Haltiavuori Lost and Found

On Wednesday I ran about 18 km (11 miles) trail loop in the forest through Haltiavuori (Elf Mountain). At home I noticed that my phone was lost somewhere along the way. I had not used it at all, but I had messed with my backpack to take photos with my Canon and to eat some snacks.

One of my favorite trails to Haltiavuori.

Naturally I launched a desperate search operation, but it seemed like an impossible task. I had randomly zig-zagged on new trails for me. In many places I had stepped aside from the trail for a chance to climb on all fours. With a heavy heart I reported my old buddy (we have gone through a lot together) as permanently lost and ordered a new one right away.

Boulders near the top of Haltiavuori.

On Friday morning I woke up with some sort of crazy insight about the exact location of my lost phone. I though sceptically that finding it would be extremely unlikely, but the weather was very nice and I had time for another run to Haltiavuori.

The area behind the pine is close to the place where my phone was lost and found.

Guided solely by my intuition, I ran straight to a steep spot with huge boulders. I didn't see anything there, but I stuck my hand in the thick undergrowth anyway and voilà! My trusty black partner was in my hands again. "Holy smokes, Batman" I muttered, not quite believing my eyes.

iPhone 5C white (photo:Apple).

On my way home I went to the post office to pick up my new iPhone 5C - white. Surely 5S could have been a bit better, but since I have a talent for losing things I thought the cheaper model would be less risky. Nevertheless I sincerely hope we can fully enjoy together all the challenging adventures I have planned for us in the near future!

My Top 10 Photos from April Trail Runs

Old Town Bay, where Helsinki began almost 5 centuries ago.

This wooden trail enables running to the islands when water is low in Gulf of Finland.

'Time to Fly', Hoka tells us. Or maybe I'm influenced by UD PB Adventure Vest 2.0?

The swans are here again, along our shores!

Seurasaari island: you can run/swim/canoe around it, but not bike.

Meilahti boulders, are you ready to rock?

Helsinki archipelago as seen from Lauttasaari island.

Running high above the fields in Viikki.

Viikki Birch Trail is one of my all-time favorites: technical but fun.

A visit to the Pond of the Giant Frogs! 

Top 10 smashing photos from March trails

This spring here in Finland has really been excellent superb first-class cracking brill outstanding dazzling marvellous wonderful splendid awesome remarkable exceptional glorious sublime great terrific ace stellar perfect fine exquisite peerless magnificent fantastic divine smashing fabulous top-notch wicked neat tip-top banging mega supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in every way.

What's not to like, except writers who overuse adjectives.

By the way, the ground was white at dawn today and it's snowing at the moment.

Interesting. Stay tuned for updates and happy miles everyone! Now is the time to start training like hell for those summer races.

A nice climb like this must never be missed.

A little ice never hurts - unless you fall down.

Some open areas were snow-free.

Some were not completely snowless yet.

A piece of found art in the suburban woods.

Almost like summer!

A diehard cross-country skier on man-made tracks.

In swampy places we often have this thing called 'pitkospuut'.

Icy stream close-up.

An even closer zoom.

10 pics from KiipeilyAreena

We did three hours of auto-belay climbing at the fabulous Toyota KiipeilyAreena and had lots of fun! They have ten great a-b walls. And the new bouldering area upstairs. What a great workout. We'll be back for sure. Here's ten nice pics from our visit.

And here's a bonus video.

Half-GRT

When I invented GRT in December, it was inevitable that there would have to be a Half-GRT some sunny day. Well that day is today, although it was far from sunny. More like slushy.

Poking all that slush with my new Black Diamond Ultra Distance sticks.

As you may know, GRT is defined as the golden ratio of the ironman triathlon distance. Half-GRT is then simply 50% of a full GRT. That's merely a 1.2km swim, 55.6km bike and 13.0km run. Easy peasy!

Where did that sunny spring weather suddenly go?

The indoor swim and bike legs flew by almost too smoothly. So I tried to make the outdoor run more challenging by navigating between some random geocaches in a previously unknown forest as directly as possible, turning only where it was absolutely necessary. That crazy idea worked pretty well! I had fun climbing on all fours, getting wet in ice-cold water and fighting my way through thick bushes. I used Garmin Forerunner for measuring time/distance and Suunto Ambit for GPS navigation between preloaded waypoints.

An interesting shortcut, as suggested by my trusty Suunto Ambit.

Long story short, this 69.8km self-organised unsupported solo triathlon took me 7h35min (including all breaks and transitions). In other words, incredibly slow. But it was worth every second. Half the distance, double the fun!

Climbing this required both hands, so the poles went into the backpack.