Since leaving Australia to ‘see the world’ as a 23 year old (interestingly, I’ll be double that very shortly), I can say that my life up until now has pretty much been that of a nomad. This might make it seem that I averse to spending too long in one place. Well, I have to admit that is totally true. However, that is not to say that the time spent at any one place is necessarily short, although that could easily be assumed. Rather, my aim is to only spend as much time in one place as I needed. In practice, that has meant quite varied timespans ranging from as little as three months up to as much as four years in one place. I guess that isn’t too bad, although I know that the inevitable frequent movement has still stressed out some family members and friends more than they’d have cared for. But what is this need that I’m referring to?

I feel as if I have an almost inherent need to keep life fresh and to remain curious about what is and what could be. It’s a need to always have something to look forward to and learn from. We all know how bored we get when we live in a kind of ‘groundhog day’ existence where life doesn’t really seem to change much, or even at all, from one day to the next. We may certainly be comfortable and have lots of things to anesthetize the mind-numbing boredom we experience, but for sure we are not happy; at least I’m not. The contrast to this, of course, is a life of constant change and that can be super scary, and quite uncomfortable, if not painful, due to the great degree of uncertainty about what tomorrow will bring. The reality of existence is that everything does change from second to second, but we are just not aware of it. Now, that change can be pleasant or unpleasant. If the change meant that we became rich overnight, we’d certainly find it all quite pleasant, at least for a while, but what if we were told by a doctor that we had only 6 months to live, that is, we were facing the biggest change there is in life, that is, the loss of it? Then we’d certainly have quite a different reaction. My understanding is this. Life is change and change is life, and it will happen no matter what we do. So, we can either choose to ignore it and live with our heads in the sand until life kicks us in our asses really hard (and it will at some point!) or we can accept that change is normal, embrace it and make our asses moving targets! There is still no guarantee that we won’t get kicked in the buttocks, but it will be much, much harder for the big size 14 shoe of life to find its mark. If we can focus on the latter, we will be well ahead of the game. With a greater awareness of the nature of life, we will be in a much better position to actively influence what happens to us, and we will have at least a fighting chance at living the best and happiest life we possibly can.

Now achieving happiness does come at a price, and that price is the need to sometimes feel discomfort, pain or even downright raw suffering. We need this unpleasantness for a whole range of reasons, but I think there are two main ones. Firstly, I believe that we value more what we have earned through our own efforts; and, secondly, if we do not know what pain or suffering is, how can we truly know or appreciate happiness? In other words, we need a point of reference to know where we are, and also where we need to go. Now there is a trick to this (isn’t there always a trick?!). While we can certainly passively wait for that size 14 to put the hurt on, there is another way to not only accelerate the process, but make discomfort and pain our friends, friends that we in fact welcome rather than fear. So, what’s the trick? Well, the pain or discomfort needs to be self-inflicted. When we take this approach, we’re able to at least exercise some degree of control over it, as opposed to passively taking what life dishes out, often ‘giving’ us things we don’t want, and which are seemingly quite random or occur for no particular or fair reason at all. When we seek it out change, discomfort, pain, call it what you like, something magical happens, and that magic is what makes life worthwhile.

“When you pray, move your feet” – an old Masai warrior saying

Really, I don’t think we need that much to be happy. In addition to the basic needs of food and water to sustain our physical bodies, and a warm, safe place to rest our heads at night, our only other basic need should simply be to surround ourselves with good people to learn from, and to share stories with, so that we are able to continuously refresh our minds and spirits. The rest is just icing on the cake … and really, without the cake, what’s the point of having icing? I live the life of a nomad because it makes me feel happy. I feel alive and inspired when I have the feeling that, at a moment’s notice, I can be on the move again, searching for new adventures, ready to explore and learn about new things. Preparing for, and then soon participating, in events such as the Marathon Des Sables helps to keep my mind focused on what I want from life. It helps me to remain aware of how heavy my life is and whether I am allowing myself to either be held back or unnecessarily weighed down on the journey I’m on. Incidentally, my MDS race pack will weigh about 10kg with 5.5kg of that being food! So, really, besides what I consume as food, everything material I need weighs just 4.5kg. Luckily the stuff between my ears weighs next to nothing. Hang on … did I just have a go at myself?

An adventure like the MDS serves other purposes also. My aim is not actually to race against anyone else or to try and prove to myself that I am somehow worthy of something. Rather, it is more a way to gain a greater awareness of the fragility of human life, as well as to act as a reminder of just how deep the reservoirs of our personal strength are, and how we can all access this strength if we would only choose to make the effort. For me, voluntarily subjecting myself to temporary discomfort or pain, so as to gain this understanding, is a way that allows me to regularly reaffirm the essential spirit of the life I wish to lead.  The same goes for why I prefer to seek our project work, which necessarily involves (sometimes major) upheavals of my family’s routine daily with the associated frequent travel and relocation. But what’s the alternative? Living a life where you allow others to dictate the direction of your life. Sometimes it’s easy to feel like a puppet, isn’t it? Certainly some could speculate that I’m maybe trying to run away from something, perhaps from a fear of commitment? Could be, but I don’t think so. I believe that, in fact, the opposite is true and that I’m actually running towards something. I’m not sure what that something is yet, but all I know is that the more I put one foot in front of the other, the better I feel.  From this, I figure that happiness is not a destination in and of itself, but rather a dynamic concept that requires movement and momentum to exert it’s best effects on us. Maybe, then, to be happy, we just simply need to keep moving, each in our own way? Certainly, at any given moment, we can feel happy or sad, comfortable or in pain, but I think that over the long term we can all say, if asked, whether our lives have generally been happy or not, and whether we’re becoming happier or not. What would you answer if asked this right now?

Keep moving and don’t forget to enjoy the scenery!

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education and Cofounder of Silo

My full professional profile is viewable here.

So, was I still seriously entertaining the idea of giving up ultrarunning altogether? You bet! For some reason, though, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other; but why?

Another 5km went by with more walking and a few short spells of jogging, but now with the pleasant addition of multiple bouts of vomiting. I think I counted about 8 heartwarming barfs over the next few kilometres. Nice! Then, with about 15km to go, something magical happened. The noise inside my head suddenly subsided completely, as if the arguing parties had simply left the room, leaving only silence. The next sensation to hit me was so surprising that it actually scared me. It was like being completely enveloped in a kind of warm and comforting electric blanket. While this unexpected feeling had initially surprised me, I think I had a clue as to what might be going on. The remaining distance of 15km to the finish line is the length of my favourite weekly training run, one that takes me around a beautiful course around a bay close to where I live in Helsinki. It seems that the metaphysical debate that had raged for many hours had ended so abruptly simply because there was no longer anything left to argue about. I no longer had any doubts about whether I was going to finish or not. I was essentially already home.

