pleasing your eyes the whole time.

At start of the show, Armin van Buuren hiding

At the Start, there was an egg/pearl/ball that kept captivating the minds of people.

Giant Armin staring at the singer lady.

Are you in state of trance?

Simply mind blowing. I kept staring at the stage of visual effects, while trying to jump/ dance (well finnish men don't dance - they shake) and listen to music. Man this Buuren guy knows what he's doing!

Armin van Buuren

Armin van Buuren

Armin van Buuren

and if people  started to get too drunk, it was clearly told whos concert they were listening to;)

Armin van Buuren

Some people were not that intrested on listening to music, but had their eyes on this mountain of treasures people kept throwing away. The creativity of people trying to snatch those goodies kept entertaining me the whole concert, while the security guards had their hands full the whole time trying to guard those, haha.

Treasure inside a cage

Are you ready to go even deeper?

How to make tired people jump even more when the clock is past midnight? Simple. Take out the Finnish flag and show to the audience you know where we are at. I will tell you no lies, nearly everyone got excited and started to jump and throw their hands in the air. He would have probably got people jumping on their heads, if he mentioned Finland had won Bronze medal on Olympics mens ice hockey earlier...

Armin van Buuren holding the Finnish flag

Whatever you do, do it with intense

The time seemed to be this trance audiences worst enemy and clock kept going without stopping to think of the people having fun. For many hours people had a great time listening to music played by world best DJ, watching the visual sight they call the stage and other various artists kept us entertained the whole play.

There were maybe some problems with holding a big mass concert like this at exhibition center, but I didn't notice anything to mention for. I had time of my life and all I can say: DJ saved my life tonight. Save the night for others Armin, you're the light between us!

Armin van Buuren, close to a surprise!

Armin van Buuren releases his secret: lots of airballoons from the sky

You can find more information about Intense Tour and Armin van Buuren from his official website:
http://www.arminvanbuuren.com/news/2013/10/armin-announces-armin-only-intense-world-tour/

Thank you Armin, was a wonderful play. I'm not sure why I hadn't purchased tickets earlier to your concert, but next time you come to Finland I will!

Armin van Buurens whole artist crew, dancers/ acrobatics/singers/ guitar/ drum players

Where you at the concert? Have you ever been at Armins concerts? Comment below or subsribe!

<3 Armin van Buuren <3

Busy year 2014!

Year 2014 is the year of sports themed events for couch-athletes or amateur-atheletes!

Couch-athletes have been enjoying themselves already with Olympics at Sochi, under20 icehockey world championship tournament, or if you like badminton, you might have the luxury to watch badminton country championship tournaments this year.

For fun-loving, amateur-athletes that I like to call myself, the fun is however just about to start. Year 2014 brings hundreads of intresting sport events. While it may be close to impossible, or super hard to fit all of these fun events to your calendar - I'm going to write down few of the events I'm going to participate at. Let me introduce to you "Year 2014 Dream Calendar":

Month	Competition
March	-
April	Länsiväyläjuoksu
May	Helsinki City Run (21km)
June	Helsinki Half Marathon (21km)
July
August	Helsinki City Marathon (42km)	Midnightrun	Helsinki City Triathlon
September	Pääkaupunkijuoksu (21km)
October	-
November	-
December	Messukeskusjuoksu

Almost every month has some intresting competition I'm attending at. In September there is tons of other activies also, like: Vantaa Marathon, Espoo beachmarathon, Stockholm (Sweden) Marathon and many others. That is one of the reasons I haven't finalized my plans as of yet. Also since July is quite open for events to attend to, I have to search up for intresting competitions. Which possibly will be held abroad. I'm taking suggestions, if you know good places to competite at!

Most important competitions

Truth to be told, while I may say "competitions", these all are events to keep myself in shape. As I'm not doing these to win, but to keep myself motivated to go forward toward my dream. I like to call them competitions though, I like the sound of it.

From half marathons, the most important ones for me are: Helsinki City Run, which I'm attempting to break my record by finishing faster than 1hour45minutes and the second intresting half marathon is this newly organized event Helsinki Half Marathon. Will be intresting to see how they cope up with the popularity City Run has.

