Motivation for running
Why I started to run marathons
This story begins in June 1999. I was visiting my relatives in Gothenburg,
Sweden, and returning by train and Viking Line Ferry from
Stockholm to Turku, Finland. It was a nice sunny summer day. I had
couple of hours time to see the city before the Ferry departure. I had never
been in Stockholm center before so the place was all new to me.
I do not remember many details about the city, or where exactly I was
walking around but there seemed to be some running event going on. Lots of
people were cheering for the runners along the streets in the beautiful
city center. The atmosphere was very positive and relaxed, and left me
with a good impression. I found out that it was
Stockholm marathon.
After a while, I went to harbor and entered to the Viking Line ferry.
I had a clear plan what to do next: go to sauna, then dinner, and to
the dancing restaurant. In the sauna, there were few exhausted silent
men sitting. Their body language told me out loud that I would not going
to see them in the dancing floor later in the evening. This is how
exhausted they looked. They had just enough energy to tell me what
they had been doing in Stockhol: running a Marathon. At this very moment,
I decided that if I ever was going to run a marathon, I would do it in Stockholm.
Marathon, sauna in the ferry, sea trip to Finland; it seemed to be
a good plan.
Picture 1:Viking line Stockholm ferry.
Building up the motivation
Years passed by without any serious efforts. It is one thing to
think about doing it, and another one to actually do it. Even though
I knew the time and place, there was still a big IF that separated
me from the marathon. Usually I was getting in shape towards the end of
the summer while Stockholm marathon took place in early summer; too early
for me. Once upon a time, I even seriously considered running a marathon
in my home town, Joensuu, and marked the date in my calendar.
However, the date later changed to one week earlier, and did not fit
into my schedule anymore. So I missed that change.
Another problem was that how was I supposed to know whether I am in good
engouh shape to complete a marathon. The first time I recall having
any thoughts about running marathon was already in 1997. I asked a friend
and was given a clear advice. To complete a marathon, I should fullfill
two criteria: First, I should be able to run 10 km comfortably. But I could
hardly run 10 km without walking somewhere in between. So I did not pass this test.
Second, I should also do 20 km distance once or twice prior to the marathon.
Oh boy, that sounded unpleasantly long distance to cover - almost 2
hours of running! Marathon itself is special and running 42 km sounds
reasonable, but do I really need to train for it by running 20 km long
distances?! 
Another marathoner gave me further advices about Carbohydrates loading
being important part of the preparation. But I had no clue what these were.
I used to buy milk, bread, meat and things like that from the shop but
I had no idea where I could get these mystical Carbohydrates. I knew that
I was not ready yet.
Picture 2: My typical sport activities at the time: thinking about it
(left), looking like doing it (middle), and then quick burst into water to cool
down (right).
Getting in shape
In 2001-02, my life style started gradually change towards more regular
exercising besides the occasional (twice a year) jogging. In 2001,
our department moved from main Campus to
Science Park,
and as a consequence, several new sport activities started. Within our
department, we started to play
football (soccer) every summer
(May-September) in the near-by field (Louhela field). The sport club
of the Joensuu Science Park,
Louhelan Woima, also organized
Ultimate during summer times (team game played with frisbee)
and floor ball (sähly or salibandy) winter time. I joined both of them.
The most important catalyst for the marathon training, however, was to
join the Sunday jogging organized by Louhelan Woima in late 2002. The idea
of running marathon started slowly wake up in my head but due to various
reasons it did not realize into any concrete plan. The final touch was
the creation of Joensuu Areena in 2014.
It allowed to extend our football to all-around acitivty.
Picture 3: Playing football in summer 2004 (left). Pasi and Olli
jogging in Cambridge in August 2004 (middle and right).
Long term planning: registration
During the winter 2005, I finally started to take the marathon plan
seriously. Now I was exercising regularly 2-3 times per week all winter
(football, floorball and Sunday jogging). As a result, I was becoming
in shape early enough for Stockholm, and even without any significant
efforts towards it. Only the lack of self-confidence prevented me to
finalize my plans, which partly originated also from a small football
injury in the previous summer. After all, I had never run a marathon
before and I knew almost nothing what would it take, and whether
I would really be fit or not.
Then about two weeks before the Stockholm marathon, I finally
became fully confident that I can do it. Yes, I will do it!
Go Pasi go!!! I heard a loud voice inside me urging to find
the web page for immediate registration to Stockholm.
I googled and found the registration page but the reality
then hit me. There was a brief notice with words of this nature:
"It is too late to enter the 2005 Stockholm Marathon. The maximum
number of entries (17 000) was reached by March and the registration has
been closed."
Ouch! Once I was finally ready both physically and mentallly, I was left
out only because I had not registered three months ago! What an earth
does it take to get myself into the marathon: should I move a mountain
first or what? Apparently marathons are not for impulsive persons.
Long-term exercising is clearly not enough; one should also know when
and where to run. Ok, considering how many years it took to get in shape
(physically and mentally), two weeks notice could be considered rather
impulsive. (This late bird registration became then a theme in the
following marathons as well.)
After dreaming about marathon for years, I could not let it undone.
I was ready to do it, and wanted to do it "right here and right now",
so to speak. It was time for Plan B. I again used Google, this time with
keywords "Marathon" and "June 2005". Any time and place
close enough would do. Fortunately, there seemed to be plenty of
alternatives which were sold out yet, and I expceted to find the
second choice without big problems. It was merely a question of
fitting the date and place into my calendar. After all, if 17.000
people were going to Stockholm alone, logically there should be
plenty of smaller marathons just to be found.
A vot! Perfect match was soon found:
White Nights marathon in
St. Petersburg, Russia. If you cannot go west, go east! It is not only
a near-by city (about 500 km from Joensuu) but I was going to be there
anyway! I was the organizer of
post-conference tour, which was heading to the city
at the same day as the Marathon was taking place. Perfect!
Moreover, even though the city is reasonably close to Joensuu,
Russia can still be considered as an exotic place to run a marathon.
Since it was going to be my first marathon, I did not want to run
just anywhere; it had to be something special. If Stockholm was
a good plan, St. Petersburg was equally good second choice.
Links
Pasi's marathon page
How did it go in St.Petersburg