My Adventures With Lasse

Heidi and I enjoyed this experience several years ago.
My Adventures With Lasse
by Michaek Sandrock
Eino cackles as the temperature in Lasse Viren's sauna gets hotter and hotter. Soon, sweat is beading up on our bodies, and I have a vaguely uncomfortable feeling that I may never get out alive. Viren takes a scoop from a wooden bucket and pours water on the rocks, making the heat even more intense. Eino stands on the top bench to get closer to the ceiling, where it's the hottest, and I wonder at what temperature blood begins boiling. Through a small window, I see pine trees waving invitingly. "Get up here!" Eino yells. "What are you, some kind of vimp?" I look pleadingly over at Viren, who simply shakes his head. "This is the old-style kind of sauna. It's woodburning, not electric," Viren says, explaining how he heated the rocks for several hours with a wood fire, allowing the heat to build gradually and giving the air a nice smell. "It's much better."
Finally Viren opens the sauna door, and we run across the grass and jump in the lake, feeling the clear water cool us down. After swimming for a bit, we climb out and towel off. Viren smiles. "Now you know what a real Finnish sauna is like." And after taking a Finnair Sports Tour to the 22nd annual Lassen Hölkkä - Lasse's Run - we know what Lasse Viren and Finland are like. There were 17 of us at Viren's brick house on the lake outside the small Finnish village of Myrskylä this September afternoon. Earlier in the day we had been among the 1,000 people taking part in one of the most famous races in Finland. Lassen Hölkkä was started in 1974 to honor Viren's 5,000- and 10,000-meter gold medals in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The race has been held yearly ever since, and Viren always runs, though he no longer wins (as he did three times). Past runners include Miruts Yifter, Gaston Roelants, Emiel Puttemans - and now us.
The highlight of the 10-day tour - which also included the Berlin Marathon - was this chance for a rare look at Viren, one of the all-time greats of running. As is true for Bill Rodgers or Frank Shorter, Viren's first name is enough to identify him; say "Lasse" in Finland and everyone knows whom you're talking about. Myrskylä, Myrskylä - the town is one of the most mysterious in running lore. For years I'd heard about it, as some kind of far-off sorcerer's realm in Finland, and now we were on our way there.
Some of us were a bit intimidated at the thought of meeting Viren, who has a reputation of being somewhat of a loner. We weren't alone in our feelings. Bill Rodgers, in his book Marathoning, writes, "I have beaten Viren several times since he won gold medals for the second time in the 5,000 and 10,000, but I still hold him in awe. I feel apprehensive about going near him. Is this man for real? He's a superman, almost. Yet he doesn't act that way at all."
The group took a bus to Myrskylä, complete with a video showing some of Viren's four Olympic victories. We passed tidy farms and endless miles of dirt and gravel trails through the pine and birch forests. The starting area for the race was a large field next to the clubhouse, or Kiparkatti, of Myrskylän Myrsky [Stormville Stormers], the running club Viren has belonged to since he was a teenager. Viren traveled around the world many times, but he always returned to Myrskylä, and you can see why. He is well known there, and there is a real sense of community in the town.
We stand amidst the Finnish runners, stretching and talking, when all at once, there he is, Lasse Viren, looking much like he did in his glorious Olympic victories: long-legged, gaunt, lean, sporting a beard. He's wearing sweats, walking around talking to runners, making last-minute arrangements.
He comes over to the group and asks me, "Which are you running, the 10- or 20K?"
"Neither. I didn't bring my shoes."
"You didn't come all this way to watch!" bellows Eino, a well-known sculptor who was Viren's manager in the U.S. for many years. "What size shoe do you wear?"
"Ten."
"Hey, Lasse. Do you have any extra shoes?" Viren rummages around in the back of his late-model Peugeot and pulls out a pair of pale-blue Asics. I sit down and pull on the shoes. They are a little tight, but hey, they're Lasse Viren's shoes, and suddenly I'm ready to rumble.
Lassen HölkkäSo when the gun goes off, there I am, running down the road in the large pack, checking out the runners next to me. We turn onto a forest path and I take a deep breath, thinking, "Yes, we're running in Finland, land of Paavo Nurmi, Ville Ritola, Hannes Kolehmainen, Lasse Viren. We're back at the roots of running!" We pass through Myrskylä, where a bust of Viren overlooks a lake. When three Finns pass me, I look down at Lasse's shoes and go with them. Like Dorothy's ruby slippers in Oz, the shoes seem to give me more power. I feel good, strong, and fast - until I realize I'm going downhill. On the uphill, the others steadily pull away, and instead of staying with them I begin looking at the changing colors in the trees.
These are the trails where Viren prepared for three Olympic Games training countless miles under the watchful eye of coach Rolf Haikkola, now retired and waiting back at the clubhouse. Viren never did much track work; one of his toughest workouts was hill repeats near the race course. And here we are, running up his trails, through quiet pine forests, then onto the road back through Myrskyla, past a cinder track and the bust of Viren. When a flying Finn tries to pass me near the end, I click my heels and sprint, finishing in 34:30, roughly 20th place. The main event is the 20K, which is even prettier, those running it tell me. Oregon's Matt Messner, who earned the trip to Lasse's Run by winning its sister race in Coos Bay, comes down the last hill, makes the turn into the finishing straight in the lead. But he is outkicked by a former Finnish Olympic steeplechaser. Viren comes in several minutes later, looking smooth as ever.