My spirits lifted greatly in an almost instant and, amazingly, I was able to start running again with only the odd short walk, something I hadn’t really been able to do since just after the marathon mark. Now there were just three laps to go. Then two. As I started my final lap at just before one a.m. in the morning, I was hit with one last urge to hurl. I final purge of emotion if you will. This time, all that came out was a massive gush of sparkling mineral water, the only thing I had been able to ingest and keep down over the last 35km. I still remember it hissing and bubbling on the grass next to the pathway. A group of teenagers hanging around the adjacent sports hall carpark initially looked on in semi-shock before bursting out laughing and then proceeding to mock me. Strangely, I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I rather enjoyed the show I was involuntarily giving them. At this point, I think that I had finally surrendered fully. I was no longer fighting or arguing with my situation, but had made peace with it. I guess I was now truly experiencing what ultrarunning is all about, at least what it means to me. I had ceased to run with my physical or mental energy, both of which had all been pretty much totally expended by this point. As other ultrarunners have described the sensation, I was now running with heart. With this surrender came an incredible rush of energy, as if I’d just inserted a metal fork into an electrical socket. I literally started to sprint (well, relatively speaking : ) for the last 3km. The section going through the wooded areas of the course had been lined with large candle lanterns after nightfall to assist us ultrasnails make our way around the course. Earlier, I hadn’t paid much attention to them, but they were now the complete focus of my concentration. They seemed to be acting like airport runway lights guiding me home.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”  ~Winston Churchill

In just over 13 hours, I crossed the finishing line. I half expected that I would collapse or maybe experience something semi-profound, but actually nothing special at all happened. After I’d been handed my finisher’s medal, my only thought was to walk to the car for the ride home with Pedro and my wife, Elina, who had both followed and encouraged me all day. At this point, I just have to give Pedro a special mention for his support. He’d had accompanied me on quite a few of the latter laps providing encouragement. I don’t remember too much about what he had said, except for one specific thing, “Hey Jyri, could you sing me the Australian National Anthem?” Wtf?! Was that his idea of being a great motivator or just a great smart ass? Whatever … it helped : ) On the drive home, I was trying to recall how I’d felt during different parts of the race, especially the really low moments, but nothing came. Like Pink Floyd, I was comfortably numb. I just couldn’t seem to recall any of the pain I had so vividly experienced not so much earlier. While I’d certainly wanted to quit on countless occasions, and I’d genuinely felt a sense of impending doom at one point, my personal ‘death march’, which had seemed to be such a massive ordeal, was now anything but. I now asked myself whether I would have been able to continue if I had to, and my answer was a surprisingly a definite yes, although of course a lot easier to say since I was collapsed on the warm back seat of a car and I didn’t actually have to! It has been said that even the worst hunger is cured with just one meal. In other words, nothing is ever as bad as it seems and it is truly amazing how situations and thoughts can change from really bad to really good so rapidly.

Even the greatest hunger is cured with one meal.

I feel, despite my rather limited experiences in ultrarunning to date, very fortunate to have already experienced so much and gained some valuable insights that will help me in my quest to become not just a better ultrarunner, but also a better person. Through this latest personal experience, it is clearly evident to me that all of us possess massive reserves of untapped strength and endurance that are just waiting to be discovered. All we have to do is to simply make the effort to explore and persevere with enough passion. While I’m sure there are many ways to access these hidden reserves, the way of the ultrarunner, in my view, involves pushing beyond the physical and mental limits of one’s endurance and continuing the journey running on heart alone. It is very hard to explain what this feels like, but I can say that it only seems to happen with total surrender to an experience and when peace is made with one’s tormentor, which is probably nothing more than just our own beliefs about what we think we can and can’t do. If we are able to do that, the magic will begin to unfold. However, it is important to make clear that to get to this point almost always first requires experiencing a degree of suffering, which is something ultrarunners are all to familiar with. I absolutely believe that a certain degree of suffering is necessary in the pursuit of happiness. I mean, how else is it possible to truly know what happiness is if there is nothing to compare it to? In reference to this, a very relevant line from a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers comes to mind – “I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane”. I guess I could say that ultrarunning is my own personal aeroplane. What’s yours? Whatever it is, I hope your 2012 is a really ‘hearty’ one and you get to fly high. Happy New Year!

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education and Cofounder of Silo

My full professional profile is viewable here.

When we’re faced with a seemingly insurmountable task, challenge or problem, what is it that makes us say “enough, I give up!”? And how often, shortly afterwards, do we think that maybe we just gave up too early and that we should have persevered and continued on.

Tim Noakes, a South African professor in exercise and sports science, wrote in his book the Lore of Running about an inbuilt human mechanism where our body begins to send out signals to the mind to get us to stop, or at least rest, when we’re in a high level of stress for prolonged periods of time. In science speak, it is described as the central governor regulation of body homeostasis. Basically, the theory is that this ‘governor’ acts as a protective mechanism to prevent us from pushing our bodies too far and so protect us from the ultimate stress, which is, and to put it more bluntly, death. However, Noakes also spoke about how this mechanism, though logically useful for our self-preservation, actually seems to try and trick us in to believing that we are just about to collapse and that we’d better stop when we perceive sensations of a kind of impending doom when, in fact, that is not the case. In other words, it is proposed that these signals from the body come well in advance of the actual true danger, and so we have a tendency to stop even though we still have quite a lot still left in the tank, so to speak. In other words, we give up well before we need or have to. Although I understood this concept when I read it first some 15 years ago, I’d never experienced it personally, at least not until I participated in my most recent 100km race last October, one that didn’t at all go the way I’d have hoped.

On the 22nd October, I fronted up at the start line of the 100km Wihan Kilometrit ultrarunning race near Tampere, Finland. Under normal circumstances I probably shouldn’t have been there as I’d being feeling pretty crap for about one and a half weeks with a constant tickle in my throat and blocked sinuses. However, it was the last race in the Suomi Sataset (Finland Hundreds) series and since I had already finished the first two, I really wanted to complete the entire series. Since I didn’t have a fever, I figured that I could still do it, despite being fairly under the weather leading up to the race. A second reason was that I had no plans to do the series in the future as my idea of ultra-running is not getting a head spin from doing short laps around town streets and carparks. So, I convinced myself that this was what I wanted to do, even though I secretly wished I was in bed with a hot cup of tea and a good book about anything but running. Mind over matter right? In any case, attempting to run at my normal pace was out of the question and so I’d already decided that day was just going to be about having fun and simply enjoying the experience. Unfortunately, the reality of my decision and what it would mean began to already sink in well before the starting pistol had been fired – my resting heart rate was at 116 bpm, rather than the usual sub 55. Some of that was surely nerves, but I knew things weren’t right and that it was going to be a really long day. I was going to suffer at some point, probably quite badly. So much for the fun and enjoyment!

We were sent on our way at 9am. The first 10km went ok. I didn’t really notice anything else as I was busy recording the initial part of my run, just for fun, with a GoPro camera strapped to my chest. My friend, Pedro, was cycling next to me, taking some additional video with another camera and we were otherwise just chatting about this and that. Quite pleasant really. Maybe things weren’t going to be as bad as I thought at the start? Then something happened in the space of perhaps a few kilometres. I started to feel pretty bad. Heavy legs and a heavy mind. Pedro asked me what was wrong and I said, ‘Well nothing, if I was at the 90km mark, but unfortunately that’s still 80km away’. Pedro, a former professional mountain biker, already knew what that meant; I was in for a long, miserable day. I knew it too. Anyway, all I could do was keep going and see what developed. I soon ditched the camera, and Pedro too, and now tried to only focus on getting into my zone, the place where I have no concept of time and my mind and body are on a kind of autopilot.

The mocking begins after just 15km!