From full-lenght marathons I have to nominate Helsinki City Marathon as my most important one this year. I'm looking for options to compete abroad in one other full-lenght marathon this year, which July seems to be the best option, as my Dream Calendar slot for July is rather empty.

Most of these events are familiar to me and I trust them as working running events. My first triathlon will be Helsinki City Triathlon held in August. While it's not super hard event, but more of a fun thing to attend to, I get to see what it's all about. Wish me luck!

A lil' bit of Training in my life, a lil' bit of Running by my side, a lil' bit of Sweat is what I need...

Lou Bega's mambo number 5. set aside, my set goals don't finish without training, so let's put tv-remote set aside for awhile and Olympics in Sochi can wait untill I finish running a bit!

Friend of mine asked me to accompany her for a running session (you can't believe how happy one can be when someone asks you out to run), which I gladly accepted. We set up a meeting place&time, where I arrived too early. Well, luckily I found this amazing thing I kept running up and down while waiting for her to arrive:

Friend of mine arrived on time (amazing character on females, especially since I'm always late! :D) and I had warmed up for our running training. I wish all gyms would have stepmaster as their gym equipment selection...

Running varies always when you do it solo, or as a group.

Running solo can be boring. Luckily you have your trusted Ipod, or other Mp3 player with you, so you can listen to your favourite track while running.

Running with a friend or as a group brings a whole new level to running. It's refreshing and brings more fun, as you can talk with your friends about tv-programs, olympics etc. Or Victorias Secret models if you like them. Miranda Kerr is awesome. Everyone should try to attend some group running practice, if they can. Most Marathons try to give a chance to participate on a training session one or two times prior to the event they are holding.

It might be a cultureshock to some, to actually having to have conversation while training, instead of just having a monologue from your music player... ;)

Tired dog, permission to use on blog approval by Creative Commons 2.0 on Flickr
All credits goes to photographer Pamela Stocks, original url:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tenerife/240325046/in/photostream/

Training with friend end and no, I didn't end up like that doggy above. It was nice, fast paced round of sweat!

I had a energy to spare still, so I went solo for a quick jogging round outside that very evening. With my trusted TomTom Multi-Sport GPS watch with me

The feeling after workout is always great. Mind works always better when you've given some sweat while doing sports. It was a nice slow-paced jog to finish a great day. I should have ran around the block to get that last 300 meters though, so it would have shown 5 kilometers... ;)

Love the TomTom watch though! That reminds me, I need to make a review of it here, hopefuly soon.

See you all soon!

SnowRunFest 2014

Fun, Entertaining, SnowRunFest. - Short description of the hottest, different, running event of the winter. 

(my most sincere apology for the long and detailed posting in advance)

When I heard about the original "mudrun 2013" running event, I knew that was going to be entertaining and I just had to participate on it. Unfortunately the time and location didn't fit into my timeschedule and the best I could do was to watch the event from pictures posted on the event site.

Luckily enough, the organisation who made the mudrun 2013, came up with an idea to make a tour of "different kind of running events" - colour run, mudrun and the latest I participated on, the SnowRunFest. The location and time fit me perfectly so there was no hesitation to hook up and participate on the most intresting winter event -ever?

First SnowRunFest running event February 8th, 2014

The hype for this was big. The marketing team of the funrun.fi organisation made sure people got hyped of the event before it even happened. I was rather sceptical at start, how this could be the best event ever, with bad weather and not that much snow on the ground... Luckily I was proven wrong by the event. It was simply awesome.

The event was held in Hietsu (it's a famous beach), in Helsinki. Getting to the location was easy, since there was tons of participants and following people with the event hat/ running shoes on was made easy. My mapping skill is kind of bad, so I just joined the line of runners and followed them to the event place.

Closing in on the event place

Closing in on the event place, you could hear the music already being played by maybe the best DJ's in the world (:D) DJ's were part of radio station energy Finland (NRJ) staff. My initial first thought was "hey, the party is on!" There was this large event stage, which we saw from miles away. Nice!

