Highlights of the year 2018: 2nd place Utö swimrun, 1st place overall at Järvestä Järveen (Lake to Lake), 3rd place at the ÖtilllÖ Swimrun Worldchampionships. In resume, Utö felt like: “we’re back in business but some body parts strongly disagreed…”, Lake to Lake felt like: “somebody was non-stop chasing us…”, worldchamps felt like: “kids waiting at the finish line – just get there…”
Anyway “negative thoughts out of the window now” let’s enter the dark season with some snow and creative blog writing. This winter I try to focus on three main subjects:

Last Sunday the 3rd edition of Lake to Lake swimrun took place in the beautiful nature of Luukki national park, close to Espoo and Helsinki. Despite a weather forecast of thunder and rain a record number of 111 teams participated in the race. What makes this event stand out in my opinion is the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Sometimes I almost forget that we are there to do a race and not just socialise catching up with friends, first timers and Ötillö finishers. I have to say that Krisse Vaano (Race Director) and a bunch of other passionate swimrunners (like for instance Janne Räsänen & Co) really did a great job at building a unique swimrun community in Finland. I think that people start to realise that swimrun is really all about sharing emotions and experiences no matter who you are or what you do. There is no fancy gear to show off and let’s be honest trying to look pretty in a wetsuit is a bit overkill. So the race is about 12,5 km long with 12 run sections and 11 swim sections of which the longest is 560m and the shortest around 50m. The terrain varies between single trail, gravel paths and some rocky outcrops. The longest run section is about 2,5km.

​Five months into my rehab things are going into the right direction. In this blog I  would like to share a few things that helped me get back on my feet again.  The first three months were completely without training: one month in hospital followed by two months in a full leg cast. The good thing is that it allowed my body to start the healing process without me constantly interfering with it. Nevertheless when the leg cast finally came off I felt pretty handicapped and lost. Where to start? Muscle imbalance, shortened tendons, a wound not wanting to close and last but not least I was unable to bend my (right) leg. Luckily it didn’t take long to figure out that the answer to a speedy recovery was simply to dive into the world of non-impact training. So for the next two months I spent hours in the pool aqua jogging with the oldies, cross trainer in the gym, uphill walking and off course lots of swimming, stretching and foam rolling.