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Vihdin News article 29.9.2023
Visa Kivinen wins the Runoff
The solution to the Finnish Satellite Competition was a long time coming because we had to suspend the competition in the autumn due to a storm. At that time there were three runners left: Anton Aro, Juha Jumisko and Visa Kivinen.
I got permission from Lazarus Lake to organise a re-run for these three. We discussed with the runners and the date was set for the end of April. It would not determine the whole season and on the other hand, with good luck, it is already spring enough.
Good luck finally came our way and the race was held on a sunny weekend. Now it would be the runners and not the weather who would decide the place in Tennessee. The Runoff was organized according to the original backyard idea from my own backyard in Vihdi.
The competition went well. We started the race in a beautiful evening at +17 degrees Celsius which got colder at night to +1-2 degrees Celsius. A bright starry sky lit up the runners' course. We were accompanied by frogs, bat, hedgehog, fox and swans.
Anton Aro left the game in the middle of round 17 in good shape. It seemed that for him the Runoff was more of a training session than a race. The 2023 targets are in other races. It's great that Anton went anyway! He created a lot more fun for the group of runners and helped the others to run longer laps.
On lap 20, a turn seemed to happen. Visa had vomited a little earlier but was feeling better and a mental winner was emerging. Visa took the lead for the first time. Juha kept up well but the mental grip turned to Visa.
On lap 23 Juha didn't finish in time and Visa became the winner of the Finnish Satellite! Finally after half a year and one week!
Thank you runners, volunteers and supporters! The Backyard community in Finland is great and it's great to be part of it. It was an honor to organize the Satellite Race.
Juha Seppälä
Team World Championship in Nummela was suspended in round 33
After lap 32 Emil Söderlund stopped for his own reasons and Anton Aro, Juha Jumisko and Visa Kivinen started lap 33. Shortly after the start of the round, a violent thunderstorm came up on Nummelanharji. The storm knocked down trees, blew all the stuff horizontally and knocked down the antennas of the race timing system.
The race was abandoned on lap 33 and we are trying to get this out to the runners quickly. Lazarus Lake and I held a meeting with the three remaining runners. Our team race was declared abandoned. The individual race was given the option of resuming within 10h or stopping the race. The runners did not want to resume the race later.
So there was no winner in the Nummela BackYard Ultra 2022. I made a difficult decision as the race director in a short time frame, but I am pleased that no competitors or officials were injured.
17.10.2022
Juha Seppälä - Nummela BackYard Ultra race director
Race Director's presentation
Nummela BackYard 27.11.2021
Nummela BackYard was a 12h running race in Vihti Nummelaharju.
At the end of November 2021, a BackYard 12h mental training race was held in Nummela, running a 6,7km course for max 12h. 29 runners took part in the event, 11 of whom completed all 12 laps. The day was beautiful and sunny but quite cold (-8 degrees).
The competition went well and there was good feedback from the participants. People really liked the route. The route was perceived as reasonably easy, but still interesting. Special thanks were given to the generous refreshments, which were good to enjoy in the warm Tarmonmaja.