Party stage was visible from miles away

Group 5

Me and my friend (later known as bunny) had signed up for running group 5, so we had time to check around the event area. There was lots of intresting sights to see, mainly the awesome carneval costumes the other runners were having on. The whole event got this really awesome feeling to it, with everyone putting effort into what they wear. I didn't dress up that nicely, just had a penguin hat on as my helm. If I knew there were this many "cosplayers", I would have purchased some digimon suit or autobot suit to wear. There was also people from Finnish fitness gym called Fressi warming people up all the time, while music was playing on the stage.

Fressi warming people up, while DJ from NRJ playing music

 Time to run!

There were a total of eight different obstacles. The lenght of the running course was 2,5 kilometers, which would be run twice. So in total of 5 kilometer, with obstacles passed twice. If you couldn't pass some obstacle, you could pass it by going around it. Which was nice.

I'll shortly describe the obstacles: there was snowhills, sumo wrestlers (which on the first lap was rather disapointing, with the mass start they were quickly passed. Though it was rather hilarious that some runners started to scream. So surprised they were of them!), then there was big slide, which you had to climb on top of with ropes (I kinda injured myself on the first slide haha), then there was sea of coloured balls which was fun. More climbing obstacles and stuff.  Oh and then there was a tunnel which you had to crawl from under. Fun!

One of the obstacles, this giant slide which looked like a lion from far away, but turned in to a lamb when we go closer.

While it doesn't seem that long of a lenght to run, it really gave a nice sweat. I liked the course. I would have probably enjoyed it more, but my bunny decided that it was going too slow and we moved our pace quite a lot. Young people have too much energy, hard to keep up with them!

Entering the finishing line

Unfortunately like everything fun, there has to be an end somewhere and our run was finishing it's two laps. Me and my bunny entered the finishing line and the medals for participating was given to us. Yay, this years first medals!

Me and my Bunny after finishing the run

SnowRunFest 2014 medal

If I had to give feedback about SnowRunFest, I'd say it was one of the best running events I have had the luxury to join (well, participate at). The course was lighted up in disco theme, which gave it's own touch. Music was loud enough, so the runners would hear it, obstacles were hard enough and people gave their own touch by having most awesome costumes ever!

Awesome costumes. Teletabbies "Let's hug, again again!"

TLDR (too long didn't read): It was awesome!

Now time to go party some, while the DJ's still playing music. After that it's time to go change clothes and start moving towards Tiger nightclub, where the afterparties were supposed to happen!

Olympics Sochi 2014

Time for winter Olympics, this time in Russia, Sochi!

One of the most spectacular event in any professional atheles career, is participating in Olympics. I'm far from being a athelete fit to represent my country in Olympics, but I do my best representing my home couch and watch the olympics sports the best I can. Cheering my home country is not optional. It's something you do from the bottom of your heart.

You can watch the majestic pictures of Olympics 2014 here:
http://www.olympic.org/photos/sochi-2014

Looking at pictures of the Olympics openings, it's massive. Grand. Epic, or should I call it... Legendary? Maybe Legendary isn't the best word to describe it, with Sotsh having problems with hotels and the brutal news of them hiring a company to slaughter stray dogs/ cats. - While it may be horrible to hear, the stray animals do risk the health of f.ex ski jumpers...

With 400 millions euros put into these olympic games, you'd think there would have been an alternative method, which would had gave purpose to both animal lovers and the haters.

Unfortunately, the stray animals issue isn't only thing thats putting shadow over the olympics. There was newsitem that a airplane was attempted to kidnap and terrorism news... I just hope people respect the sport of olympics and everything goes well.

Back to the business though. While the Olympics are under way in Sochi, Russia, everyone will cheer for their teams, or maybe have favourite atheles to cheer on. Finland being a igloo and polarbear country, we should do well on winter olympics.

I hope Finland wins at least 1 gold medal, few silver and few bronze medals.

