As many of You might know, Finland is a land with thousands of lakes and with four seasons, spring, summer, fall and winter. In Southern Finland where I live we don't have that big changes between them so it's almost like two seasons. Now we're heading towards winter and it's all grey and dark. When You get up in the morning and go to work, it's dark outside and when You come home after Your day at work, it's again dark.
Despite to that we run all year round. As yesterday, me and my husband went for a short 12km trail run in a pouring rain. But because it was Saturday we got to run in daylight this time. To keep us from being soaked we had Sealskinz socks in our shoes and a jacket that kept us dry. It took us about 1:40 to run this 12km so it was very easy run. It was uphills, downhills, swamp, trails, rocks and roots, anything You can imagine.
But that's why I love trail running, You never know what You have in front of You and all trails are different. In Southern Finland we don't have that high hills but in Lapland, Northern Finland it's all different. Even if the highest point in Finland is only 1365 meters high.
Last summer we attended our first trail running events and one of them was in Ylläs, Lapland. Ylläs is a fell which we climbed to start with. After we reached the top of it, we went down on the other side to continue along trails in nature woods of Lapland. This whole run was about 30km with over 1000 m of vertical climbing. And when You add some rocky trails (tor) and roots to this climbing You can only imagine how it feels to run there!
Next year we're gonna run our first ultratrailrunning event also in Lapland. This event Karhunkierros is one of seven Ultra Trail Tour events in Finland with several distances. Shortest one is about 30 km and longest is about 160 km. We're gonna run 55km.
Best things in trail running are the nature, beautiful views and the difference on courses. That's why I love it! You really get to challenge Your self and need to keep Your mind clear through out the whole run.
We don't have really high hills or fells in Finland and that's why I'd like to travel somewhere where we could try to run on real heights.