At certainly milestones I would do a check on how I was going; 20km, still ok. 30km still ok, sort of. 40km, oh God, I’m in trouble! It seems that when approaching the marathon distance in an ultrarun, many ultrarunners hit their first bad patch, which is probably more mental than physical. It’s maybe due to remembering how fatigued or bad one felt in the past after having completed marathons when giving it one’s all. But this was a different set of sensations altogether. I was running really slow, much slower than usual at this point in an ultrarun, in fact, about 40 minutes down on my usual pace for the marathon. My heart rates were up about 20-25 bpm at any given pace so something definitely wasn’t right (geez, did I really still need any more convincing I should’ve stayed home?). However, I’ve run long enough to know that this was not the end and, despite feeling like the dog’s breakfast, I was still in control. I also knew that since I was already so far behind my usual pace at this point, it was much more than likely that something even worse was waiting for me down the track. I had to change something right now or I would be definitely DNFing at some point. So, I began using a 5 minute run, 5 minute walk or, in more layman’s term, a snail’s pace.

I trudged on to the half way or 50km mark with this half run – half walk strategy. It was lucky that I did as now the thought of running even one more minute in a row was just simply out of the question. With just under 6 hours since the start, I calculated a possible finishing time and it certainly wasn’t under 12 hours! It is a very hard thing to negative split ultrarunning races, as it requires a great feel for perfect pace judgment, as well as also needing for most things to go your way on the day, regardless of your fitness level. I think the best that I could hope for, if things didn’t change, was to go close to 13 hours, that is, the same again plus an extra hour. The ‘impending doom’ was still a while away, but the thought of another 50km was not something I could deal with very well at this point. So, time for another change to my strategy. I now only focused on just completing 5km at a time, before worrying about the next 5km stretch. It was as if I was now entered into a series of nice short ‘fun runs’. That was something anyway could do, right?

My first ‘fun run’ went ok, as did the next, but when I reached the 65km point (actually it was exactly 66.66km or one third of the race), the wheels started to well and truly come off. I was now starting to feel in a way that I’d never experienced before. It was like a kind of like a, well, impending doom. I was now ready to quit right, and not just because I felt really bad, but because I truly thought that I might cause myself some serious physical trouble if I continued. I became very cold and started shivering and I slowed to a very slow shuffle, which resulted in me getting even colder. My body just felt like it was shutting down. However, my brain was still functioning surprisingly well. I was fully aware of what was happening to my body and it seemed as if my mind was watching it as a spectator, like a passenger in a car that is about to breakdown. This gave me a kind of safe temporary sanctuary to consider my thoughts and options for what to do next. Then I remembered what Tim Noakes had said about that feeling of impending doom, and that it was not necessarily real. Things were maybe not actually as bad as they seemed to be. This thought led me to major race strategy change number three. I had now completely forgotten about sticking to any kind of timed run-walk strategy. It was now all about making sure I got enough warm food and drink into me at the main aid station on each lap and just putting one foot in front of the other for as long as I could. What I then noticed was that a crazy debate had started in my head. My very own angels and demons* argument about whether I should keep going or quit … and I was playing both roles!

'Carpark of a 1000 lakes' aka 'Did everyone go home already?'

This battle raged on for the next 15km. To an outsider, I’m sure I just looked like a sullen figure who was a bit out of it, maybe someone to feel sorry for, but in my mind it was all systems go! The angel was on my left shoulder whispering gently ‘You can’t stop now, you have the strength to finish’, while the demon on my right was shouting ‘Dude, you’re a loser, you can’t do it. Your not a real runner, so just give up now!’ After a while I wasn’t sure which one was which. I was feeling worse with each progressive lap. Then I began to wonder whether the angel had changed his mind after saying ‘Look, this is actually crazy, I was wrong. You could even get permanent heart damage if you keep going while your sick’, while his impish counterpart now seemed to be the encouraging one, ‘Hey, the first two races you did this summer would have all been for nothing if you stop now. You’re so close! Just keep going!’ I just didn’t know whom to believe anymore. What I was sure of, though, was that I was still able to keep moving forward at a reasonable walking speed, although running was now just a very infrequent gesture to maybe try and convince any spectators that I was actually in the race. Maybe it was even more to convince myself that I was even a runner at all, as I was seriously entertaining the idea of giving up ultrarunning altogether.

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education and Cofounder of Silo

My full professional profile is viewable here.

Note:

Part 2, entitled ‘Even the worst hunger is cured with one meal’, will be published before the end of December.

* Running with Angels and Demons was the title of one of my earlier blog articles about the love-hat relationship I have with running and how both suffering and pleasure are closely intertwined.

Live your passion:

“Whatever you do in life, you must make sure that it’s something you are truly passionate about or you will never be truly happy, regardless of how comfortable your life may otherwise be. Happiness and comfort are not synonyms!” 

In part one, I spoke a bit about why personal branding is important in today’s social media savvy society. I also researched my own virtual legacy, but what did I learn from this one hour long investigation? What clues or hints were revealed as I now begin to actively and consciously development my own personal brand? I think my starting ‘Klout’ rating* of ‘observer’, when I signed up for the service, pretty much sums it up. While I used to be much more active and socially engaging at a younger age, which, very importantly, was during the pre-internet and pre-social media days, I have, I guess, become more of an outsider, someone who seems to follow situations from a distance, despite the immense opportunities available nowadays to ‘get the word out’. Is this is a good or a bad thing? I’m not quite sure. On one hand, I have never felt the need to go and ‘blow my own trumpet’, so to speak, that is, to publicize the results of my work to a wider audience. On the other hand, I still think that I have had made some significant contributions via my efforts in numerous professional projects in different parts of the world, ones that I can honestly say that I am very proud of. The question is, should I have been a trumpet player? If I had of been able to predict how the world would change via the influence of social media, my answer to that questions would be a resounding ‘yes!’. But why? I have always 100% believed that the best jobs and projects come via word of mouth, via pre-warmed introductions by one’s advocates and peers. In other words, the people that have come to know you and to trust you over a period of time. This certainly worked well in the past when our work locations were rather restricted. Now, though, the game has changed as we live in a truly global professional market.

Social media has, in a practical sense, become our virtual advocate or peer group allowing us to become better known and trusted by people that we have never met. For me personally, I think that I have done so much more that my current virtual legacy would lead anyone to understand. Certainly, the people I have affected organically in the past will always know and appreciate what I have been able to contribute, but that isn’t going to necessarily get me the right contacts to secure my involvement in any new and interesting projects in the future, projects which could literally be conducted anywhere in the world. I can’t do anything about my past, but I can definitely influence my future, especially if I am willing to take personal responsibility for creating my own professional and personal opportunities through a focused and effective personal branding strategy. Being active as possible is the key, which, as Gary Vaynerchuk puts it, it’s all about knowing how to hussle and being prepared to do whatever you have to do to make things happen.

There is more to life than just being comfortable.

Having a strong personal brand and social media presence will become, if it already isn’t, an absolute necessity in order to become and remain an attractive and outstanding asset in the professional market place, Maybe even in the social one as well. Think about it. Quite often the first thing many of us do when we want to find out about something (or someone!) new is do Google it. This applies to future employers, business partners and clients alike. The question is, what do you want others to read about you or what you have done when they go and do a search on your name ? If your answer is nothing, and you don’t care about, or want to use, social media then you’re lucky as you can just keep doing what you’re doing. However, if you want to maximize your ability to influence and create professional opportunities, then I suggest you read on. The days of typed and printed resumes sent to strangers looking to hire us, and to whom we are also just as unknown, are fast coming to an end. Your resume will now simply be the electronic trail of evidence of your actions and words left behind on the internet. Essentially, your cyberspace legacy will become your main source of influence in the global market, and your awesome organic bad self will only be of benefit when you actually get a chance to talk to a real person, which, in business, seems to be happening less and less these days.

