It’s the last day of 2020 – time to look back and see how things went this year and set some new plans for 2021.

2020

This year was supposed to be about new races, routes and places but thanks to the pandemic that didn’t work as planned.

In March, just before this whole madness started I was lucky enough to race the Trans Gran Canaria. Good trip with friends and the route was something different for sure. Wrote about that a bit here.

After realising that there wouldn’t be that many races this year I wanted to do the Reitti 2000 and submit that to the FKT website https://fastestknowntime.com/. That was a lot of fun (until it wasn’t) but all in all a good run with Jaakko! More about that here.

Other races or memorable runs included Nuuksio Classic 70, Backyard Ultra pikkujoulut and Christmas eve marathon in Paloheinä. Best memories once again came from running with old and new friends.

Crewing was part of the year, too. I was helping out Jaakko and Kati first at the Endurance 24 (posted about that too) and later at Nuuksio Backyard Ultra in June. It’s not the same as taking part in the race but in some ways it’s even better than racing :) Hopefully will do more of it in the future!

And the numbers for 2020: ran 239 times covering 3857km and 45k vert taking me 376h 52min or about 15.5 days of non-stop running. On top of that about 600km cycling, 12 times bouldering and a couple of gym sessions. A bit less running than what I aimed for a year ago but given the times we live in I’m happy with it.

2021

As for 2021, looks like my plans are pretty much set! Then again it’s not that difficult when you decide to do only two main races.

NUTS Karhunkierros

The first one is once again NUTS Karhunkierros in May. I’m running the 166km route and it will be my 3rd time on that distance and 5th time in Karhunkierros. I’m super excited to see a lot of runners on the Vegaanijuoksijat team in 2021 race!

NUTS 300

The second event is the biggest challenge I’ve ever signed up for. NUTS Distance 300 is a new 326km (or ~200m mile) trail race in Lapland by Northern Ultra Trail Service. It begins on Monday 12.7.2021 after NUTS Ylläs Pallas weekend. The unmarked route starts at the Lemmenjoki national park, goes through Pöyrisjärvi wilderness to Hetta and follows the the hiking route south to Ylläs through Pallas. It will be completely new territory for me both literally and figuratively. The first 200km goes through places that look amazing and I’ve never been to before!

It’s the first 200 miler in Finland and the participant number is capped at 150. At the time of writing there are about 70 brave souls* signed up for it. It’s my first multi day event and it has less aid stations than any race before (excluding races shorter than a marathon) and yes, I’m very afraid. And excited.

I still have my name on the list for Vaarojen Maraton 65km in the fall but that depends on how I’ll recover from NUTS 300 so I’m not taking any pressure for it yet.

* some might use less flattering terms (and I wouldn’t blame them)