TdH 2009 pic

Here's a picture of yours truly and a bunch of fellow 32 km/h group members from TdH 2009 (reproduced with kind permission of the photographer). I'm in the front, wearing the same Kraftwerk jersey as I did last year. It's a tradition already. BTW, the guy at the finish line checking the race numbers, the same guy who did it last year, remembered to compliment my jersey this year too.

Also note that the two guys riding behind me have exactly the same shoe protectors as myself!

For TdH 2010, I'm hoping to recruit 3 guys of about the same size as me, who'll also ride Trek Madones, wear matching Kraftwerk jerseys and other identical apparel. We'll ride in perfect sync and be called Team Kraftwerk. I'll also rig an mp3 player and speakers to my bike so we can have "Tour de France Soundtracks" playing on repeat all the way through.

Ok, I'll stop daydreaming publicly now. But now that I've invented this fantasy, I'll probably dream about it each night.

Tour de Helsinki 2009

TdH 2009 took place last Sunday. This year it wasn't such a big event for me, as I've really not had time to ride the bike this summer. It was fun, but it felt a bit like "been there, done that". I didn't have any ambitious goals, I knew that I can do it (unlike last year), my friends didn't make it this year either, so I just went with the 32 km/h group all the way. My time improved some 8 minutes from last year. Not much, but this time I got off much easier. I wasn't even exhausted at the finish line. My derrière and the soles of my feet took the heaviest strain, because the group did the whole 140 km in one sitting. I suppose my shoes don't fit perfectly, because in the end my soles felt like they were in flames.

This time I had enough experience from mass events to distinguish possible dangers of riding in a group. I could tell that some riders were making things harder for others by not riding in a clean double line. I didn't like riding behind one guy who rode without hands each time he drank from his bottle. I was irritated by riders who overtook others when they should have slowed down along with the group. Last year, I just went along, blissfully unaware of the nuances of riding in a large group. Now I'm beginning to pick up on the etiquette.

What I'd really like to do, is to practice properly next summer, and then aim for the 4 h group in TdH 2010. I'm in a good condition now. If I can maintain it over the winter, my goal shouldn't be too far-fetched. I just have a slight feeling that I won't be able to concentrate on bicycling next summer either, as other matters will be more important in the family...

HCM 2009

Haven't blogged much lately. Sorry for that, you (probably imaginary) readers. The summer vacation was pretty much uneventful in the sports front. Unless you count renovating the apartment and drinking beer as sports.

I did dare to run the HCM last Saturday though, even though I was quite unsure of my condition because of the lack of training. It went well, perhaps surprisingly. My goal was to run 42 km in about 4 hours 12 minutes, or at the pace of 6 min/km, which I managed to achieve by doing it in 4:04.

My tactic was simple: keep the pace slow and steady. Then, when there's not much distance left to go, and you know you can make it to the finish line, run faster. So, for some 3 and a half hours, I just jogged on and enjoyed the mass event. It was quite fun, watching the other runners, touring the city, enjoying the services offered by the organizers and the encouragement offered by the spectators.

Then, at 34 km, I realized that there's only 8 km to go, I picked up the pace. There were a lot of walkers by then I suppose that I overtook hundreds of people in the last few kilometres. It is much more fun to overtake than to be overtaken, in a sports event, I suppose. Then again, I suppose that my end result could have been better if I'd known the maximum pace I can keep up from the beginning. I'm not complaining, I'm just thinking out loud. I'm satisfied.

A couple of observations from my first marathon:

1) There were a lot of walkers from about halfway the distance. Why? Did they start too fast? Did they not eat enough? Was their tactic to run as far as they could, then walk? Did they just try without considering a tactic at all?

2) I'm a novice in the running world. I was the 890th (of 1912) in the men's series, which is not too bad. But when compared with all participants, I was the 1930th, which means that there were about a thousand women and/or old-timers who were also faster than me. My hat goes off to them.

