the välimäki experience

Not much to report lately. I did the 10 000 meters in Otaniemi in the beginning of the month. Managed to do 34.16 with 16.54 first half. Quite uninspiring. The best effort of the month came last Saturday in Siikava, where I clocked in the legendary test route just 1 second short of my personal best. Now I’m writing this in Paris where I have tried to do some training on track. Been extremely awful. I have not managed to do basically anything that could be mentioned in public.

Just came from home route: 6.28, 6.28, 6.33, 6.30. First two 1 min, last one 2 min break. Felt from the start that it was going to be huge. The other day on Otaniemi 3 x 1500m completely opposite feeling: 5.00, 4.59, 5.02 and decided to walk away. I felt so tired. Today I had a better night behind and felt energized. Next tuesday there will be 10 000m in Otaniemi.

Last Saturday 6 x 1K on home route: 3.06, 3.08, 3.09, 3.07, 3.07, 3.00. Avg 3.06. 1 min breaks, last one 1.5 mins. Quite good.

Last night an increasing speed 1500m in Otaniemi: 4.40 (1K in 3.08, last lap 72). I was happy with that as well.

Otherwise it has been c. 50-70 km per week. Been too busy to run more than that…

It always feels great to find new artist. Today I found Mylene Farmer. Grazy. Wikipedia tells me she has sold more than 45 million albums. It’s all about the language barrier which affects everything. For example her videos beat everything else on YouTube in how explicit they are. Take Libertine as an example:

Sex sells? I disagree. This would not sell if the video would lack “art form” and if the music would be something else than perfect pop. Kate Ryan has performed some remakes. Compare Libertine here:

Cheaper video, no content. Passes all censors but looks uninteresting. Music is more upbeat, and technically perhaps more polished and pervasive. Like pretty much all “art form” today: a quick cover-up. Tastes good though…

I wrote about my business ventures three months ago. Things move quickly. The list looks now as follows:

• NTFS-3G, an innovative open source start-up providing plug & play Windows file system interoperability for consumer electronics and other embedded systems.
• DJ Online, the online music distribution system that last month closed a round from private investors and is now selling like bananas.

Other plans are more or less on hold.