The Riga marathon aka Sunday fun run was a hoot. Once again, racing, traveling and recovering in amazing company was so much fun. I heard a saying that a marathon is weeks of training and the race day is merely a victory lap - and that's how I did it.
I really enjoyed this one. I kept the pace moderate, enjoyed the scenery and never let my mood sink. I felt great and this truly felt like a victory lap. The dreaded rainy and cool forecast turned out to be an almost ideal race weather.
Medal Monday was spent biking to an incredible park and the zoo on it. My camera roll is filled with shots of beers with the medal in the vicinity.
Riga #2 and marathon #15 for me DONE, with plenty more in the future.
Channeling my inner Maila Nurmi.
Seeing VAMPIRA at @kom_teatteri made me remember how great live theater is. Go see the play!
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#komteatteri #theater #vampira
My third Mash festival in the books. Good beer and food, great friends and new buddies. So cool to meet the people behind some of the best beers in the world.
See you next year @mashbeerfest
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#mash #mashfest #beer #barcelona
Planted an apple tree and some berry bushes. The old apple tree blossomed and de-blossomed (or something). Even with our tiny yards, it feels good to live in its cycle.
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#appletree #appleblossom #yardlife #polaroid
A new photo of the same Eazy-E graffiti every year.
Years go by so fast that I may have missed a couple, though...
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#eazye #graffiti #helsinkigraffiti #hiphop #hiphopgraffiti #helsinkistreetart
My first glasses. I gained a superpower: accurate vision! There's no text too small, no eyes too weary. I'm unstoppable! 🤙
After having listened to hip hop for 30+ years, there really was no other brand I could choose but Cazal. I'm stoked that I discovered @runeberginsilmalasi
as I couldn't have imagined a better match for my taste and a cooler stock! Matti immediately picked up on the references I was mentioning and he even has the same graffiti and 80's streetwear books I have on his store shelf 🫡
Thanks @kallexy and @teamu77 for recommending the store! I have to pass on this great tip - go there for all your new and vintage eyewear needs.
I thought I'd go for the Run DMC look, but ended up choosing a much lighter 626 model.
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#eyeglasses #eyewear #cazal #cazal626
MASH FESTIVAL RECAP.
It's been a while since the festival at the end of October, but I couldn't let it slip by without logging the memory for myself.
Some of the best breweries and beers in the world, accompanied by Barcelona sun and definitely some of the best people in the whole wide world. Huge thanks to the posse I got to hang out with, and to @bearded_beers for taking us to all the cool places - Placa del Sol forever. Choice shout outs to @vicentegilgomez for always finding new ways to crack me up, and to @ohmsweetohm for being a cool cat.
Comeback Kid 🙌 Berlin Marathon number 6 (and 12th total) is in the books.
After a 4 year break from running marathons because of COVID restrictions, my own bout of COVID, and surgical operation, it was finally time to get back to racing. I had 17 weeks of training and a lot of anxiety about if I would be able to finish the daunting 42k, let alone in a decent time. But I did it. The time wasn't that impressive considering my track record, but I don't even worry about that noise.
The race was a huge emotional rollercoaster from not wanting to start at all to profound self doubt and questioning to an incredible runners high to wishing to just switch to walking because why wouldn't I!
All in all, I'm super happy I got this monkey off my back and can start thinking about racing again.
A huge, huge thank you to @alttil (who shot photo number 2) for cheering me through the race and effectually through the whole summer training season. (I don't know if you can notice from the photo that I'm at the peak of my race there). A side point from photo 2: I never realized I look this massive on the run course; it's like I'm a giant in a town on toddlers.
Thank you to @xaarlin for the other race photo. Your cheering definitely helped me me carry through the final K's.
Gratitude goes out to my family who put up with my training season which surely puts a toll on them, too.
Medal Monday in full swing today and all's well.
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#running #berlinmarathon #bmwberlinmarathon
Some evil spirited talk has been going around about summer being over. Bah humbug, I say! I present exhibit A.
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#summerforever #foreverever #butterfly #itähelsinki #nature
I got inducted into the Hall of Fame today - which is nice.
Since Jan '22 I got to work on one of the longest running projects and definitely the coolest one at Futurice. I knew of FIBA 3x3 even when I started at Futurice all the way back in '16. To me, the team always seemed to consist of true all star people. They were there to help carry the sport from a young fledgling to an Olympic sport which is amazing. When the opportunity arose for me to join the team and carry the tradition, I jumped at the chance.
Upon introduction, I heard of this Hall of Fame jersey where you can get your name on if you work on the project for long enough and make "major contributions". The timeline of "2 years minimum" didn't quite pan out, but apparently my and the rest of the team's contributions were strong enough to warrant our introductions into the Hall of Fame.
The notoriously mysterious Hall of Fame Committee compared my contribution to Tim Duncan, which if you know his nickname is pretty okay. I'll take that. Now I can add "Big Fundamental" to my array of aliases with "The Big Ticket" already on it.
Pictured is jersey 2/2 with my and my superb teammates' names on it. (The first jersey was already full of cool peeps' names so another jersey was started during our tenure in the project.)
I learned tons, laughed a lot and ranted a bit. I will always think fondly of the time this team spent together. It was great to carry on the work and stand on the shoulders of giants, so hats off to all my predecessors.
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#fiba3x3 #balldontlie #futurice #devlife #basketball
