(Runebergin torttu resepti)

For me, the favourite day of the year is, of course, 6th February, the day I was born. Second favourite? 5th of February because it was the birthday of another great Finn, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth and on Runebergs day, we have this seasonal delicacy called, to everybody’s surprise, Runeberg’s Cake. If I was to name my favourite cake, this would be it. Looking at it, it doesn’t look or soundlike anything special but the secret is that it’s made with rum. In my case, lot’s of it.

Ingredients:

200 g butter (soft but not melted)
2 dl sugar
2 eggs
2 dl plain flour (I actually use whole meal)
2 dl bread crumbs
1 dl ground or crushed almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamom
1.5 dl rum

Topping:

Raspberry jam
icing sugar
lemon juice

Method:

Whisk butter and suger into a foamy mixture. Add eggs while continuing to whisk.

Mix dry ingredients together and add to rest of the dough. Mix well. I add a dash of rum at this point if the dough feels dry.

Normally you’d use a specific cylinder shaped cup-cake tin to bake these but I normally just bake them a loose base 22 cm round cake tin. Easier to share.

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 200°C.

Once out and cooled down, moisten the cake with plenty of rum. You should probably water-down the rum just a little bit. Do this either with water or apple juice.

Decorate with raspberry jam and icing.

By the way, this was the cake I made last summer for the Big Lunch cake competition so it’s award winning. You should try it!

Darina and I took a few photos during the afternoon and here’s a small selection of them. Click to see them bigger and then use your left/right arrow to move to the next one.

For more info on The Big Lunch check out their website at thebiglunch.com

On monday last week I passed a non-insignificant milestone; 1000 kilometers ran since I started in August last year. This has resulted in a fitter, healthier, smarter and, all in all, much improved me. Thank you all for the support, I will keep going (unless another brick falls on me and is more successful than the previous one and finishes me off).

I finished the race in 4 hours 29 minutes and 29 second.

I started of with the pace of about 9 minutes per mile* which, if you can keep it up, gives you just under 4 hours as the final time. First 2 miles in Edinburgh are downhill, which is great. Nice easy Sunday jog down Regents Park, fantastic scenery, wide roads to accommodate 14000 people flowing down in unison. 4 mile mark was the first where I thought: ‘What a nice distance to comprehend, one sixth done’. Little did I know.

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By this time I really had to wee. There was the relay change over spot but no loos right next to it to conveniently use. I waited until right after 10 mile mark – while on the phone to my brother who was helping me do Twitter updates – I saw an open gate that led to a field where it’d be easy to relieve yourself. And I did.

Timing for big events like these are done with little RFID chips you wear on your shoe or – like now – around your ankle. All you do is run over this mat and it knows your there. It’s a pretty cool application for simple technology that could be more widely used. I really wonder how they did runner times for large scale races before RFID. Sounds impossible.

At 2:03:25 I stepped my foot on the half way timing point. Pretty steady speed I had kept up from the beginning.

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Darina had just phoned me so I knew to expect them somewhere after 15 miles. This stretch after 14 miles was annoying if anything else. We saw the soon-to-be-winners of the race. They had a big Mercedes SUV in front of them with the time 2:03. (Winner of the race, Martin Williams, came in at 2:18:24.) Strangely and very unlikely for Scotland, the weather wasn’t turning for worse. Or it was, not just in the way you’d expect when saying it was getting worse. It was getting hotter and hotter and the last turning place wasn’t even close.

Probably one of my favorite bits of the race was before Gosford House on a field that led to a forest, one of the only places that had shadows. I think it was the variation that this field gave to the endlessly long, almost straight roads.

I wonder if they allow visitors at Gosford House, it looked pretty nice.

After the forest, we got back to the road leading back into Musselburgh. About 7.5 miles to go. I can’t remember if it was just before or right after the 19 mile mark but it was by far the most de-moralising part of the day. The water point that was supposed to have water, energy drink and gels was dry. No water, no nothing. We had already done a good couple of miles in the fields since the last water point and people were pretty angry to not get anything. What made it worse was that we had no idea if there’d be any more water before the finishing line. It was pretty bad.

