Saturday morning adventures (Thursday anomaly) - The happiest place in the world!
For the past 6 years, the Republic of Finland has been ranked the happiest place in the world by the World Happiness Report 2023. Situated in an archipelago in the Baltic Sea, made up of 315 islands is the capital, Helsinki. It is one of the most northern capitals in the world and one of the coldest and darkest too, with little or no sunlight for 51 days of the year. Fortunately, our trip was in May capturing the city in all its daylight beauty and as we were attending parkruns too, it really did feel like we were in the happiest place in the world 😀
Along with the 1st January, each country can nominate one ‘Special Day’ to do a parkrun. This usually coincides with a public holiday, a celebration or a festival. In the UK it’s Christmas Day, in Finland, it’s Ascension Day. Whilst the Ascension Day date does vary the event always falls on a Thursday meaning a fiendishly Finnish option of two parkruns in one week presented itself and we couldn’t resist!
We walked to the start, which is near the Meripaviljonki floating panorama restaurant, where we’d eaten as the sun set the previous night. Now the sun was rising overhead bouncing off the water and it was evident that we weren’t the only visitors from the UK as the Brits and other tourists were convening en-masse proudly in milestone and DIY parkrun t-shirts, the parkrun ‘world tourists’ were here. The attendance record was clearly going to be broken.
The atmosphere was one of high comradery and festiviness. The Run Director warmly welcomed everyone and captured the many milestones people had engineered to coincide with this day. Directions were given, pictures with Finnish flags were taken and then we were off.
Tokoinaranta parkrun takes place in the Tokoinaranta bay. It is a lush green, well-maintained urban nature oasis. The course, on gravel and asphalt, is out and back again, however it goes up a hill of 50m, across a bridge which offers breathtaking views of the bay and Helsinki. It then continues down and around another section of the Toolonlanti area passing Alvar Aalto Finlandia house, made of marble and catching the sun and then down to the Opera House before coming back on yourself. This is a premier parkrun event.
People had travelled from near and far, most amazingly to me was talking to and learning about Helen from Huddersfield’s escapades. Helen, an official Parkrun Obsessive (completing over 50 parkruns in one calendar year) she retired last year secured her first British passport and hasn’t looked back since. This was her 7th different country for a parkrun!
It was lovely to see Jen and Elizabeth again aka the parkrun sisters. We’d previously met them at Amager Faelled parkrun in Denmark last year. You can follow their inspiring parkrun adventures on their brilliant Instagram account by clicking here. I also got talking to Simon. He shared that he met his now wife at a parkrun ambassador's events proving that parkrun really is where the magic happens.
There was much chat about where people would be doing their second Finnish parkrun with Tampere parkrun, the first Finnish event started in October 2017 or Pokkinene parkrun in Oulu the world’s most Northerly parkrun being people’s main contenders. Whilst others were heading to Norway to make it a Nordic weekend.
We decided having enjoyed this harbour parkrun so much that we’d do another harbour parkrun, Lahden satama parkrun in Lahti in just two days time!
For now what was left was to enjoy the national holiday in the happiest country in the world.
Happy Accession Day and happy running
Such an interesting read. Just hope the happiness overcame the cold!
How inspiring! Joy radiates from the page :)