18th – 21st of September – Oslo

Flying into Oslo it was easy to grab the express train into the center and from there it was a short walk to my hotel. The hotel was intentionally chosen as it was less than 5 minutes from the city hall in front of which the marathon would start and finish. It turned out the hotel entrance was facing the warm-up area which was an extension of the starting pens. I could barely be any closer.

Checking in I left and went to the expo – located in the starting area – and picked up my shirt and bib. Here I also met with my sister and her husband where we had a short talk and planned for meeting for dinner the evening before and after the run. She would be running the half marathon, starting 4 hours after the marathoners would be sent off.

Floating saunas. 

 

Art installation called "Eyes". I respectfully disagree. Those are not eyes.

On the Friday – the day before the run – I went for a walk in The Vigeland Park – a park filled with sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The sculptures were weird, funny, a lot going on, but what they all had in common were fantastically expressive faces. You could spend hours looking at the individual statues, the fountain and the monolith just to be sure you got all the details. 

 

Haven't we all at some point been tempted to do this?

 

Standing in the car shop Carl realized he had misunderstood his friend 

when he said that he had gotten a new car for his two kids.

 

Having the marathon starting at 0900 the following morning I strolled out of the hotel around 0830 and walked maybe 100 meters and found my spot in the starting area. I had registered my finishing time around 3:50 and my start group covered 3:45-4:15. Standing maybe ¼ from the front I was therefore surprised seeing both the 4:00 and 4:15 pacers set up in front of me. Oh, well, I would just spend the first few km to pass them and put some distance to them.

The first groups were sent off on time and a few minutes later I also crossed the starting line. I started aiming for passing the pacers and the groups that were amassing around them, but I realized that the course was surprisingly narrow – especially in the beginning. We started west from the city hall with an early turn to the left and zigzag through a quiet residential area before coming out on Munkedamsveien followed by Drammensveien and after a bit turning right onto Halvdan Svartes Gate. From here we circled almost the entire Vigeland Park before coming back the same way and reaching Drammensveien we turned right and turned towards the water, turned east and ran along the E18 until we could turn onto Tjuvholmen, through Aker Brygge, pass the city hall and the start/finish area, past Akershus Fortress before turning up trough the central part of the city with quite a few sharp turns, reaching Pilestredet, Holbergs Gate and Sofies Gate before doing a u-turn on Martinus Lørdahls plass and taking the same way back (with the exception of circling inside Bislett Stadium) until past Pilestredet where we did a different zigzag and ending up in front of the town hall. And then doing it all once more as that was only a half marathon.

The course was generally narrow; most of the time we had half a street while we parallel with E18 stayed on the side walk and bike path. It also meant that it could be difficult at times to pass other runners, especially in the beginning when we were all crammed together. Also, the course was not flat and consisted mainly of two hills; the first from about 3km up to halfway around the Vigeland Park from 5 to 60m and down again towards the water, and then again from Akershus Fortress at 5m to when we did the u-turn before entering the stadium at 45m. Due to the layout and the visibility of the road ahead the second hill fell significantly worse than the first, even if it was smaller. But it helped knowing that you would be running down again the same way so you had something to look forward to. 

Despite the hills and narrowness I still ended up finishing in 3:55:21. That put me as 2340 out of 4356 overall (top 53,72%), 2065 out of 3635 men (top 56,81%) and 331 out of 501 M40 (top 66,07%). I’ll admit I was surprised how slow I was compared to the rest of the runners, but I assume it’s because Norwegians are outdoorsy people and therefore generally not in bad shape. And regardless, I’m still happy with my result, getting (another) sub-4 hours run.

Instead of the more common procedure of entering your race number and then getting your photos in return I had to upload a selfie. I didn’t have high hopes for the success of finding that many, but within seconds it came back with almost 200 (198 to be exact) photos, all with me in varying degree of in focus. I’ll admit: I was pretty impressed with both the response time and quality of some of the shots.

I made it just in time to see my sister off and give her a bit of heads up on the course before walking the long 200m back to my hotel and had a much needed shower. One of the last zigs (or was it one of the zags?) on the course passed by 50 meters from the hotel entrance, at the end of the street opposite of the starting area, so I managed to get out and cheer my sister along when she passed by, and then wobbled my way down to the finishing area and saw her finish, too.

Before meeting my sister and her husband for dinner I managed to meet with a friend I met on my trip to Madagascar and hadn’t seen since. We met at a wine bar (where she was already meeting with other friends) where we had a glass of wine and had a quick catch up before I continued to the Japanese and Chinese restaurant which turned out to be just around the corner. I am pretty sure my slow walk afterwards wasn’t due to the marathon but rather due to the amount of food eaten. It was a delicious izakaya-style restaurant. 

 

View of the waterfront from the Akershus Fortress.

My flight the following day wasn’t until the afternoon so I had a slow walk around town and checked out the Akershus Fortress before heading back to the airport.

