I'm here. The hotel is great. The Scandic Rosendahl is a lakeside hotel in a forested area just a mile from the Ratina track stadium. It was a good choice. The hotel is situated in a park with flower lined forest trails between the hotel and lake. I slept well last night in 2 shifts, about 8 hrs in all. Physically, I feel fine. No soreness in my injury area. The weird thing is that here, it never gets completely dark this time of year. Even at 3 am, it still looks like twilight.
Finland reminds me a bit of Ontario with the pine forests and many lakes. The city of Tampere is great. A very high standard of living, great food, very clean. A very environmentally conscious nation with recycling chambers in every waste basket and no plastic utensils (wood only).
Anywhere outside the city feels rural. My drive from the airport felt as if I were in Sharbot Lake, Ontario. I got a real nice Toyota hybrid Yaris mini SUV to rent, super gas mileage and good thing, gas is $10/ gal here. I went directly to the stadium to watch all the 200m finals and I had lunch with teammates John C., and Wayne F. from GPTC, and Carlos.
The track is a super fast Mondo and the 200m final was very fast. My time at winning time at Nationals last year would not have medaled, I would have been 4th. Three guys were in the 24.4's, with team mate Alan T. getting nipped at the line and finishing 2nd, by just 0.01. Patrice C. from France won in 24.43 into a -0.3 headwind, just .43 off the European record. The class of my age group in all three sprints will likely be Brit, John W. He's got his A-game, running incredible times for age 63, 11.94 in the 100m, 24.49 in the 200m ... with that level of speed reserve, he should be capable of 56 or better in the 400m.
I'm planning to go to the stadium this evening to do a little light running and warmup. With 32 declared and registration open til 5pm, there most certainly will be 3 rounds. I know Dale won't be running so there would need to be 7 scratches to only run 2 rounds. That is unlikely. The real test is how my body will survive the first round. If it were just one of 2 races, I could likely survive, but 3 might be trouble.
The hotel room has everything except an ability to heat water for tea. I found my European voltage hot water heater that I used in S. Korea, but I foolishly somehow forgot to pack it. I was so pissed about that when I unpacked. I got over it when I found that I could get a thermos full of hot water at the bar.
I went shopping last night and bought some food and got some Euros from the ATM. This morning I had the free hotel breakfast and it was great. Typical European resort hotel breakfast. I had scrambled eggs w/ cheese and mushrooms, yogurt with berries, seed bread with cashew butter, water melon, and great coffee. I then walked around the park and to the lake. It was really nice. There was a brown sand beach and swimming area. The water was cool but certainly warm enough to swim, probably in the mid 70ºs. Today might be the last opportunity to swim since the weather is taking a turn to cool and showery for the remainder of the week with temperatures mostly in the 60ºs. Today, on Monday... I drove down to the boat docks for a stroll.
Here are the photos I took yesterday and of this morning's walk ...
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