My top choices for the medals are: speed skating (Mika Poutala), Finnish Women and Men hockey teams (Selänne, Selänne, Selänne!), skiing, snowboarding and women curling. I'm sure there are also few surprisers in the atheletes, that could bring medals back home.

• 2 Gold
• 4 Silver
• 1 Bronze

That's my list for Team Finland - What its like for you?

What other teams you cheer? Or what country you cheer for?  Which team has the best uniforms? How do you pronounce Sochi (is it sotsh?), Comment below!

Challenge: "The veggieweek!"

Challenges make life intresting. It could be new intresting challenges in work, sports, or in life general - as long as you can overcome the challenges given, or chosen by you. All of my new year promises are still valid, even the candy strike: But let's spice this year 2014 up a little by adding monthly challenges. February challenge is: the veggieweek!

What is "veggieweek" and why?

Earlier this year, the Finnish goverments health&nutritions councelling office gave new recommendations for the food nutritions (can be found by clicking here). There was some changes, like eat less salt, red meat is bad etc. Some things however, like eat more vegteables didn't change. Overall it's a good read for everyone.

The recommendations made me think of my choices for my everyday eating habits and how I fill up my eating diary. Even that my food diary has seen significant improvements, as how how I eat now, compared to months back when I started to write down everything I eat (I still need to learn to put down my morning weight... ) - I started to think, how else I could start eating properly.

With the helpful push from certain webplatform newsarticle, I thought: "Hey, let's became a vegetarian for a week!". I then consulted a friend of mine who is a nutrionist specialist and she told me some very devastating facts about being a full-time vegetarian. Some horror stories like "they dont eat milk, eat cheese, chicken or fish. - I can understand almost everything except the milk part. Why? Just why!?

So my "the veggieweek" will be a semi-veggie'ish. I won't eat meat, chicken, or anything like that. But I am still allowed to eat/drink milk products.

Starting the challenge

The challenge already started off 1st of February and will last all the way to 8th of February. Or maybe until 9th of Feb, I'm slightly busy that weekend, because of SnowRunFest (read more about it on the earlier blog).

The foods I've made gave so far been rather creative and have tasted like something out of a culinary restaurant. I'm just that good of a cook (take notes girls ;) !).

Will be rather exciting to see how this challenge turns out, will I fall and eat meat, or will I finish this like a real endurance runner finishes marathon race?

Looks delicious! Maybe I put too much chili on it... again.

Paying off already!

It seems like going veggie lover for a week has paid off already. Just two days in and I got a lovely letter from my bank, OP-Pohjola. No, it wasn't a bill or anything like that, but free tickets to floorball games this season! I took part of a Facebook competition and I was one of the lucky winners to get free tickets. Yay for lady fortuna! Now if I would get a dream job, or win in big time lottery, I might think about going veggie loving full-time. Food for the thought, eh?

Free tickets to watch floorball games

Superbowl

Speaking of seasons and coachsports. The superbowl XLVIII was held this weekend and I had the luxury to watch the match from tv. The hype about this seasons best attack team vs the best defense team was surprisingly good. Match between Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks should be very exciting to watch. Or so I thought...

I've been intrested in american football mainly because of the advertisements that come up every year during the super bowl, but lately since a friends of mine plays the finnish american football league, I've started to watch the games even.

(picture capture from ruutu.fi)

Among all great sports that come from America, it's safe to assume super bowl between  the best teams gathers viewers. After all it's a magnificent event, that gathers viewers from all around the world.

The match was slightly disapointment. It was super boring. Seahawks destroyed Broncos and were already leading 29 to 0 after first half. Last time there was team shutdown in super bowl was years ago (yes very specific i know, I think it was in year 80's-90's? or so ).

Bronco's still having fighting spirit left
(picture capture from ruutu.fi)

The score didn't matter at the end, because the event was super entertaining with red hot chili peppers performing during the break. Oh and the cheerleaders... Yes, one of the reasons to watch football is the cheerleaders. They know how to make the games intresting for viewers.

Seattle Seahawks 43  - Denver Broncos 8

Sums the feelings of Bronco's pretty much.
(picture capture from ruutu.fi)

 Good match, Congratulations Seahawks on first superbowl victory. Both teams did great and have many challenges ahead of them. Just like we all do.

