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TnT's Workout Blog

"Are you guys runners? You look like runners.
They are my favorite kind of people."
 - Christy Shimp
@ Tue 31/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Holland, Michigan
Time 42:07
Comments Ave 140, max 164, +27C. Hot and humid. We run downtown to get the car we left there last night. We take the 16th street West. It is a pretty boring and long run, and we take it even a bit farther than required, since we don't carry a map. We sweat a lot and Heinz plant gives the air a nasty vinegar stent. Next time we remember to stock the car with a lot of post-run fluids and towels.
@ Mon 30/07/2007
Comments We are in Holland, Michigan. What an awesome, neat and clean town. We visited New Holland Brewing Company, and tasted great beers, actually some very big beers.
@ Sun 29/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course University of Michigan campus, Ann Arbor, MI
Time 33:10
Comments Ave 123, max 136, early Sunday morning run in little cooler air. Both town and the campus are quiet and peaceful.
@ Wed 25/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Seawall, Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC
Time 1:10:37
Comments Ave 121, max 151, sunny and warm. Early morning run along the Vancouver shoreline to Stanley park. Low heart rate is explained by frequent stops to take a look at a map or observing wild life, such as swan, heron, racoons. We also looked for a red cedar that is called National Geographic tree, since it was once featured in the magazine. I don't think we found the right tree. There were quite a few huge trees there. And quite a few early morning runners that cheerily greet each other.
@ Sun 22/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Wreck beach
Time 52:22
Comments Ave 123. Our last morning in the musty dorm room. Sun almost comes out. We run to the trail 7, and follow the beach trail to the trail 6. It is pretty muddy and the vegetation from place to place quite dense. We have to do a lot crawling, climbing, and walking, and use a lot of core muscles to avoid slipping.
@ Fri 20/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Wreck beach
Time 57:21
Comments Ave 128, raining. After getting the brown bag lunches from the conference site we head to our dorm. Despite sore knees from yesterday's climbing we go for an afternoon run. We run trails 6 and 4 down, and spend some time looking for the trail 7, but it turns out we do not go far enough.
@ Thu 19/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Wreck beach, Vancouver, BC
Time 48:32
Comments Ave 124. The vegetation is rainforest-like, and the air really humid. We ran or rather walked a few hundred steps down to Wreck beach and then up. There are four trails leading to the beach from campus, numbers 3, 4, 6, and 7. All of them have sections with stairs with quite a few steps, and some sections without stairs. We take the trail 6 in both directions and trail 3 down and trail 4 up (the latter has 390 steps).
@ Wed 18/07/2007 - Fri 10/08/2007
Comments We are traveling for three and half weeks in Canada and the United States. Therefore, the entries in this blog appear infrequently.
@ Sat 14/07/2007 - Sun 15/07/2007
Exercise Bicycling
Course Tammisaari - Fiskars - Karjaa
Distance 128.4K
Time 9:30:50
Comments We made another weekend-long bicycle trip, this time to Western coast. Check here for pictures and the story.
@ Fri 13/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Pirkkola
Distance 5K
Time ~30:00
Comments +19C, sunny. Days are getting warmer again. Tomi went to an early morning run (note that our early mornings are around 9AM these days: in Bloomington it would have been out of question to go running this late). He ran the middle section of the 3K loop faster, and said that could not recover properly for the last one.
Exercise Run
Course Pirkkola
Distance 8K
Time 48:17
Comments Ave 138, max 152, +20C, sunny. I ran two 3k loops in 17:30 and 17:15. I saw a big crowd of American bicyclist with their shiny helmets and bikes, probably on some guided tour on the numerous trails we have here around capital area. Although an ardent proponent of railways, I still envy the Rails-to-Trails project in the US.
@ Thu 12/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Paloheinä
Distance 10K
Time 1:01:08
Comments Ave 134, max 158, +19C, sunny. Nice, relaxed run before not so relaxed afternoon at the office doing last-minute edits to the conference poster. We even ran to the top of the hill, which partly explains the slower time.
@ Mon 09/07/2007
Exercise Pilates
Time 60:00
Comments Killer ab workout on ball. We did crunches on ball, squeezing the ball with knees and chin. This was a little bit different class than usual; probably that's why some participants left after a few minutes.
@ Sat 07/07/2007 - Sun 08/07/2007
Exercise Bicycling
Course Porvoo
Distance 132K
Time 8:33:50
Comments We made a two-day bicycle trip to the coastal town of Porvoo. Check here for pictures and the story.
@ Fri 06/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Pirkkola
Distance 8K
Time 45:42
Comments Ave 143, max 155, +19C, cloudy. I ran two 3K loops, both in 16:30.

Nice thing about gaining experience in running is that I am able to tell and keep my pace pretty accurately. Another thing that helps to keep the pace constant and actually a little higher than I would otherwise, is to have my mind engaged in something that exites, annoys or bothers me, like the coming weekend's bicyle trip, the current project I am working on, global warming or some idiot in online chatroom. However, I must remember to stop thinking when entering the postrun recovery jog, since otherwise I just keep going.
@ Wed 04/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Pirkkola
Distance >5K
Time 31:15
Comments Ave 133, max 146, +24C, sunny, nice breeze. I felt like a rubber band was pulling me backwards, so I cut the run short after one lap. New hunred meter markers, much bigger than the old ones and each on the same side of the trail, have been installed along the loop. They still lack the paint.
@ Mon 02/07/2007
Exercise Run
Course Höpsism-based to Huopalahti and Pirkkola
Time 42:31
Comments Ave 130, max 154, +22C, partly cloudy. Some thunderstorms have been circulating around for the whole day, but have missed us. We have not had any major downpour either.
@ Sun 01/07/2007
Exercise Bicycling
Course Beer pubs
Distance 30K
Comments The day started boring grey, but soon after noon the sun came out. We do not have any nice bars in the neighborhood (as you may have read already), so we planned to extend our beer expedition farther away. So on the bikes we hop!

We ride some 10 miles south east to a suburb called Puotila and its strip mall that hosts one of the best beer pubs in this town called Pikkulintu. (Pikkulintu means a small songbird in Finnish.)

On our way to Puotila we stop at a recently opened franchise of Kalaravintolat in Oulunkylä to watch the F1 race. "Kalaravintolat" literarily translated means "Fish restaurants", but they don't have anything to do with fish. Someone sometime in his weird mind thought that it is nice to name his beer pubs after fish, such as "Thirsty Lox", "Tipsy Perch", "Malty Catfish", or "Beautiful Flatfish". (only that in Finnish most of these names rhyme).

Anyway, the place has quite a standard, not too interesting selection of British, German, Belgian, and Baltic beers (not to mention one domestic), and one American, Liberty Ale from Anchor Brewing Co. in California.

When the race is over we are on our bikes again and on our way to Puotila. Pikkulintu has a selection of about 250 single malt whiskies, but this time we skip the Scotch and concentrate in Scandinavian beers. We start with a domestic microbrew from Plevna, and their IPA called Severin. They also have an imperial stout called Siperia we did not taste but the name reminds me of Siberian Night a lovely beer we enjoyed a lot in Bloomington.

Severin is a tasty American inspired IPA as is some other IPAs and ESBs from Sweden and Denmark we sampled. And we did sample a few: