RR1 2015 getting closer and maps of Finland

I am definitely stupid. This Saturday, as I set off for my run, I sort of jumped over a rock at the end of my drive, like I have done for nearly 20 years, except this time a sudden gust of wind (we had extremely strong winds at the moment in the UK) knocked me off balance and I caught my foot and went headfirst down the pavement and into the gutter. Thankfully I only took the skin off my knees and hands and no muscle damage.

A quick dash back inside to clean the dirt out of the wounds and back out to try for my 16km run. This is my normal Saturday run, expect of course whilst I have been recovering from my ankle injury, I have not been up to long runs, and this was my first attempt back at the distance.

In order to be ready for March, I am training on the treadmill, out on a run, or on the rowing machine most days. The main objectives are to build up endurance and lose at least some of the weight gained by being injured. I even drank very little alcohol over Christmas to avoid weight gain. As work is not too hectic, I also booked myself a week on a last minute trip to Beitostolen in Norway for a week of training. The plan is to spend the two weeks until then just rebuilding ankle strength and general fitness, and then use Norway to get my skiing into gear. I will then have a month back to keep fitness up before 4 days in Kuusamo training prior to RR1.

After spending a long time last year trying to find out if the Garmin detailed maps of Finland would work on my Garmin handheld, a question no-one appeared to be able to answer, I had given up. But then late last year, I discovered that in Finland, map data had been released publicly, and as Finland is at the leading edge of a lot of software development, some public spirited guys there had converted them to work.

The site is http://kartat.hylly.org/ and is in Finnish. But with a bit of knowledge and Google Translate, I managed to get them into Garmin Mapsource. They do not show any detail in Mapsource until you zoom in to detail of 7 mile (10km) resolution or better.

I have identified the set that covers the RR route and a short distance either side (in case you get lost). These are

MTK-S423        MTK Suomi v2.1b        3.80 MB

MTK-S424        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.11 MB

MTK-S434        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.29 MB

MTK-S441        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.87 MB

MTK-S442        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.35 MB

MTK-S443        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.54 MB

MTK-S444        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.53 MB

MTK-S511        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.08 MB

MTK-S512        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.97 MB

MTK-S514        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.66 MB

MTK-S521        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.54 MB

MTK-S522        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.42 MB

MTK-S523        MTK Suomi v2.1b        6.06 MB

MTK-S524        MTK Suomi v2.1b        6.19 MB

MTK-S541        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.70 MB

MTK-S542        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.19 MB

MTK-T411        MTK Suomi v2.1b        511 KB

MTK-T413        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.58 MB

MTK-T414        MTK Suomi v2.1b        4.72 MB

MTK-T431        MTK Suomi v2.1b        5.28 MB

MTK-T513        MTK Suomi v2.1b        6.58 MB

MTK-T531        MTK Suomi v2.1b        3.78 MB

I probably hold the record for deviating from the planned route - last year it was when I was at the back and snowmobile tracks had obliterated the ski trail and I tried to follow the route as much as I could from memory. Except that last year, it had been changed at that point because the lake was not frozen. The previous year, I had got caught at the same point in a whiteout as dusk was falling and so with a headtorch could not see anything. The GPS (without detailed maps) proved my saviour as I was able to use it to navigate using the waypoints I had entered.

On the subject of maps, Nokia always had the best maps for a phone because you could download a whole country in advance. But Nokia's maps have now been relaunched as "Here" as a beta which can be downloaded, and is well worth it as a backup.