Legacy is greater than currency – Gary Vaynerhchuk, Crush it.#

Is personal branding more about what people think of us or more about how we can better monetize the services we provide them? Maybe a bit of both. Getting financial rewarded for your efforts is an important goal. in fact, it is an absolute practical necessity for us to be able to provide for our own families. However, it can also provide us with the needed funds to start doing many of the things on our bucket lists, like live in Bhutan for a year to learn more about happiness. While you can certainly try meditation in Bhutan if that sort of thing turns your crank, but you can also get happy right here, right now. I personally believe that to be truly happy it is necessary to provide worthwhile service to others, no exceptions. Beyond personal gain, what is even more important is how you will be remembered by the people you interact with and influence during the course of your life. Legacy is greater than currency#.

To finish, I really want you to ask yourself the following: ‘Is what I’m doing right now making both me and the people around me happy?’ If you answered no, then I strongly suggest you either learn to find a way to be happy with what you’re doing right now or, if that’s not likely to happen, go and find something else to do as fast as your feet can carry you. Whatever you do, please just make sure that it’s something you are truly passionate about or you will never be truly happy, regardless of how comfortable your life may otherwise be. Happiness and comfort are not synonyms! Don’t waste another second doing what is wrong for you, regardless of how much other people will try to convince you to the contrary. It’s your life. So, live your passion, and start to live it now. After all, isn’t being happy the whole point of our existence?

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education and Cofounder of Silo

My full professional profile is viewable here.

* Since writing the second part to this blog article, my Klout score has over doubled within a month and I have been granted with the most auspicious rank of “specialist”, meaning that there are actually people out there that find some of my stuff interesting enough to follow : )

“In today’s business world, your business and your personal brand need to be one and the same. Learn to live your passion, and you’ll have all the money you need plus total control over your destiny.” – Gary Vaynerhchuk, ‘Crush it’.

Your personal brand is basically telling the world who you are and what you are about. However, being passionate about what you do is only part of it. Even more it is about being honest and real. Being yourself at all times in all situations builds credibility, because people know that you are genuine. They get to know who who you really are. This doesn’t mean that they will like you, but they will trust you, and if you have people’s trust, then you have a great shot at success as long as you have something interesting to share.  When your business is your personal brand, it is necessary to be 100% transparent, otherwise people will always feel that you are hiding something. This, of course, also means that you must always be aware of what you say and how you behave, because in today’s social media driven society, you will leave a trail of information that will exist (virtually!) forever. If you always strive to behave according to your core values and beliefs, and not do anything that you would regret or be personally ashamed of, you’ll be ok. It doesn’t mean that you have to try and be perfect, as no one is. No-one really has a right to expect it from anyone anyway, unless they’re delusional. Given a choice between pretentious perfection and genuine imperfection, I think the majority of reasonable, free-thinking people would choose the latter.

At the age of 45, I have only now made the decision to stop doing my professional work with financial gain as the most important motive. I want to now mainly live according to my passions and values, and to, hopefully, also infect others with that passion, as long as if it serves to inspire them on some level to get more out of their own lives. To reach others more effectively, I plan to focus on developing my personal brand by utilizing social media as I believe that it is now the most effective means of reaching out to as many people as possible from as wide a range of countries and cultures as possible. I am not doing this to somehow feel special, but out of a true desire to connect with others and to share things of interest and inspiration. My ultimate aim is to one day be remembered for having helped others in someway, although I’m not exactly sure what that way is just yet. I want to leave a legacy that my family and friends would be proud of, something that I myself can also be proud of. Right here, right now, I commit to being as honest, genuine and trustworthy as possible, in other words, to never be fake. If that is all I achieve then I’ll already be happy. If, in addition, I can also provide something of interest to share with others, then that will be the icing on the cake.

However, as this is really day one, all that is still ahead of me and I have no ideas to how it will pan out. There is a saying that to know where you are going, you need to know where you have been. I’m not sure if I totally believe that, but, regardless, I thought that it would be an interesting exercise to try and see what kind of legacy I had already created so far, if any. How would I do that? Well, since I started using the internet on a regular basis around 1992, I have potentially left almost 20 years worth of virtual trails in cyberspace. So, the most obvious thing to do was a Google search (at google.fi) of my name to find out about what’s been recorded about me. The trick was, I decided to limit myself to only one hour of search time and the first 5 pages of search results, as if I need to look longer or dig deeper, then whatever I might find really probably hasn’t been of much importance or relevance to anyone. I decided to call this exercise the “One Hour Legacy”. So, without further ado, here are the results:

Jyri Manninen is a name I share with two Finns who were much more prominent in the search results than me. A university professor of adult education, as well as a very successful martial artist. Interestingly I have been both a senior university lecturer, as well as a martial artist, but not to the level of these other two Jyris.

Then I found my Facebook profile, but that is nothing to write home about. At last count, I had less than 70 friends and the new web application ‘Klout’, which analyzes social media interactions, rated me as an ‘observer’, someone who likes to sit on the sidelines and watch others interact. Hmm … what does that mean?

Facebook – Jyri Manninen

Then I had to go to the 4th search page to get my next reference, and it was a link to the teaching team page on the Fitness Academy of Finland’s (FAF) website, where I am currently employed as the director or education. Wow, my current job where I am actively involved yet I had to dig pretty deep to find any info.

FAF Team

And then a real blast from the past. There was a link to a triathlon coaching website that had stored a copy of a triathlon coaching article I had written in 1992, in my first year of masters studies at the university of Jyvaskyla in Central Finland. Cool! Triathlon was a sport I both loved to myself, as well as coach until just after the mid nineties. It’s amazing to think that something that I wrote so long ago is still being referenced at read and it really wasn’t intended as an article, but as an answer to a question presented on a triathlon themed online forum.

Ironman heart rate monitor training

Additionaly, I found another reference to this same triathlon training article on ‘LiveStrong’, the partner website of Lance Armstrong’s Foundation that fights to improve the lives of people with cancer. It is nice to think that what I wrote, which, as I said was never meant to be more than a reply to someone’s personal question, is being used on a site acting as a source of inspiration for others, since that is the main reason I have been, and still am, in the coaching profession. This, I guess, shows that many of the things that we personally do not consider to be a big deal, may still be of interest and helpful to others.

LiveStrong: Ironman HR Zones

The trail ended there rather abruptly by just using my own name. Maybe if I explored the link with triathlon a little more? So, now I continued my search with “Jyri Manninen triathlon”. The first search page revealed a link to an article published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine based on my masters thesis entitled “Low back pain and other overuse injuries in a group of Japanese triathletes”. It instantly reminded me that I lived in Japan in 1995 and worked at a sports medicine research institute in Nagoya, where I collected th data for my study. Another ‘wow‘ moment!

