I'd be happy to share my story about Lahti worlds. Not the whole story, but a few highlights. I've been planning to run here all year, as I lived in Finland in 1979 and 1980, and hadn't been back since. I'd hoped to be competitive in the 800 but it wasn't to be - I'm actually 5 seconds slower this year than last. However, my wife and I came over for 2 1/2 weeks and have had a great time in Helsinki, Lahti, up north, Stockholm and now back in Helsinki.
Because I knew I wasn't very competitive this trip has been much more about remembering my time in Finland and reuniting with the Finnish people. What a great job they've done preparing for and running this event. The venues are beautiful and clean, the buses run on time, the staff are plentiful and friendly, the heats seem well-organized and officiated - all we could hope for.
We stayed in Lahti with a Finnish family who welcomed us into their home although we didn't know them before arriving. They made breakfast for us, and hung out with us at night playing games and speaking broken English to our broken Finnish. My wife and the lady of the house became great friends...although they could barely communicate they have a lot in common. We'll stay in touch with the Lumertos and several other families we met.
I enjoyed a lot of real Finnish food including riisi piirakoita (rice pies) with egg butter, viilli and rahka (like yoghurt but different), salmiakki (salt licorice), new potatoes with dill and moose gravy, pulla (sweet bread), various kinds of berries and berry flavored foods including puolukka and lakka, which we don't have in the US, and some other things I've forgotten. Yum!
I enjoyed meeting the other athletes. Almost everyone was friendly and gracious, even and especially those who are world champions, and I had the good fortune of meeting quite a few of them. The chance meeting with Steve Peters was interesting and eventually funny, and my new nickname for Ken Stone is now "naughty Ken", per Dr. Peters. Tom Hartshorne and I hit it off, and he was very helpful with his advice and was stories...I could go on and on, but that's more than enough from me, a middle of the packer here.
Oh, and I made it through the qualifying round!
|