I almost ran at World Champs

Today was the day. 3000m at Master's (35-39 age group) World Championship in Jyvaskyla, Finland. Everything was set, and even I was at the scene early enough to register myself and enjoy the international atmosphere. I even had my brand new national team outfit ready. I enjoyed the company of Kero brothers and T "the machine" S during the warmup. It was snowing heavily.

But after all the trouble I did not start the race. Not even if I was only half meter away from starting line at the right time. I just wasn't allowed to start... What happened was that the organizers registered me for Sunday's HM, not for today's 3000m. Even if I specifically asked them to do otherwise. This mistake was realized only 10 minutes before the start during the calling. Thereafter, I ran with one member of huge organizing team back to the registration desk. There they slowly made several phone calls in order to reach the head judge and explain the situation. Finally, they got me in the race and this happened only because the organizers made the mistake, not me. But I thank them for helping me here.

When I got "you are good to go", the start was in 3 minutes. After this unexpected cool down I ran pretty fast to the track, and for my surprise I was at the start at the right moment. It felt great. They started to yell competitors' name and put them in line. List ended without my name and since they didn't have updated starting list my first race in WMA Champs finished with DNF (even if it really was DNS).

Nice.

At least we had great pizzas in the evening...