Full album can be seen here.

21st – 24th of August – Helsinki

Getting to Helsinki was just as unproblematic as last time and the train connections from the airport to the center was equally easy. The airport and city center are on a circular route approximately same distance regardless of direction so it’s easy to just get on to the first train at the airport because you will end up in the center in the end.

Having been doing a more focused sightseeing the last time I visited I chose to take things a bit more relaxed on arrival. I checked into my hotel a few minutes from the main station and having settled in I decided to go to the runners expo at Merisatama to pick up my pack. A 1-2km walk from my hotel to get to the expo was absolutely fine, and downhill for the majority part, something I was trying to ignore as the start and finish of the marathon was located in the same area. 

Walking along Töölö bay.

The following day, the Friday, the day before the marathon, I had a walk around the waterfront, starting from Merisatama and walking counter-clockwise, passing by the Russian orthodox cathedral, had a short walk around Tervasaari, circled Töölö bay before reaching Helsinki Central Library Oodi which was quite the construction in and of itself. A large building that seemed to have been twisted a bit before being placed. I was impressed by what the place had to offer outside the usual reading materials; board games, instruments, music studios, gaming rooms (large TV and 3-5 gaming consoles almost completely sound proof), multiple 3d printers of various sizes, workshops and so on. Walking around I didn’t even realize it was almost up against the main train station, so leaving again it turned out it was just a short walk back to the hotel and getting ready for dinner.

On the terrace of the Helsinki Central Library Oodi.

 

The Helsinki Central Library Oodi.

On the day of the race the halfmarathoners were sent off at 0810 while the marathoners would have to wait until 0845. Not really an issue – it meant that arriving in good time I got to see the halfmarathoners leave and making room for us and our start. And on time we crossed the starting line, following the same route as I yesterday following the waterfront counter counter-clockwise, past the ferry terminals, the Russian orthodox cathedral and continuing north crossing the bridge to Merihaka leaving the city center. Here the half- and full marathon courses split; while the half marathoners turned left we continued north/east. 

Running along the waterfront with the Russian orthodox cathedral in the background. 

Here we did a 21km long circle, passing past and/or through Sompasaari, Kalasatama, Kulosaari, Fastholma, Roihupelto, Viikki Campus (Helsinki university), Viikinmäki, Oulunkylä, between Metsälä and Käpylä, past Alppila before reaching Siltasaari and crossing the bridge back to towards the city center. This bridge was a few 100 meters west of the beforementioned bridge where we left the halfmarathoners, and crossing this bridge we joined them again on the rest of the course. From here we passed by the central station, up along Töölö bay before returning back south and passing Leppäsuo, circled Jätkäsaari, went through Hietalahti, ran out on Munkkisaari and did a u-turn to get the correct final distance (the halfmarathoners had an extra 100m before they could do their u-turn) before coming back to Merisatama and crossing the finish line (one may even say the Finnish finish line).

The course itself was… ok. It was plenty interesting when running around in the city, but as soon we left the more densely built areas it got pretty dull, especially when we were brought through the more industrial areas. We did come through some more green spaces but you would usually have train tracks right next to you. There wasn’t much cheering along the course outside the center unless you were passing by a station or going through an intersection. There were very few sharp corners outside the city, though, which made things a bit more enjoyable. Overall it did feel very much like a Norse god [1]; the street at the starting/finishing area was blocked off for us runners, but it didn’t take long before we were stuck to sidewalks and pedestrian paths shared with normal people. It ended up not being as big an issue as I had expected – particularly at the start where it seemed that everybody agreed on the pace and barely anyone either much faster or much slower, so the running traffic flowed quite nicely. But still... I guess I expected something bigger after having experienced Copenhagen’s and Stockholm’s setup. Also, after the race, instead of getting a mail from a third-party race photography company that linked to photo packages, prices, and previews of photos, we just got a link to all the albums the day’s photographers had filled with photos and then it was up to ourselves to go through the thousands of photos to see if you had been captured. Seemed very low tech and it took a while to find myself (but it also gave me the chance of seeing that I was by far not the most tired-looking person that day!).

Being a marathon in the capital I was surprised to see how small the run was, with only 2315 people running the full distance. With a finishing time of 3:56:31 I came in as no. 877 (top 37,88%), 726 out of 1648 men (top 44,05%) and 163 out of 324 M40 (top 50,31). With nice cool dry weather and app. 220m up and down the weather and road conditions were nice, and overall, despite my reservations, it was a good run.

I made it back to the hotel in one piece and kicked back until it was time to get dinner, where I ended up at a German restaurant and devoured a winer schnitzel and a generously sized waffle. All in all, a good day.

Full album can be seen here.

[1] Loki… Low-key. Get it? Because they sound the same… It was low-key but it also sounds like the name of the Norse God Loki… Get it? Get it….? … Sigh… Never mind.