Lahti is a pretty city, just 100km North of Finland. It’s easily reachable in the morning, with commuter trains and intercities heading there in plenty of time, allowing for the 2km walk from the station. The former are fairly fixed in price so you don’t even have to book ahead, which would save you from my mistake. I booked while there was still a VAT-free-tickets perk in April. Unfortunately I booked for Sunday. Worse, I somehow didn’t notice until I was on the train, so had to hurriedly book again. The booking I can understand. Not noticing in email or app that it said ‘Sunday’ I can’t, but still, the moment where I realised the app was telling me that my next journey was in 1 day and that it was no use arguing woke me up nicely.
After I’d spent much of the journey on the 6:40 train wondering how I could have missed the word ‘Sunday’, I arrived in time to walk through the city and have breakfast. With a 9:30 start, I had over an hour and a half, so wandered to the waterfront and along. The run is almost entirely by the side of the Vesijärvi lake, one of several that interconnects, heading up to Vääksy.
We all met at the Lahti sign, in my case after a stroll back from the turnaround point where there are more toilets. There are also some nearer the start but they were shut when I looked, very early on, and the walk gave me an idea of what to expect. The turnaround is very simple; head to the right of a small grassy island on the path, then right round it and back where you came from, but the course hasn’t always had the same route and a couple of locals switched off at just the wrong point and ran on past it.
There’s masses of room on the course, as you’ll see from the picture above of the main waterfront area.
If there’s a tricky section it’s round the buildings in the middle of the course, with a couple of sharp turns. The course goes round the back of the buildings, but there are plenty of signs and cones, and a marshal stood there to make sure no one went wrong while we headed round.
The temperature was rising nicely as the event went on, which made standing and waiting for others to finish a huge pleasure. It was fine for running, but a contrast from the end of the week, which had seen the highs plummet from 18 to 8 or so. This course must be lovely in any conditions, but that blue sky (which would be there in some form till after midnight at this time of year) doesn’t half set things off well.
Attendance varies with season and other factors. We had 16 finishers, but there were 36 for the extra event on the previous Thursday. The record is 61 from the first event for now, but the course can take many more without any impact, so whenever that’s broken it’ll be a happy experience for all. For now, this is a great place to visit. If you’ve time, the ski museum, overlooked by a ski jump that looked naked in its summer (snow-less) dress, is great, with plenty of hill for you to exercise on.
Results from Lahden Satama parkrun #36, 20/5/23; 16 finishers
This was also my 575th parkrun, at the 500th different event I’ve been to. The map below gives an idea of the spread. It is heavily UK/Ireland oriented, which squashes the numbers (I have run in Austria and more in Italy than you’d think from this, for instance) but has a nice spread of dots around the world. The 7 in Malaysia and Singapore is inflated by my having run Taman Pudu Ulu 4 times.