The Expo and packet pick-up were held inside the Töölön Sports Hall.
It was a little confusing for us because all of the signs were in Finnish. Just about everybody in Helsinki speaks English, but it felt rude going up to people and just speaking in English, assuming they would understand. We knew how to ask “Do you speak English?” (Puhutko Englantia?) but had found that people often didn’t understand us and we’d end up just asking in English if they spoke English to which they would quickly reply “Yes, I speak English” in perfect English.
Anyway, with slightly different versions of this scenario playing out a couple of times we navigated our way through. The free samples were incredible. If I had actually been planning on “racing” the next day I would have skipped them. You know, that whole don’t try anything new before the race thing. But this was just going to be a sight-seeing jog for us, so I was free to partake. And I took full advantage. I tasted a carbonated energy drink, a vanilla recovery drink, a fruit and veggie smoothie pouch (which was…interesting), and some flavored sparkling water . I grabbed a (not-small!) cup of nuts and poured it on top of a nearly full-sized scoop of high-protein ice cream (yum!). And there were even more samples that I didn’t try (including the Heineken). By the time we left, I felt like I probably didn’t need to eat dinner.
But of course I still did.
We picked up our bibs, then followed a line of people that took us by all the tables handing out freebies, and then funneled us into an area filled with merchandise (running clothes, accessories and fuel).
We then had to cross back through the main entrance into a separate area to pick up our race shirts. I noticed big signs over the tables and made my way over to the “S” table, thinking that we were supposed to line up according to our names. There was a very young girl behind the table. We went through the whole “Puhutko Englantia, Do you Speak English, Yes I do” thing, before I looked up and it finally registered that the letters were “S”, “M” and “L”. Oops! I moved over to the “M” line and was handed a shirt.
Nemophilist in Cville 