on your mark

July 30, 2009

Less than 20 hours until the most important race of the track season. The 10.000m of the Finnish Championships will start at 18.20 (Finnish time). I studied the participants list and found that I have one of the slowest times this year. Well, of course I hope to improve my season best of 31:54 but still I might battle for the title “worst 10K runner”. Yeah, believe it or not, there is something like that! I think it’s a bit unfair to have such a competition, because you have to run a qualification time to enter the race (this year it was 32:00) No, seriously, it’s a good motivation to run a good race and give your best until the end.

23 runners are on the participants list. Let’s see how many show up, usually there are some no-shows because some of the runners entered more races (e.g. 5.000m or 3.000m steeple) and decide only short before in which race they will run. Here is the complete list:

	name	club	SB	PB
1	Jussi Utriainen	LahdAh	28.54,66	28.50,20
2	Miika Takala	JyvKU		30.11,83
3	Henri Manninen	JyvKU		30.04,56
4	Juho Pirkola	KälvTa	30.36,71	30.06,03
5	Mikko Tyni	HaminP	31.07,74	31.07,74
6	Jukka Kero	TuUL		30.40,61
7	Marko Vaittinen	ForsSa		30.40,38
8	Pekka Toivola	JoensK	31.33,23	31.21,20
9	Mårten Boström	SjunIF	29.50,77	29.16,68
10	Erik Hass	VaajKu	31.54,07	31.54,07
11	Miika Henriksson	ViipU		32.49,59
12	Joni Hulkko	JalasJ	31.42,71	31.42,71
13	Obed Kipkurui	SjunIF		29.39,23
14	Lewis Korir	TuUL	28.07,34	28.07,34
15	Petri Kykyri	KälvTa	31.43,63	30.25,76
16	Harri Nissinen	ImatrU	32.50,99	32.16,98
17	Arto Perttilä	VaasVa		31.30,45
18	Juha Puttonen	JyvKU		30.51,82
19	Anssi Raittila	ViipU	31.04,55	30.47,43
20	Joni Rautio	LapLu	31.53,47	31.39,43
21	Matti Räsänen	JoensK	28.52,32	28.52,32
22	Joseph Tanui	LahdAh	30.18,69	30.18,69
23	Simo Wannas	HKV		29.04,64

Most of the guys I know from previous races, such as this years Finnish Halfmarathon Championships and I have beaten some of them but we will see who is in a good shape on race day. The excitement is there (indeed!!), even if I’m not too satisfied with my shape.

After the race I will stay one more night in Espoo and then will return to Germany. I’m flying to Berlin on Saturday and watch the Vattenfall City-Night before I return to my home town Zwickau.