Abstract: Low back pain and other overuse injuries in a group of Japanese Triathletes

Another few pages on and we jump directly to 2011, with a link to my acceptance to the specialist sports club ‘Perakylan Ponnistus’ this last summer. The club name can be interpreted in many ways (and not all good!) in Finnish, but the official English language name is ‘Backwood Hillbillies’. These guys (and girls!) do some amazing things like run ultramarathons, hold ice cream eating competitions and get lost in the woods for days on end. The club’s logo is an old smelly running shoe and their slogan is ‘(doing things) for real, but not seriously’, which describes really well the way members approach life. I think that I’ve found a bunch of kindred spirits!

The Backwood Hillbillies

A bit further on in the search results and I found something that will actually be occurring in the future. It was a list of competitors in a 24 hour ultrarun to be held in Finland next February. Yep, I will be running around a 390+ metre track over a 24 hour period. What was I thinking when I signed up to that? Well, at least you get to change direction every six hours.

Endurance V: 24 hour running race

The trail on google.fi went completely cold at that point. Then I thought, asI have spent at least half of the last 20 years somewhere else in the world other than Finland, I thought that I should still do a search of my name on google.com. I decided to also do the same with google.co.au. Why not? I am an Aussie after all. Damn! The results weren’t very pleasing. The other two Jyris still kept coming up ahead of me. Its seems that the’re more popular than me in my own country! Anyway, However, after some more digging, I did eventually find a link to a blog managed by my current company FAF related to themes health, fitness and wellness, and it is this blog where I am publishing this article! So, if you’re reading this, you might like to go an check out some of the other articles I’ve written here, for example, ‘The importance of education’. Please let me know what you think.

The importance of education

I kind of was getting really into this task and wanted to keep on exploring, but my hour was up what felt like 10 minutes. So, here is a summary of my online virtual ‘legacy’

• I am a very passive facebook member with few friends.
• I once wrote an answer to a question on a triathlon coaching forum, which, for some reason, still seems to be of interest to people after almost 20 years.
• I had one (and only one!) article ever published in a scientific journal. Probably because after that first one, I decided I didn’t want a career in academia and so had no desire to conduct more studies or write articles about them. However, good to know my masters degree wasn’t completely wasted!
• I’ve been lucky enough to find a bunch of nutcases to spend time with doing sports we love, as well as talking crap and drinking beer.
• Even despite having a relatively uncommon Finnish name (i.e. definitely not a ‘John Smith, buy more like ‘George Sherrifson’), I am only the 3rd most popular of my species, not just in Finland, but anywhere in the world it seems, despite the fact that I have lived most of my life outside of Finland.

… and that is my ‘virtual legacy’. All I can say is that, at my age (did I already mention that I’m 45?), the results are really quite sad, don’t you think? Mind you, I should be very thankful that none of the stupid shit that I have done in the past (and there’s been a lot!) has made it onto the internet! So, I guess that at least I have a pretty clean slate to work with. In any case, what lessons have I learned from this exercise? Well, I’ll be answering that question in Part 2, in which I’ll also be discussing and suggesting some ideas and ways that can be used to maximize your professional and personal influence. Until then, why not try researching your own virtual legacy and see what comes up. Please feel free to share your findings!

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education

Most of us who have been involved in exercise or sports have experienced injuries at some point in our lives. Some injuries are so minor that they have remained unnoticed, some so severe that they have put a complete end to participation in exercise or sports. Working in the field of rehabilitation has brought to my attention many different cases and some of them have really been startling to me. There are people who go on with their lives with injuries that affect their normal daily living and place some serious restrictions on their lives. Some people come to me seeking help only when they can’t even walk 200m. Living with some kind of pain seems to be surprisingly common and I’m not talking about occasional back or neck pain. When we first get signals from our body that something is going wrong that alert us to possible problems we tend to change our behavior in some way, for example, by stopping our daily run, easing up on our gym program etc. Then, as time goes on and the minor pain remains, we start to forget it or ignore the pain and try to get back to exercising. The idea of lost training hours gets to us and we might exercise twice as hard to ‘win back’ the lost time. This is the point when things start to go really wrong and get really bad!

The human body is a very intelligent structure. When we put stress on it, it becomes stronger and can handle additional stressors much better. A very simple thing to remember is to allow the body sufficient recovery and to allow its strength levels to increase. This very simple thing is something that we just don’t seem to understand even though it is a very simple and logical concept. Minor pain becomes a part of everyday training, which means that, for example, minor injuries, micro-tears and cellular fluid imbalances slowly progress to become major injuries that are far more complicated to deal with.

The stage model in sport psychology deals with the injury process in five stages. These stages are called denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The model suggests that person goes through these stages before healing can begin. Of course this model does not occur in every situation, but at least some of these stages can be identified in most cases. What do these stages mean then?  Many injured people don’t really want to believe that ‘this has happened to me’. Denial is quite common, especially in the case of overuse injuries, which start with minor pain and do not stop individuals from exercising. ‘It’s nothing, just a little knifestab in the calf everytime during a run.’ I have tried to convince myself with amazing arguments. Just yesterday my old friend ‘runners knee’ decided to pay me a visit, but I managed to reason myself into thinking that it wasn’t actually anything to worry about. Anyway, if and when an injury is real, denial won’t help you at all. After denial comes anger. For Finnish people especially, this is the time for blame by finding out who or what is responsible for our problem. ‘Somebody sold me wrong kind of shoes’, ‘the road surface was crappy’, “My personal trainer doesn’t know what he is doing’ etc etc. We are actually quite skilled in finding fault in everybody else but ourselves.

Pain = potential tissue damage. That’s the time when you should think about if continuing exercise is smart thing or not. After the anger stage, bargaining comes into the picture. ‘Ok, I can’t run 10km, but I will do 5… but twice as often and twice as fast.’ A good idea? No!

When bargaining does not work, we move to depression. ‘I will never run again’, or some other smart idea. The sad thing is that some people do not get over the depression stage at all and they stop exercising completely. The final stage of the model, acceptance, is surprisingly uncommon. I have seen the presentation of all of these, but acceptance seems to be missing in most cases. Even when people are already in rehabilitation and doing specially planned exercises, they are still in denial, angry abd bargaining all they can. Oh yeh, and depressed too! I would say that most people just go through the three stages: denial-anger-bargaining and then it starts all over again.

Even though the stage model or any other model can’t totally explain human behaviour, it does give us clues about the ways we handle difficult situations. The most important thing is to accept the fact that sometimes you train too hard or just get unlucky, and to get back into normal shape, rest and special planning is required. So maybe, today, I will finally start paying attention to my own mobility and pelvic control, to minimize all my minor injuries that keep me from coming back when I try to train harder. Acceptance is the key, whether the advice is coming from yourself or from somebody else, like a physiotherapist or specialist sports coach, who just knows better. However, the decision to do something about your problems can only come from one place and that is you, and how well you can motivate yourself to take the necessary steps to heal. I will leave you with a wise Chinese saying – ‘The Teacher can only open the door, but you yourself will need to step inside’.