I’m pretty sure we passed another one or two dry water points, guessing from the clusters of empty bottles we passed. Luckily there was a ten-year-old girl spraying water on us from the curb. I stopped to get some refreshment from the ice cold water. That was pretty sweet.

It must have been around 22 miles when we got more water and energy drinks, not too late but it took a while to get recharged.

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Last miles went by really slowly, I had to walk for 50 meters three or four times, just to get motivated to continue. It wasn’t that my leg were hurting; joints were fine and I had no chafing, just really, almost completely, exhausted. Mad feeling.

But, like many things, it finally came to an end. Darina and Eilish were there just after 26 mile mark and I could see the finishing line. I crossed it and I cried like a little girl.

It was absolutely amazing.

–kristian

*as big of a metric fan as I am….

Pre-posting update:
It was a massive mistake and a failure the organiser did with the water stations. Not only was it annoying, it was literally putting runners lives in danger. 5000 out of the 13000 runners who started pulled out. 10 treated in hospital and 160 by medical staff by the route. There was also other issues that the organisers will have to improve upon for next year. More toilets along the course and better signage all around the event. I was quite disappointed to find in my goody bag a t-shirt meant for ‘the Hairy Haggis’ – relay team. It wasn’t a problem getting a new one sent out after I called them today.

With all the problems they had, I’m definite that I’ll run it again one year. They will listen to the criticism and make it a better event. It’s a beautiful and a fast route and I’d recommend it to anyone.

Few more photos from Edinburgh Marathon:

Then:

After:

Today:

It’s come so quickly somehow. It feels like it was only yesterday that I met Darina – it was our five-year anniversary when we got engaged – and it feels like there should be more days until the Marathon in Edinburgh. There’s now ten days left until that. Shit.

Training so far* hasn’t gone to plan from the point of view of following my training routine. Not at all. You know, life’s got in the way with all sorts of things it throws at you. Mostly work. All good, though. Mainly because of last weeks great long run**, I still feel pretty confident about it. So confident that we’ve booked flights Athens in November for The Marathon. Since last week I calibrated my Polar and I’m waiting for a moment to go for the last – what I call – an evil run***. Next week I’ll spend mostly doing short fun runs, eat lots of carbs, drink a lot of water and try not to drink too many ‘hob infused hydrants’, beer.

There will be another pre-marathon update sometime next week but if you happen to miss it, I’ll be live tweeting along the cobbled streets of Edinburgh on Sunday 31st at 9:00 BST.

* And there’s very little I can do at this point anymore.
** 19.5k at 6:10/km, then 5.5k fast at 5:10/km and slow 2k in the end.
*** Intervals.

1. Travelled to Finland, twice. First for easter holidays and the second time to celebrate my mothers fiftieth birthday. I know it’s my mom and all but I really can’t image she’s only fifty, I can still remember her being 29 like it was yesterday. She’s still as beautiful as she was back then.

2. We’ve moved! Behind is the lovely East London with it’s parks, Broadway Market and flat running grounds. With us now, South East London’s spacious house, Borough Market and hilly running tracks.

Here’s two photographs I took in Finland over the easter. First is of my grand-parents from my dad’s side. Part of a series that’ll have all of my family one day. Yes, one day. The second is of two swans flying in heavy snowfall.

Elsa and Tuomas Tapaninaho (click to enlarge)

Two Swans in Heavy Snowfall (click to enlarge)

Lesson(s)

It’s too easy to ignore things when you’re seemingly busy. It’s too easy to put things off just because you think there’s more important things to do. It is today that I have to lay the ground work for tomorrow.

I know it sounds fucking philosophical but if this was the only lesson I learned from last year, I’d be happy. Stay on top of things, do my best now and be ready to do that tomorrow as well.

One of those groundworks I did last year – and I’ve written about this before – was to take better care of myself. There’s few things worse than being 27 and in the worst shape you’ve ever been. It’s easy to wait until tomorrow to get started. it’s too easy to put things off. Luckily I stopped doing that last August, dusted the good old Asics and started counting the kilometers. Now – 591 km later – I’m looking forward on doing my first half marathon in two weeks and full 42195 meters in the end of May. I’m 28 and in the best shape I’ve ever been. Ever.

