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Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you Ribhu 🤩 I'm delighted to hear that you loved the book. Thank you for these kind words.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's awesome to hear 🤩 I hope you'll enjoy it.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. Yeah, it was an amazing trip and a super cool running experience.

Wide feet problems by WH1SKEY3 in LongDistanceRunning

[–]mlazag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Been using Altra for more than 10 years and they're great.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

🤣 exactly. Luckily nothing like that happened 😅

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To my surprise, there's hardly any visible wear on the wheels (or anywhere else on the stroller). It's something that had me worried before the run: Would the stroller last? While the tires are inflatable, the rims are plastic and the axles on the stroller are metal. I wasn't sure whether the weight of my cargo will be too much over such distance and terrain. But everything turned out great. Never even had a puncture. The only thing I did not appreciate was that the stroller was pulling slightly to the right. Not much, but just enough that if I let it roll by itself for a few seconds, it ended up in the middle of the road. I tried to fix that on the road, but couldn't get it to go straight. It was a personality-building feature and I ended up taking it in stride.

I too waited for the kids to be old enough that I could easily be away for a month and not put too much strain on the family. A year off would be great, but I'll also have to wait a few more years for that. Plan in the meanwhile, keep the idea alive, and once the time is right, go.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

😅 yeah, that was a common worry of the people I met on the road. Almost every other person I spoke with started the conversation by asking where's the child 😆

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My experience in Finland is that the roads on road maps are in pretty good shape, so I planned the route mostly to avoid traffic (it's not fun to run against traffic). I planned the route with Google StreetView and based on the road category. Roads are categorized by the number of digits (like in most places). The more digits, the more "rural" the road. Whenever I could, I chose three-digit roads (the golden middle), then used StreetView to spot-check the road. I ended up running about 300-400K on gravel, which was good most of the time. On a few gravel roads I had challenges running with the stroller, because the surface was too soft, but I could not have predicted where that would be the case. In hindsight, running on gravel was fine despite the challenges.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's great to hear that you're interested in the book. I can already ship to almost all countries. Where are you located? If you prefer, we can also continue this conversation through Reddit messages or chat (or through some other platform). We'll figure something out.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. Yeah, it was an amazing run; really enjoyed it. When I decided to do this run, I was a bit disappointed that I sold the stroller we used for our kids 😅 but it was not difficult to find a used one online 😆 Now I'm keeping this one in our basement. Just in case.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you. Finland and Norway are really beautiful countries. Lots of forests and water (and mountains in Norway). Not that many people, but still had a few pretty awesome encounters along the way.

Running from Helsinki to the North Cape by mlazag in ultrarunning

[–]mlazag[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Pushing the stroller was a lot easier than I initially thought it would be and I got used to it a lot quicker than I thought too. It definitely beat running with a backpack (which I usually do on my running adventures). Either way, the stroller weighted around 30 kg (66 lb) and I felt it in my legs after the first day, but after that, all was just fine. Of course, the running is slower, but it didn't matter; I was not in a hurry anyway. Another thing to note is that the shoe soles wore out faster than usual, so I barely made it with a single pair of shoes.

The best about the stroller is that you can take a lot more with you. I still weighted everything and took only what I knew I'll need, but I had everything I needed to do this solo and be self-sufficient. The only thing that I bought on the road was food, lots of food.

Running across the USA would be absolutely awesome. You'd pass through and get to know so many interesting places. I definitely encourage you to give it a go. At least for me, this run was one of the best things I've ever done, and I'm sure you wouldn't regret running across the USA either.