Taisto's blog and races
Taisto's blog !
Mittwoch, 22. Februar 2012
Tobaccotrail was not an easy and fast race...
We had extremely bad luck with the weather on our race. Only 6 teams out of 22 who started the race finished. First leg of 61 km to Övre Soppero was really good - good trail and -25 in Soppero. My team was going very steady but it took 1 hour before I passed first team - everyone started very optimistic...
Before Soppero I passed about 6 more teams. I had second best time in Soppero and all looked good, no dog was tired.
Starting out from Soppero as second team I passed Milos shortly after start we drived together to Lannavaara, there Milos passed me and put up little higher speed that I did not want keep. After another 5-6 km Jörg Bungart catch up me and passed, keeping even higher speed. I continued in same speed all the way to a road crossing in Sudjavaara, 22 km from Saivomuotka. I was about 5-6 behind either Milos or Jörg - could not see who it was. Then the reflective sticks showing the roadcroosiing had been run over by soneone and my dogs too a left turn on the road. I had no chance to stop them, I guess they where sure checkpoint was along the road...finally I managed to throw the anchor to the road side and stop them - this was after more than 10 "throws". I put in the second anchor aswell before I made a turning lopo on a field by foot - not very good for my injured knee. Standing on brake with both feets driving back to the point there where supposed to go over the road I was hoping someone would show up so I get my team on the trail again and Kent Svendsen just came to that point when I was around 50 m from it. The dogs follwed him on the trail, but they did not pick up the spped I wanted again. I had to start kicking instead of braking in to Saivomuokta,coming in just 50 m ahead of Kent and almost an hour after the two in lead I did not feel having control over the race anymore. Going out of Saivomuotka after 6 hours break it went steady again but little slower because trail sarted to be little softer and it was also warmer. After a couple of hours there was no visible trail anymore because wind was increasing and snow was both in the air and drifting on the higher area and it get wors by the hour...My knee was hurting more and more because I had to run up to the leaders several times and put them back to the invisible trail... I gave up the idea of runnig so fast and decided to just follow a team who had good but not too fast speed in to Soppero 2 , it was Johnny Nääs.
Still bad weather, hurting knee and no trails for the last 93 km, I decided to quit there. All dogs are in good shape - I wish I could say the same of myself. My knee is really not ok at this moment./Taisto
Montag, 13. Februar 2012
4 days to race start
With only 4 days to race start and damaged knee I have to try to do something: I will get my knee taped by a specialist on knee injuries to night. So I hope it will be good enough to stay on the runners...I had not planned to kick too much anyhow...
With many good teams in the race it will be really interesting to compare how my team is doing, and with my twisted knee I have perfect excuse if I can´t keep up with leaders :-) /Taisto
Freitag, 10. Februar 2012
Twisted knee last night
Last night I made stupid misstake; First run this year with my racingsled and the " automatic brake mat lifter" did not work as it should .- mat was half way in the air when I was not braking and I manged to tangle my foot in to the brake system and got my knee badly twisted. I am just now on the way to doctor to get it fixed somehow, - I still plan to race if I can stay on foot/Taisto
Montag, 6. Februar 2012
Cold and colder...
We have just now extreme cold here in our area - at home in Kauppinen we had this evening - 39 and electricity was gone for 6,5 hours which result in at first frozen water pipes in to house and now when electricity is back since a few hours we still not have water...something is broken. And at our "Coffee island" there we mostly take our short tour guests, the termometer showed - 43C... No long or fast runs with the dogs in those conditions. But dogs seems to be in good shape and mentaly ready for a race - I just hope to do one more longer run before it is time for the SOC LD. / Taisto
Mittwoch, 1. Februar 2012
3 Teams for SOC LD...
We are entering the Scandinavian Open Championship 17-19 februari with 3 teams from our kennel/my dogs and Aki Holck and Juho Ylipiessa run teams from Aki´s kennel in the race. Also Milos Gonda will most likely run his team on the race. Exept of me, Kent Hugosson and Axel Janke will run our teams in limited class. For "Hugo" it will be the first race since the 80 ties - his best result from past is 3:rd place on Finnmarkslopet in 1986. Axel has only done one race earlier: 21 st place at Finnmarkslopet limited class in 2010. I have mainly my 1000 km "prospects" in my team on the open/14 dog class, but 3-4 dogs from Axels and Kents teams can still be in front of my sled 10 March in Alta. The SOC LD / Tobaccotrail will be an +300 km race with same distance for both limited and unlimited/14 dog class. We have around 20 teams signed in, but hope for and expect several more to sign in shortly./Taisto
Montag, 30. Januar 2012
LOTS OF NEWS !
It is long time agosince my last update, depending of many factors...but now it is time for news. I have made some changes in my training for this season - some of them made by free will and others because of our crappy fall this year: No snow before 10 December and bad ice conditions early in the season. I have been running slower speed and heavier than ever and not so long either all the way until 7 January. Longest run so far is 152 km. No injuries at all this year. Since the two last season was not what I hoped for, I have not set any goals for this season that I will try to reach - or: I will not put any pressure on myself this season. I will run the SOC LD ( Scandinavian Open Championship in long distance ) in open class 17 - 19 February here in Kiruna and Finnmarkslopet 1000 km with start 10 March. IF dogs still are looking ok I may run Pasvik in open class aswell./Taisto
Montag, 30. Januar 2012
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