After taking 18 months away from training and competition, I am very pleased to say I took 2nd place at the 1/2 distance national championships for the third time! Not only that but my 5-month old daughter also got her first two teeth that same day!
Most people would probably be going crazy after coming so close to winning so many times, but for me, this year felt more like a win than perhaps was visible from a spectator's view. Going back to 2009 and my last appearance at Finntriathlon, I was a very focused athlete intent on reaching my goals. Not long after the 2009 race I made the decision to do something for my family and stop racing to build our house. I didn't even know then if that decision would be the end of my racing career or not, but I knew it was something important to me and my family.
NOTE: This is quite a long story so if you are interested in skipping to the actual race report, click here. But in my opinion the long story is much more interesting than the actual race...
The building project took 10 months or 302 days (actually quite fast by building standards) and I worked over 4000 hours myself on the house, which is a little over 100 hours per week on average. I thought training was tough but after getting done with a house build, I have a new perspective. This same time last year I was sweating my ass off sanding plaster and painting walls in over 30 degree heat thinking about how nice it would be to race in Finntriathlon again.
We moved into our new house in September and I promptly began 'training' for a marathon. What I quickly found out was that my mind and body were not at all ready for any type of training. I managed to do a few long runs to get enough fitness so I could make it to the start line in Frankfurt marathon in October. The race was exciting just because I felt like my life was returning after the house project but the body was not ready and I suffered severely.
The rest of 2010 I spent trying to recover mentally and physically. I decided it was best not to follow any training program but just exercise when I felt good. I did some skiing and running when weather was ok but by April I had still only the bare minimum of fitness to run 10km races.
Despite this very limited fitness I was totally excited to race again and immediately I found the energy to push quite hard in my first races to get quite near to my personal best times. This was very encouraging and put the fuel on my fire to get training again. My motivation was ready and my body was starting to move but I knew it would be tough to simply turn on the power and go.
I was right, my fitness was always a step behind my motivation and I tried very hard to adapt my training to this imbalance. I kept my volume quite low and focused on doing hard training only when I was sure that my body was rested and ready. This meant some weeks I was training only 5 hours per week and others I was able to go up to 12 but nothing more.
As of mid-May I had only been running and cycling as I knew what would be the hardest area to get fitness back to. When the weather turned hot at the end of May or beginning of June, I finally got my feet wet and did my first swim training in more than a year. Surprisingly it felt great even though I knew I was not going very fast.
By the time the first tri races of the year came in June, I was feeling my fitness was strong enough to do more challenging training like I used to do before the house project. Quickly I could feel my body absorbing the training and improving, which really gave me confidence I would eventually get back to my previous form if not better.
Going into Finntriathlon I had managed to get about four weeks of what I consider 'real' training. Most athletes would consider this to be much to little and a recipe for failure in an event as tough as 1/2 Ironman, which requires both speed and endurance. However, I was so happy to have the feeling of true fitness back in my body and a positive outlook that I could really picture myself competing for the win.
I made a plan for the race to first survive the swim as best as possible. The bike I would take it a bit easier on the first lap to find my legs and save some energy for the tough 3rd lap. Then on the run I would do the same of increasing the pace as the race progressed.
In the race I did exactly as I planned and was incredibly happy to find my body did exactly as I asked. I could push hard when I wanted to and get the maximum out of my body. Despite pushing to the max and doing perhaps my best 1/2 Ironman performance ever, I was unable to catch a flying Tuukka Miettinen who was simply a step above me on that day. Hats off to Tuukka as he has also been working incredibly hard for many years to win that race. Next year will be another great battle I am sure as my fitness will continue to improve.
Below are a few pictures courtesy of Kaisa Utrianen.
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