Bodom Trail has started to attract an increasing amount of foreign particpants. This year we had alltogether 26 nationalities on the starting line, more than ever. The most distant visitors came from USA, Malaysia, Ukraine, Ecuador and China. Some of the participants were in Finland to attend Suunto Summit, a get-together for Suunto fans from around the world. Also some Suunto athletes such as Emelie Forsberg, Philipp Reiter and Tara Warren were there for the Summit. We had a chat with some of the visitors before the start.
Leonardo Zucchetti from Italy and Veronica Rojas from Equador were looking forward to the race. For Leonardo, Bodom Trail was his first trail race and his goal was to enjoy the atmosphere and running. Veronica is an experienced ultra runner and based on the pre-race information, she was mostly wondering how muddy the course is.
Post-run feelings of the international guests were very positive. Some of them had made closer contact with the Finnish nature on technical trails where roots and rocks caused a few surprises but the overall experience was great.
”Lot of people, sun is shining. The course is going to be quite flat. I’ll keep my eye on the ground in order not to stumble”, thought Tara Warren before the start. ”Emelie and other Suunto ladies will be strong. I’ll try to keep right next to them.”
After the race Tara praised the course and the beautiful nature: ”The Finnish quicksand was really fun. When you stepped into mud, you never knew if it’s going to eat your shoe or not.” She especially appreciated the well-marked course.
Philipp Reiter commented the technical running ground. ”You must concentrate all the time on the terrain and roots. It was surprising, you didn’t even notice time pass by.” Emelie Forsberg had gotten used to similar terrain in Sweden but admitted that she nowadays mainly runs on mountain trails and hadn’t run in her home terrain for years.
Suunto runners Maggie Dempsey and Veronica Rojas were very happy with the event: ”An excellent course, technical, runnable, muddy, warm – everything you can wish for a trail race” said Maggie. ”Trails in Great Britain are a combination of mud and roots but they don’t have the same technical element that makes Bodom Trail course so challenging and interesting.” Both ladies used Bodom Trail 12 k race as a preparation session for their main events week later. Veronica will run Trail World Championships in Spain and Maggie will run Transvulcania.
The techincal terrain and the landcape with lakes and forests makes trail running in Finland quite different to what it is in Central Europe. Bodom Trail is building awareness for the Finnish nature and trail running in Finland. We hope to see even more foreign participants next year! If you are interested in trail running in Finland, read this article about the topic. More trail races with information in English can be found at runinfinland.fi.