3) Expensive sports gear might actually be worth the money. I wore cheap shorts, which chafed my thighs. At some point I thought that my muscles were aching, but actually it was just the skin that hurt. Should have gotten better shorts. I will not pay 30 € for a baseball cap though.

New device

Got a Garmin Forerunner 405 sports watch this week. It's a heart rate monitor and a GPS device. I love it already. Just check out this example. Now I get all the data a nerd exerciser could want. Except cadence. Must get a separate sensor for that.

I must say I love the modern times. I purchased the device from handtec, because there it was considerably cheaper than in Finnish internet stores. I placed the order on Tuesday, and on Thursday evening FedEx brought the package to my door. Just two days! I remember ordering some posters from England about 15 years ago. Back then the process included exchanging the national currency to pounds in the local bank, snail mailing the order along with the bills to the retailer, then wondering for weeks whether the delivery would ever arrive or not (it did).

In case you're wondering, yeah, I'm not on such a tight budget anymore. At least I'd like to think that. My wife usually is horrified of the cost of anything sports-related, though. But anyway, I'll change the name of the blog to "Shamelessly elitist tons-of-money-spending cyclist" any time now. If I can be bothered. I'm on a summer vacation now, and I'll try to ride the bike more, sit in front of the computer less.

Result update

Ok, now the typing guy typed in my result! I'm officially clocked in at 3:03, which makes my average speed 33.1 km/h. Yay! I like the improvement.

Media appearances

I was recently informed that I made an appearance in the Tour de Helsinki 2008 video clip, and indeed, at 00:54, I got my one second of international internet famousness. Damn, I'm not content with that, I want more! Where's the 14 minutes and 59 seconds of my 15 minutes in the spotlight? I'm legally entitled to have it just like everyone else!

Ok, my ego is soothened somewhat by the fact that I appear in several pictures in this gallery of pictures from the Sveitsin-ajo. However, you might need the magnifying lense feature to see me. I'm the bloke in the Kraftwerk jersey that's coloured like the flag of France. Yes, the same one I wore in the TdH 2008. In case you're wondering, I do have another jersey as well, but as it is black, and my new bike is black, I didn't want to look like some bicycling ninja, or be called Blackie.

Oh yeah, and the results from the Sveitsin-ajo are being typed in as I'm writing this. The guy who's doing it hasn't gotten to yours truly yet at the moment. It's nice, however, that they're saving every now and then while typing. It's exciting to keep refreshing the browser and waiting for myself to appear.

It seems that the fastest group rode the distance in 2:37:54, i.e. some 27 minutes faster than me, or at the average speed of 38.4 km/h. Hmm... no, I'll never be able to do 100 km at that speed. It would take an insane amount of practice to do that. Perhaps, if I won the lottery, and I didn't have to work anymore, I could take the time to practice that much, but otherwise, there's not a possibility. Ok, if there's a 100 km downhill somewhere and there's a strong tailwind, then it's possible. But not in a real-world scenario.

Swiss mountains

Yesterday I participated in the Hyvinkään Sveitsin-ajo, a nearby bicycling event. I didn't have great expectations as I'd only managed to ride about 200 km this spring before the event. I thought that I'd just take it easy in the 32 km/h group. As it turned out, the group went faster than that, so I fell out of the group at some 20 km to go. Anyway, the event was great fun and I rode faster than ever before.

I noticed that I have some climbing abilities. There were some steep rises, which broke the group in pieces, but I didn't have as much trouble as some others did. If I hadn't stayed behind some riders who slowed down more than I wanted to, I'd probably have managed to stay in the group all the way. Actually, I kind of escaped a smaller group in a rise, and because of that I had to go the dullest part of the ride, some 10 km of flat road, against the wind, all by myself. A poor choice of tactic. Although, had there been more hills, I could probably have caught the 32 km/h group again.

It is, however, nice that there is some unexpected action in a ride like this. I guess it would be uneventful and kind of boring to just draft comfortably all the way. So, you get to ride faster than you would by yourself, but what's the point in that? It's much more rewarding to do some of the work yourself.

Distance: 101 km
Time: 3:04
Avg: 32.9 km/h