Work-wise, I think I’ve learned to be a bit more proactive. Autumn was a bit too quiet for my liking and that was pretty difficult. As a result I started looking for more jobs and not relying on things that were supposed to be happening. It’s good to be busy now but I know it’s not going to last forever – try this May – so I must keep that in mind. Be proactive.

Five Goals for the 29th Year.

• Do three things I can be proud of in the end of the year. Maybe an exhibition. I’ve wanted to do one for a while.
• Stay on top of things. Leapfrog with work. While doing a job today be ready to start a new one tomorrow. Take better care of my paper work.
• Concentrate. Maybe an AppleScript that’ll stop me from launching NetNewsWire between 0800-1700. Stop trying to multitask as much.
• Diversify. Learn a new skill. Don’t know what yet. Any suggestions? I’ve got a PHP book on loan from Alex, maybe that. Maybe not.
• Make five people happy for a day. Nice experience or something that’ll help them in life.

It’s been a really good year over all. I’m happy in life and every year seems to be getting better. Let’s make this an ever better one. Over and out.

1) Get into shape for our up-coming trip to New Zealand this christmas

and

2) Feel better

It was something that had been nagging me for quite a while; the thought of being 27-years-old and in the worst physical shape I’ve ever been. Weight kept creeping up at the pace of about a kilo per year and my 11-year-old brother can now challenge me in doing chin ups. I used to run before moving to the UK but was never really able to keep up the routine here. And routine is, I think, one of the most important things when it comes to exercise.

By setting that goal, it was easy to motivate myself to go outside and run. Another even greater source of motivation has been that my friends Ville, Johanna and Heikki joined me on the challenge. Ville ‘virtually’, as he lives in Finland. It’s been so good to have company along the way.

Another challenge Ville and I set ourselves about 7 years ago was to run a marathon by the time we’re 27. I don’t think we’ll quite make it (after all we are both 27 already) but to try and live up to that promise, I’m signing up for the Edinburgh Marathon that takes place in May next year. I haven’t set a target time yet, we’ll first have to see how training goes.

A Little Bit About Equipment

Good shoes are the most essential thing you can invest on if thinking of taking up running. After all, on a 10 km run your feet will hit the asphalt some 11’000 times, they need something nice in between. Mine are Asics Gel’s that my dad kindly passed on. He’s been using the same make, model and size for years now but the ones he bought earlier this autumn didn’t fit properly. Apparently Asics had changed the recipe. They fit me perfectly so that’s good.

First running gear item I bought after starting was shorts. Problem I had was that my thighs were rubbing against each other and causing a rash. Instead of trying out the Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr method of walking/running without knees touching, I decided to get NikeFit shorts. They have a little pocket in the back that’s good for keys and perfect size for the iPhone. Surprisingly, can’t even feel it’s there.

RunKeeper Review

Talking about the iPhone, I tried out RunKeeper for some ten of the last runs. It’s a general exercise app that I was really excited with what it promises; distance, pace, speed, path on a map etc. Just what you’d expect from a well equipped running watch. It took me five or six tries before I got a solid good result from it. One thing or another always seemed to go wrong. Some of the problems are inherit to how the iPhone work i.e. you can’t have apps running in the background – which means you can’t properly lock the screen while running – and GPS drains the battery really fast. Biggest problem, however was the unreliability of the app, things like the screen showing that one minute I’m running at a steady 9 km/h and next I’m sprinting at 20 km/h (once it even said I’m running at almost 200 km/h). Also system wide warnings like low battery and incoming text messages paused the training, which meant that either you stopped to pay attention to your run and fixed your tracking or – more likely – just kept going and had a big gap in your route. Although it has a build in screen lock, I found on few occasions that it had released and paused or stopped the trip. Very annoying.

All this said, I think if they can fix the problems they have, it’ll be very useful. Cool thing that it does is it sends data of your run to their website and you can view it there along with a map of the run. It does it very quickly; if I press ‘Save Trip’ downstairs after the run, it’s ready to view by the time I’m in the flat. It’s also free, so barrier of entry is very low, all you have to do is to bear with it’s short comings.

Over all, good thing about running is that it’s not about equipment or skill or even time, all you need is the will to get started.

