A long trail run on a long summer day

It's June 1st already. The weather has been sunny and warm lately. Let's go out and run!

We've got 18.5 hours of daily sunshine right now. Sunrise at 4am and sunset around 10:30pm.

The trail by the river is one of my favorites.

It's incredible how quickly all the green stuff grows along the trails after a cold winter.

There are some open fields with tractor tracks. These are very runnable when dry.

Past storms have caused big trees to fall on the trail. The trails have been cleared now.

My route went through a nature reserve with some really old forests.

The traditional Finnish legal concept of Everyman's Right allows free access to the land.

We have some hills, but they don't seem to be high enough when training for Alpine trail runs. For 1,000 meters of cumulative ascent and descent, I have to run the big hill 33 times up and down.

I knew there was a local low-key marathon race going on in the nearby forest of Paloheinä.

This is one of Kalevi's marathon friends finishing. He had dressed up for the occasion. 

I went looking for my old running buddy Kalevi (70) there, who was going to finish his 1,600th marathon race today. We once travelled to Stockholm by boat just to participate in some nutty winter marathon. It wasn't a particularly easy race. That's when I began to understand the magnitude of what Kalevi is continuously accomplishing. He often runs several marathons in a week and also does ultras on the side.

Kalevi (left) celebrates with some cake after finishing his 1600th marathon today. RD on the right.

I congratulated Kalevi on his amazing achievement. He was very modest about it. Then we ate some delicious cake to celebrate.

What an amazing summer day with great runners!