Thanks for reading, I'm off to eat some carrots!

Dessert & Snowrunfest

Originally I was planning to make a post about Snowrunfest, but I then I found out about this yummy dessert, which I wanted to try to make. Eventually I didn't know which one I should post about, so here it is. A mans choice! Pick one - no, no! Let's take both of them: Here it is a snowrunfest filled dessert post with no added sugar!

 

Let's start off with the food, since I love making food (read: eating...):

I was hungry, so I decided to make pasta and chicken. Normally I would avoid pasta, unless I know I will be doing lot of exercises, which needs fuel, like marathons etc.

I spiced the chicken by using mexican vegteables once they were almost ready. They are provided in a bag that can be found from stores selling Pirkka-labeled products. I also put some corn-pea-pepperbells in there. I put some chili sauce in there also. Overall the taste was super good. The white stuff is cheese...thingy, no idea of the english name. Sorry!

Chicken pasta ala Janne

Chicken pasta ala Janne

Then like the title already revealed, I made some dessert fit for amateur athlete's like me, who are on a candy/chocolate strike.

These banana-creppes are easy to make and only need few eggs & bananas to make. They taste delicious just the way they are - but you can spice them up with your own choice of fruits/sauce/anything goes (even chocolate proteinshake etc. ). Below is a picture of what I had to choose from:

I had lots of ingredients to choose from - maybe a bit too much ;)?

Suggestions what you can use to top your dessert!

Only needed ingredients for making banana-creppes
Use 1:1 rate for banana/egg

Them bananas and eggs in harmony.
Use blender or mixer to make them into a nice "foam"

In any case, turning these banana-creppes turned out to be slightly difficult. I tried to make them in a big frying pan, but if you have those pans with small holes for creppes - use that. Also you need patience, first few be annoying to flip over, but you get used to it. Also remember the pan needs to be hot!

Making of, happy banana creppe!

Easier if you put them into smaller servings, to flip over, that is.

The creppes turned out OK! in end and I put some fruits on the plate, cashew nuts and poured some coconut flakes on top of the fruits. Really, really, REALLY! delicious. Yum.

Finishing product! Banana creppes surrounded with the love of other fruits, with finishing touch of coconut flakes on top

Finishing product! Banana creppes surrounded with the love of other fruits, with finishing touch of coconut flakes on top

Be warned though, as the main ingredient comes from bananas and eggs, you will be super filled. It's super delicious, so avoid making your stomach explode from the yummies! and no sugar involved, except fruits own sugar!

Last but not least, the second main subject for this blog post: Snowrunfest

So what is snowrunfest?

It's a fun running event with lots of obstacles to pass before you make it to the finishing line. Taken from the organizers website: there are sumo wrestlers, airfilled obstacles, climbing ropes and much more. The whole course is filled with neon lights and there is DJ playing music for people participating (or cheering for the people running).

In total it seems to be super fun event and like the crazy person I am, I'm definetely participating. I also have friend joining, so it is going to be double the fun!

Oh and I should mention it's run outside, in freezing cold and hopefuly there is tons of snow involved. Yes, we finns are crazy!

Map of the obstacle course, provided by snowrunfest organization

The run will happen on 8th of Feb., with after the run there is going to be a nightclub afterparty, which will probably delay the after posting with pictures to the next days... I of course will not drink alcohol, no sir, no no!

You can find more about Snowrunfest here:

http://www.snowrunfest.com/

If you want to participate, you can do so by applying here before 4th of Feb. (the prices can be found there).

http://www.snowrunfest.com/ilmoittaudu

How did you like the foods/ the blogs new look? Are you going to participate on the Snowrunfest?!

Comment below and subsribe to get the latest blog news from achieving dreams...

Ps. you can read the finnish version by choosing the "finnish blog posts" tab at the start of page.

Pps. here is a song called whole again by atomic kitten... I felt so whole after eating so much good stuff and I'm supposed to go have 10km run still...