–Kristian

PS. Some Numbers Gathered Along the Way

83 days to reach the goal

Goal was reached 86.67 km a head schedule

Daily average was 3.63 km

Shortest single run: 2.94 km

And the longest: 17.33 km

20349 calories burned while running

weight: -4 kg

First snow for the winter. It came and went away. Pretty.

–kristian

As I’m heading to Lapland for Christmas and I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to post anything, I thought I’d do quick re-cap of the year gone.

Full-time to freelance to full-time

As many of you know, I used to work at the UCCA (University College for the Creative Arts at Rochester) and enjoyed it a lot. I was given a good job there already when doing my final year enjoyed a great deal of respect and trust from the ones deciding. I never intended to do that job for more than two years after graduating and decided to go part-time from beginning of 2007. That only made me hungrier and not long after that decided to – lets put it this way – try being more available for freelance work; leave the day job.

All though there are many many plus sides to having a steady job, I haven’t regretted that decision. There’s a lot more admin to do, and it’s taken a long time to get a hang of it but I’m getting there. Being free to do what ever you like, brings a lot more responsibility as well, after all you’ll still always work for someone.

Shortly after going freelance, my girlfriend, who’s also freelance, and I, decided to start our own company, Suklaa Ltd. Even though our day to day work hasn’t changed a lot yet, it does provide us a great platform to start thinking bigger and getting noticed as an entity rather than individuals. For this reason I’m really excited about what 2008 has to bring.

The un-avoidable tech notes

Two great things that happened in the world of tech: Windows Vista and Zune 2.0. Need I say more? I must say I’ve only dabbled with Vista; installed few drivers and connected it to the Internet but I must say that it’s some experience. And Zune, from pictures I’ve seen, I can’t wait until it hits Europe. Good stuff Microsoft. Here’s one to you.

Ok, just kidding.

Leopard, a bit late but worth the wait. I did have the same problem as many others with the ape thingy but I can’t imagine going back to Tiger. (unlike so many Vista users dream of going back to XP…)

iPhone. I still think it’s the greatest phone ever. I know my first writing about it was quite negative and as it’s still important to make sure Apple knows what people think of it, here’s few more negatives. Or things I’d like to see them fix in software.

- No multiple recipients for SMS’s.
- SMS app doesn’t take contacts sent as SMS from other phones i.e. Nokias. But it shows up on senders phone as recieved.
- No reports in SMS app.
- Battery life is bad in the UK which is probably due to shitty network coverage. Just now when in Finland, I’ve noticed that battery life is much much better with five bars network at all times.
- No Bcc. field in the Mail app.
- it’s very hard to place the playhead when listening to podcasts. Increments of about 1/30th of the duration? WTF.
That’s about it for now. I’ll add later, I’m sure there’s few more.

Birthdays

My middle-brother turned eighteen. I’m really happy that he’s finally a bit older; he’s been about 12 cm taller then me for the last 2-3 years and it’s not fun realising that you’re shorter than your fifteen-year-old brother.

On top of that, there was a flush of big, zero ending, birthdays this autumn. Started of with the birth of my god-daughter Sohvi Ester Tikkanen. I’ve just met her for the first time few days ago and she is the cutest and happiest looking creature I’ve ever met. I’ll post few photos on to my Flickr later.

One of my best friends, Olle, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, both turned thirty. Congratulation to both of them again.

Finland turned ninety. Ninety years of independence. Celebrated it by having few beers with Olle and Jennifer. Tried to watch the Linnan Juhlat* on Yle’s** website but it didn’t seem to be possible. If someone know anyone at Yle let them know that I want to watch it next year. Online.

And finally, my dad turned fifty. He celebrated his actual birthday away in Hawaii where he ran the Honolulu Marathon. When he, mom and my youngest brother came back we had a surprise party for him. One of the best parties of the year; stayed up until 6:30 in the morning, had an almost three hour sauna in the small hours and swam in the Avanto*** eight times. I’m really happy and proud to have a such a healthy, fit and young dad.

We spent the last days of the year in Lapland skiing and I finally cracked the secrets of snowboarding. Or at least I don’t fall every time I get up.. Nice ending to the year.

Annyhow, happy new year to all of you dear readers!

–kristian

*The President of Finland hosts the biggest ball of the year in her palace every independence day.

** Yle is similar to BBC in Britain.

*** Avanto is a hole in the ice on a frozen lake.