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)