Aki-Matti Alanen

Physiotherapist & FAF instructor

Expect the Unexpected – part 3:

2 laps down, a ripped calf muscle and only 90km to go. Great! However, at least I was still moving forward and that was a lot better than the situation about 20 minutes ago. Over the next lap I found that I was slowly able to manage a shuffling, semi-run style with a shorter stride. Things were looking up! With 15km down, I realized that if I could keep this new found shuffle-run style going, I should be able to make it under the maximum time limit. To my amazement, the pain in my calf had now transformed from a sharp localized pain to a more generalized dull ache, which was actually quite bearable. At one point I noticed an area of bruising starting to spread over the lower half of my leg. I figured that I had suffered an acute,localized, muscle tear and now the trapped bleeding had been able to drain away from the area of the tear and, in so doing, relieved the built up pressure. Given that I had almost given up hope about an hour earlier, this was the best news I could have hoped for. I now felt that I was going to be able to finish the race, although it was going to be done with an altogether different strategy. See how plans change? I was able to run the flat sections and declines, but I had no choice but to walk even the slightest of inclines, as the forced stretch of being more on my toes still hurt my calf too much. I also decided to walk through each of the two drink stops to give my calf some extra recovery time. These short pre-planned walks evey 2.5km also acted as ’mini-goals’, which I could relatively easily achieve and then ’tick off the list’ and, in so doing, give me some much needed confidence as I felt that I was making steady progress.

With only 25% of the race gone, my whole race had now become focused around continuing to do what I was able do, as well as not doing anything that could cause more damage to my injured calf. This unexpected injury had now become the biggest problem that I was forced to deal with for the entire race – my weakest link, you might say. I also decided to make an additional mental point of  thinking of the 80km point in the race as my own personal half way mark, as if I was doing an empiric century. I figured that if I could adjust my pacing to visualise being in a 160km race,  and then be able to get to the ’half way’ point of this longer race in semi-good shape, then regardless of what happened after that, nothing was going to stop me from getting to the finish. I was now truly running for recovery! Not long after making this decision, something magical happened. I must have gotten into some kind of trance-like state, because I remember very little of the time between the 25km to 75km marks, not even my calf pain. The so-called ’flow state’, I presume. While this phase was pretty much a mental blur, I do remember a few particular images very clearly. The most amazing sunset at about 11pm, as well as moving through 2 hours of darkness with the blinking red lights and reflectors of other competitors stretched out over a specific 1km segment on the main highway bordering the town. I’m not sure what I specifically thought of or felt at those times, but I knew that there was no place else in the world that I was meant to be. I felt incredibly lucky to be able to experience all of it, the good and bad, and to have the opportunity to test myself in the company of a great bunch of people who were out there doing the same. Oh yeh, I do clearly remember one particular thing, which was a jeep load of local youth driving around the course in the opposite directions shouting ’encouragement’ , at least I think that’s what it was, with loud megaphones and using blinking lights and spotties to make sure we all noticed them. Megaphones and moving meditation – what a combination!

Coffee, black & NO SUGAR!

Not sure why I ’woke up’ at exactly the 75km point. Maybe, it was the birds starting to sing along with the sunrise, or maybe because I realized that I was approaching my personal ’half way’ point. 80km was now in the bag and I was still feeling pretty good. Another lap and 85km. Now I pretty much knew that I was going to make it, but there was still a little bit more work to do. All things considered, I had actually felt pretty good since the 20km point, but this was to change quickly. My stomach had decided to reject any more sports drink or, for that matter, pretty much anything else laced with sugar. The thought of ingesting anything sweet made me want to instantly throw up. All I could take in was some water and a few cups of coffee for something with a non-sweet taste. As a consequence, I could feel my sugar levels dropping and I was getting that nasty feeling in my quads as a result of the depleted glycogen stores. However, with only 2 more laps to go, I was no longer really bothered as I was on a mental high, moving through the bright morning sunshine towards the finish line.

I remember starting my last lap with a big smile on my face. This was actually going to happen! And wouldn’t you know it, I now actually set myself a finishing time and found myself recalculating again – well, I figured I’d earned the right to indulge in even a little bit of ’performance’ at this point! Given that the course was now pretty familiar, I knew exactly what segments I had to run and walk and at what speeds. At the 7.5km mark, I had thought for sure my race was over. This had then changed to finishing under the 16 hour time limit. Now it was about achieving a certain finishing time . ’If I can just average 6.5 minutes per kilometre for the last 5km then …’  Isn’t it amazing how things, situations and thoughts, can change! I crossed the line in 11hr27min. A finisher’s medal was put around my neck by the race director as he shook my hand and simply said ’well done’. I kept on walking for a while – cool downs are important you know, even after ultras!. However, after a very short time I had to stop, lean over and prop myself up with my hands on my now very badly trembling knees to stop from collapsing. I was ’cooked’. In a somewhat delayed reaction, my quads had now figured out the race was in fact over and they bid me a hasty farewell, just as I crawled into the back of our van for a wee kip. As I fell into an uneasy sleep filled with continuous muscle twitching, pain and cramps, I’m sure I heard a strange voice say ’never again!’

Can I go home now?

It has now been about 2 months since the race. I’ve recovered from the injury and able to run again. I haven’t heard that strange voice lately either. I now understand what running for recovery means and how to better deal with the unexpected. Looking back at this experience, I even think that my calf injury was actually a blessing in disguise, as it allowed me to have a much more enriching experience in regards to these concepts. Some very important lessons that will be of great help in the future, not just in running, but in life in general. However, I think the best thing of all is the feeling that I now carry around with me. It’s hard to describe it exactly, but it’s a really, really good one! Through this single experience, although it has been 6 years in the making, I can now much better appreciate why people run ultras, or participate in other activities of a similar nature. I feel blessed to be able to continue doing them, as well as for the friends I’ve made and will continue to make in the process. In conclusion, I would say that ultra running is not so much about finishing times or beating your oppostition, but a superb way of testing and shifting your own limits, as well as providing an excellent vehicle for being able to better connect with life. For those yet to experience these things, I hope that this article will have, in some way, inspired you to go out and see what it’s all about.

Good running!

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education

Expect the Unexpected – part 2:

As I mentioned in part 1, I felt that I’d been physically prepared to do the 100km Suomi Juoksu for quite a while, but mentally, I also felt that I had some key things to learn before attempting it again. I also spoke of destiny and just a few months ago, I was to cross the path of the right person with the right message who would provide me with what I needed to not stand up my ’date with destiny’. I had gone to listen to a presentation by a 57 year old Irish ultra runner, Dave O’Brien, who is only one of 4 people to have completed all four of the 4 Deserts race series in one year. These foot races are run over 7 days and about 250km of across the Gobi, Sahara and Atacama deserts, as well as the ’last desert’ in Antartica. While his presentation included a great slide show and colourful stories of his race achievements, the main thing I remember him saying was ’I run to recovery, not to perform’. By this he meant that at all times while he was running, his pace was based on whether it would allow him to recover for the following stage on the next day of the race, or even the day after that. He explained that this meant that he made himself walk a lot, even if he felt he could easily keep running. It also meant that he had to let many less fit participants go past him in the early stages of the races. He said that this was mentally very hard to do initially, due to both ego and pride, but after the first few races, he knew it was the best strategy for him as he would pass not only these same participants, but also many other much fitter athletes in the last 2 days of the races. These races were about winning the entire war, and not any given individual battle.

