Travel from Hämeenlinna to Los-Angeles was very very long but went well. I even got to witness something really strange while changing planes in
When I arrived at LAX I was surprised how smooth everything with customs and baggage went. They didn’t even do a doping control nor a Vo2 test on me :)
Fortunately I didn’t have to hang out at the airport as James was there to pick me up. We then drove over to his sisters place in LA and went for a good dinner. My body had adapted well to the timezone and I slept well like a baby.
However we were up at 4AM as James had a 22K trail running race to do in the morning. We got to the race venue of the Xterra Malibu creek challenge at 6AM. I was just supposed to watch the race but I got a crazy idea to talk myself in to the 6K trail run. Well the awesome race people let me in to the race and suddenly I had to get my legs working. So off I went for an easy warm-up run thinking this must be the most stupid mistake I’ve ever done (I talked myself into the race saying I was a good athlete so didn’t want to get humiliated by walking a 6K race J
It was my first ever running race and the first time I have ever run on a single-track trail. When the gun went off I ran as hard as I could to get to the front of the pack. After 500m my legs said to me they were completely done. At this point I was running in front with 3 or 4 other guys. The first mile of the race was into a small downhill after which the course went up and got into a single track. Fortunately I got back into the lead just before the single track. Running on it was quite nice but challenging. Unfortunately what goes up must go down and the downhill portion was HARD! It totally killed my legs and I had no technique in the quick turns and stuff. The 2nd place guy caught up to me but fortunately only just before the single track downhill ended and from that on I was able to get back a comfortable 30s lead on the last mile and get the overall victory in the 6K. Running down the finish chute I was just not believing I was doing this let alone how well I ran. I was told that my time was a new course record too! The race was very cool!
After the awards James and I headed over to
Sunday morning I went for another easy ride but didn’t find any good roads and got to stoplights every 200m! Have to map out some rides to get better riding in!
P.S. haha apparently I'm from Lexington, KY :D
To be continued…..
JH
1 comments:
Congrats on your win!! That's amazing, way to step up and race when you weren't even planning on it!! Welcome to the US :)
Post a Comment