"It was OK," Viren says. "I've only run once since the Stockholm marathon [in June], because of an injury."
LASSE'S HOUSEThe awards ceremony is held in the Kiparkatti, where Viren's 1972 Olympic 10,000-meter medal is on display. Every finisher gets an imitation Olympic medal. Afterwards, we pile in the bus and drive through town to Viren's home. The sauna is in a separate building that looks like a small house. Built by locals for Viren after his first Olympic victories, it has a kitchen and a large waiting room with a table and chairs. You sense immediately upon walking in that the sauna is something special in Finland. The women take the first sauna. Michelle LeBrun, who ran her first 10K while on the trip, says, "I was a little shy at first, but then you start to feel comfortable. Someone told me, If you don't take that towel off, you're going to be real hot. It was great when I took the plunge into the 40-degree water.
While waiting for the women to finish, the men in the group sit and talk with Viren and friend Seppo Pukkila, who has stopped by after running the Lassen Hölkkä. We pepper them with questions about the old days of Finnish running. There was great depth in Finland. Pukkila ran 29 minutes and was ranked only 30th in the country. There were many others chasing Viren in the 1970s, including Martti Vainio, Juha "The Cruel" Vddtdinen, and Seppo Tuominen. But Viren was something special, says Pukkila. "He wanted to win the Olympics above all else. That's the main reason he was so good." "Lasse never talked much about his training," recalls his wife Päivi, a teacher in Helsinki. "No matter what the weather, he just went out and ran. He never complained or missed a workout." What about food? "No, he had no special diet. Lasse ate everything, including meat."
Soon it's our turn for the sauna. As we go in, Viren says, "I often took saunas to relax after a workout, but never before a race. It could be too relaxing." He's right, and it feels so good that I repeat the process a second time, enjoying the contrast of heat and cold as I jump into the lake.
After dressing, we go into the house, where Päivi has prepared a spread. We sit and talk, drink coffee, and have "goodies," as Eino calls Finnish pastries. The house has a cultured yet comfortable air. There's a warm, cozy kitchen, paintings and etchings on the walls, soft leather couches, and lots of crystal (often given as prizes in Finland).
"I was sitting on the couch," says LeBrun, "when Lasse came and sat down next to me. Oh my god, that's Lasse Viren, I thought. I froze. But then he started chatting with us, and I saw that he was a regular guy.
You don't realize that until you get the chance to meet him, because he's such a famous guy."
The trophy room The highlight for the hardcore runners in the group comes when we gravitate toward a small room in the back of the house where Viren keeps his trophies. The room is packed with medals, cups, and trophies. "You see," says Eino, "sometimes people in the U.S. say, "Oh, Lasse didn't do anything between the Olympics." But look around. He did a lot." Indeed, the room is full of mementos from a long career at the top. On a shelf are three trophies from the International Amateur Athletic Federation, given for Viren's three world records: the 2-mile (8:14.0) on Aug. 14, 1972; the 10,000 meters in the 1972 Olympics (27:38.4); and the 5,000 (13:16.4) on Sept. 14, 1972.
How pleasant it was to sit and visit with Lasse, drinking strong coffee, looking at his awards. On one wall is a large photo of a fallen Viren, looking up from the track where he has tumbled during the 1972 10,000 meters, with Mohammed Gammoudi lying next to him. Viren got up to win the race and set the world record, while Gammoudi stayed lying on the track. Surprisingly, when Viren is asked to name his favorite race, he says the 2-mile record, where he hammered Dave Bedford, Dick Quax, Puttemans, Ian Stewart, and Anders Gdrderud. "Because it was my first important international win," he explains What about the Olympic 10,000? "It was a good race," he shrugs. Have you noticed that the better a runner is, the less he talks about himself? So it is with Viren. Fortunately, Viren's friends speak for him, and Pukkila says the 5,000-meter gold medal run in Montreal in 1976 "was Lasse's most genius' race. He was just amazing there." "I had two tactics before the race, depending on what the others would do," Viren explains. After the field let the pace dawdle the first 3,000 meters, Viren went to the front and stayed there. "That's what my coach told me to do."
Viren comes back with his gold medal. "Go ahead, you can hold it," he tells us. It is solid, and heavy, and in the late afternoon light, it seems to glow. That alone was worth the trip to Finland, to hold the 1972 Olympic gold medal. It's as close to Olympic glory as any of us in the group will get, and we rub it for good luck.
Too soon, it is time to go, and we say good-bye to the Virens, who walk us to the bus. Talking among ourselves, we agree that Lasse and Päivi are people of solid, down-to-earth values, as if they came from midwestern United States stock. Viren has a special place in track history, up there with Paavo Nurmi and the original Flying Finns, Emil Zatopek, Roger Bannister, and Frank Shorter. Keeping that legacy in mind, we ask if we weren't intruding on their privacy.
"No, not at all," Päivi says. "We enjoyed having you here. Runners are nice people; that's the same the world over, don't you think?"