I thought about this idea for the next few weeks and then it hit me. In my first attempt of the Suomi Juoksu, I had run to perform. I had planned everything around achieving a certain finishing time and when it didn’t work out, I had nothing left, mentally that is. At the 50km point, I had suddenly decided that I wasn’t going to achieve my planned finishing time and I had simply lost the faith to go on. I had no plan B, or more specifically, I had no other reason for participating in the race. I didn’t have a better reason for participation that just a certain time goal and I was not motivated intrinsically and running on feel. So, rather that focusing on external factors. I had to learn to better listen to my body and to follow the directions it was giving me. I had to learn how to become absorbed in the experience for its own sake and to not focus on external factors that were outside of my control. The timing was pretty good too, as I had about 10 weeks time to specifically prepare for the event when I made the decision to participate. I also made the firm decision to focus only on the concept of ’running for recovery’, that is, run (and walk!) at a pace that would allow me to finish. I’d leave the finishing time to take care of itself. That would be the reality for me on that day, and I was totally fine with that. In other words, this time, I had no other plan than to put one foot in front of the other, in the most economical way possible, until that last step put me across the finishing line. Additionally, I was also prepared to adjust my pace and strategy with any unforeseen changes that might occur during the race. You could say that I was planning to expect the unexpected!

My preparation for the race had gone well. No injuries and no excess fatigue. However, during my last key preparatory run one week before the race, I felt a slight twinge in my right calf muscle. Nothing too bad I thought, but, to be on the safe side, I decided to only do some walking and some gentle stretches in the last week to make sure I didn’t aggravate it further, as well as to pre-emptively take some anti-inflammatory medication. Secretly, I must admit, I was a little worried about whether the twinge would come back and maybe become even worse. I was wondering how it would affect my performance; and there it was again, that dirty word, ’performance’! The instant I realized I was falling back into my old, and non-effective, way of thinking, I rebooted my brain in the ’run for recovery’ safe mode and decided that if my calf muscle acted up during the race, then I would just deal with it accordingly. I was not going to worry about it before I had to! I didn’t know it yet, but my plan of expecting the unexpected was to be put to the test much sooner that I thought!

:: Wait for me! ::

The race:

This is one of those cool events that start at 7pm and runs throughout the night to greet finishers with a sunrise at the finish line (depending on what time you finish of course). The temperature was close to 30 degrees celsius, which is quite unusual for Finland, even in summer, as about 40 runners headed off on this 100km (albeit repetitive) adventure. The first 5km lap seemed to go past in a flash and all I tried to do was to find my own rhythm and suitable intensity level. My basic strategy was to do repetitions of 25 minutes running followed by 5 minutes of walking, even if I felt I could easily keep running. I planned to keep this up until I got too tired and to then ’shift down’ to a 10 minute/2minute schedule, but what was it that I said about planning? In a book I read recently on business strategies, the author expressed the idea that good plans are just bad predictions of the future and that it was important to be ready for anything and to deal with any situations in real time, if and/or when they occurred. Well, my race plans were to be sorely tested just half way through the second lap. I was feeling great, in a solid rhythm and then, all of a sudden, ’BANG!’, a very sharp pain ripped through my right calf and it seized up completely leaving me hopping on the spot like I was badly failing a roadside sobriety test. It felt like I’d been hit by a smoking hot cattle prod! I was stopped completely cold in my tracks. There I was, standing by the side of the road, trying to figure out what had happened. I guess it had just been wishful thinking that the small twinge I felt the week before in my calf had just been a minor thing, because it now definitely wasn’t. I couldn’t believe it. Was my race already over? At least that’s what it felt like. I was, in that instant, 99% sure I was done and just ready to limp the 2km odd back to the high school parking lot. I was to fail again, another DNF to add to the resume. Could this be really happening?

I can’t even begin to describe the frustration, anger and even sadness I felt thinking that my race was to end in such a way and I would not get the chance to make up for my disappointment at not finishing 6 years ago. However, something different happened this time. In my first attempt, my decision to quit had been made in an instant and, as I’d mentioned earlier, that is something I have greatly regretted. This time, I decided to give myself some time to first calm down and to think about my options. I stood for a few minutes by the side of the road to gather my thoughts and to think of what to do next. I kept thinking about what I had promised myself before the race, which was to plan for the unexpected and to just focus on each moment and what I could and needed to do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, that is, instead of focusing on what I wished I could do, I decided to focus on only what I was able to do. I did some gentle stretches and began to walk (= limp!) as best as I could. In any case, I did still need to get back to the van where I could feel sorry for myself in solitude! The next thing I knew I was back at the high school car park and, miraculously, the sharp pains had decreased in intensity somewhat while walking. I figured that since I was still mobile, and able to put one foot in front of the other, I might as well keep moving until I couldn’t. However, with only 10km completed, I wasn’t, in all likelihood, going to make the time limit of 16 hours walking the whole way. After some quick recalculations, I figured that I would need to run at least 1km of each lap to make it within the time limit. Well, I suppose it was worth a try. I much more preferred the idea of failing while trying that failing by giving up while still being able to try. Better to ’die on your feet that live on your knees’, right?

… to be continued and concluded in Moving Megaphones & Meditation: Expect the Unexpected – part 3.

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education

Part 1 – It’s better to die on your feet that live on your knees:

The 40th running of the 100km ’Suomi Juoksu’ (Finland Run), the second oldest 100km race in the world, was held on Saturday, the 11th June in the small town of Perniö about an hour’s drive west of the capital, Helsinki. Despite it’s long history and location, this race was not run along some beautiful forest trails tracking alongside pristine lakes in the Finnish countryside, but rather over a rather unspectacular 5 km asphalt loop circumnavigating the town. Even the start-finish line was the car park of the local high school.  How beautiful! Anyway, regardless of the (lack of) aesthetics of the course, for better or for worse, this was to be where I was to try and correct a 6 year old ’failure’. In 2005 I had attempted this same race and for which I felt yhat I’d planned perfectly. I was fit, I had my pacing, hydration and eating strategies calculated to the last second, decilitre and gram, and I was ready to ’smash the course’. Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned for reality and it was going to smash me, probably not so much physically, but definitely mentally.

Despite being a really hot day, I was approaching the 50km point feeling pretty good, or so I was saying to myself. I was keeping to my planned pace and I had followed my hydration and eating plans to the tee, but then, in an instant, it was all over. For some reason, at exactly the half way point, I felt that I couldn’t take another step and without even a moment’s hesitation, I called it a day. My first ultra race was to be recorded as a DNF (did not finish) which could just as well as be written FAIL. I had DNF’ed, but I just couldn’t figure out why when, just 1km earlier, all was well with the world and I was on course for the finishing time I had planned to achieve. Now, there are two main ways to get a DNF; either by deciding voluntarily quit or to have someone or something else make the decision for you, like getting a stress fracture in your foot or having a race official stop you from continuing due to severe dehydration. I personally prefer to ’fail’ in the latter way than to just give up and I think most athletes feel the same as it means you’ve given it your all. Of course I value my health and so there is a time to make that call yourself, but most of the time the decision to quitis made much too soon. It is likely due to our body’s own defense mechanism trying to avert possible impending danger or death, which of course hasn’t happened yet, but might do if we continue in the same way. Maybe this is what happened to me, but why exactly half way and so quickly? I think the reason was that while I felt good, that feeling wasn’t good enough for me to believe I could keep it up for another 50km. My brain had figured this out, maybe unconsciously, and decided that if I continue at the same pace I wouldn’t make it and achieve my planned finishing time.  I can totally understand this, because my main reason for participating was based around achieving a certain finishing time and since it was probably not going to happen, what was the point in continuing? When I realized this, I lost faith in myself and I had no plan B. My planning had not taken into account the possibility of reality presenting itself. I had not expected the unexpected.

My mental pain was to shortly be exaggerated even further. Just 30 minutes after having voluntarily pulled myself out of the race, while I was chopping down on a burger at an unnamed fast food outlet, I was actually feeling pretty good again, good enough to keep running. If only I had had a plan B, another reason to be running than just being focused on numbers. But, it was too late. I was out and it was over.  All I could do now was to carry the mental burden of being a drop-out, actually, an ultra-drop out, which is the worst kind. Let me tell you, that really sucks and it was going to suck for a long time to come; 6 years exactly, until I had a chance to right the wrong I had inflicted on myself that day. If only I could have gone back in time that half hour and enjoy that 100% prime beef patty between two sesame seed buns on the side of the road, maybe even with fries and a shake!

There is a line from a song by the Australian band ’Midnight Oil’ that goes, ’It is better to die on your feet that live on your knees’. That day in June, 2005 I had decided to live on my knees and I have had to live with the regret of giving up prematurely until just 2 weeks ago. But why wait so long? While I’ve had been physically ready to do the race again, dealing with the mental fall out of my failure was a much more indepth and time consuming process. After getting over the initial great disappointment, I found myself constantly analyzing a range of issues including whether I’d planned for the race properly, whether I’d executed my plans correctly, and then even whether ultra running was really the sport for me. Probably the worst thought to cross my mind was to believe that I might actually have a basic  character flaw that made me prone to giving up when things got too hard, not just in running, but in life in general. While I was secretly afraid that this might be true, I also knew that I didn’t want it to be. Thus, I knew that, at some point, I was determined to go back and do the race again. In a way, I felt that I had a date with destiny with this unspectacular 20 lap asphalt course. Whether I finished the race or not was a reality I could live with either way, as long as I was willing to ’die on my feet’ and not give up like the first time. I wanted to prove to myself that, at least, my character was intact. The only way I was going to get another DNF this time was if I got stretchered off.

… to be continued.

Jyri Manninen

FAF Director of Education

It was time for my first half-marathon this year, HCR (Helsinki city run), which has grown to become a very popular event in Finland. Over 14000 participants, ready to challenge themselves and each other, depending on one’s goals. I couldn’t think of a better way to really start my running season, after a long winter and loads of snow. When making my way to the starting line, it came into my mind that I was challenging people to try barefoot running earlier this year. Probably many of the participants in the HCR have not read my earlier article, but it was interesting to find out if people actually were doing a half marathon using barefoot technology. I had decided to try a brand new pair of dynamic support sneakers, which felt so good the moment I put them on (the same morning).

There has been a lot of talk about the concept of perfect running and barefoot running for a while. In the Finnish running magazine ‘Juoksija’, there was an editorial that spoke about shoe running trends trends. Some years ago it was about pronation support and now it was barefoot technology. Anyway always some extremity. I wonder if it’s pure marketing or really a result of careful scientific research that makes these shifts of focus. Probably a little bit of both. The question is if it is a good thing or not. I just heard that a top premier league team takes care that all their junior academy players would get custom made insoles for their soccer shoes. Is that intelligent preventive work or just plain crazy? In today’s information society, common sense is often forgotten. We see an article in a newspaper that tells us that stretching does not affect muscle soreness after a workout. What do people think that stretching is not important?! What they don´t realize is that this is just one aspect of looking at the benefits of stretching and the same goes for different trends in muscular training, running shoes etc.

So, back to starting line. Shoes everywhere, supported, thick, slim, fast, slow, used, worn out, brand new, anti-pronation etc. Not really a clear trend towards anything, but maybe a little more barefoot technology than before. Runners have read their bibles I guess. Finally, I we’re off, its really crowded and I notice right away that some people have put given a better expected finish time as their goal than they are actually capable of. So frustrating while trying to pass people on the narrow paths during the first five kilometres. I can’t really concentrate on anything. I just have to see that I don’t trip over anyone or bump into young guys rushing all over trying to pass slower runners or people going 6:30/km pace or slower. After two kilometres I realize that I made the right decision with my shoe selection. The sole perfectly fits my narrow-type foot. The outer sole is stiff, which gives perfect touch to the ground (compared to the other pair of soft and comfy shoes I got) and the weight … I can barely feel that I have shoes on my feet! The only mistake that I can think is that darn half cup of coffee I had 15min before the start. Gotta pee! But running feels so easy that I don’t want to stop … so I carry on. After reaching 8km, the crowd starts to rip apart and I can start concentrating on my own run. Then it comes to my mind again, picking shoes and what the right answer is, or is there any right answer at all.

The human body is an extremely smart thing. All the actions we do are guided in such way that they consume the least amount of energy. Our bodies are different in many different ways, so our running techniques are not, and need not to be, similar. By controlling stride length and shifting the centre of body mass, our bodies try to make movement as easy as possible for us. The problems that we get (pain, exhaustion etc) are caused by the simple fact that we are trying to do something that our body can´t handle. It is, of course, a basic principle to get supercompensation and become faster and stronger, but if we are not in control then we get into trouble. Enough stress, but not too much. Enough rest, but not too much. It’s as simple as that.

After 10km, I realize that I will not make it under two hours, which was my goal … and I still need to pee! I have seen multiple running shoes and running techniques. Weak glutes, strong mid-stance, extreme over-pronation, excellent use of elastic components, missing abdominal support, great upright positions. Good thing my wife was running in a group ten minutes behind me, because I would have got slapped many times for checking the rear of other young women…

At 15-17km I was going like a train, no problems at all. I forgot about peeing as I was too excited about analyzing others’ running techniques. Now I was passing many runners that were exhausted. Some walking, some still trying to run. They had given everything and emptied their glycogen stores almost completely. The forecast is lots of sore legs for many over the next few days! Is the problem with shoes, I doubt that. In the end, it’s about the runner inside those shoes. It is important to pick shoes that fit your needs and your feet, but shoes don’t make you a good or bad runner. The most important thing is to plan your training according to your abilities. Suitable, good fitting shoes, that give you support when you need it, are there for you to make training easier.

The last 4km was not that much fun. I remember all those times that my demons (like Jyri aptly described in his article), told me not to go training and to stay on the couch eating chips. My shoes were still great with only a minor abrasion on right bottom, which didn’t really bother me at all. I wish the shoes would help me to go faster, like in the comic books that I read during childhood where a guy could play soccer perfectly with ex-star players shoes. But they dont, and I need to pee again!

I finished in 2:04:30, so not bad. The last 10km went a lot faster that the first. My legs were sore for 2-3days. The shoe problem was solved, but the problem of my physical condition is still there. I just need to start training seriously now. I’ve planned to do a marathon in the fall. Now I have to get my weaknesses sorted out, and there are many of those when thinking about running.  Just don’t worry about your shoes too much. Try and learn. When you find a pair that feels good, its probably a good choice. Try to look for shoes that have the same characteristics that your pair of favourite good old shoes have. Try different models. Then, the more you run, the more pairs of shoes you should have, whether that be barefoot technology, supported or whatever elese fits you the best. Good running to all!

Aki-Matti Alanen

Physiotherapist & FAF kouluttaja