Every single street Helsinki

We are Mark Potze and Vincent Weeda, both Dutch and both living in Finland for about 5 years. We decided to challenge ourselves to run every single street in Helsinki during the year 2021.

We completed the challende on December 5th and MTV3 was there with us on the final run:

Our runs
Our progress
About the challenge
Hoka One One
In the media

Folluw us on:

Our runs

Our progress

100%

Challenge completed!!!

1859	km
135	runs
3719 / 3719	streets

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About the challenge

We saw a short documentary about Rickey Gates, an American ultra-runner who decided to run every single street of San Fransisco. We got inspired and in the end of December 2020 we joked to each other that we should do the same in Helsinki in 2021. After some quick research we found out that the streets in Helsinki comprise of roughly 1300km and when running 30% extra (for example because of dead-end streets) we would need to run around 1700km. For us that is still a lot, but not impossible, so we decided to go for it. We started gathering the tools for planning our routes and tracking our progress. After some trial and error we are now using QGIS to plan our routes, Strava to record our runs and Citystrides to track our progress. We are manually planning our routes and for each area we try to create the shortest route, while still covering every street completely. It's the so-called Chinese Postman problem.

This challenge makes us see the city of Helsinki from a whole new perspective. Usually we run in parks or gravel roads somewhere away from traffic. Now we try to avoid those unnamed paths and stick to the actual streets with a streetname. It's a great way to discover new neighborhoods in the city and even new places in the very same neighborhood where you live. We hope to inspire you to take a different walking/running route every now and then. An easy start is to follow your favorite route in opposit direction.

Watch below the short documentary that sparked our challenge, but be aware that you might find yourself walking or running all the streets in your own neighborhood soon!

Running close to 2000km within one year requires good gear and of course great running shoes. We are proud ambassadors of Hoka One One, the supplier of our running shoes and gear for this challenge. We have been able to test different types of shoes for different types of runs:

For the daily training the Clifton 8 is a great, lightweight option with lots of cushioning to protect the joints. Mark ran on versions 7 and 8 and noticed clear improvements in the Clifton 8 in terms of comfort. Vincent has also run on the Arahi 5, which is designed for runners that pronate. It is the most lightweight stability shoe Vincent ever ran on, yet it still gave enough anti-pronation support to prevent injuries.

A little bit more stripped down daily trainer is the Mach 4, which has very responsive cushioning. So it's also perfect for tempo runs and even some speed work! We both really enjoy running on these!

On race day Mark will be running on the Carbon X 2, a shoe with carbon plate, designed for long distance races. Vincent ran his half marathon PB and 10km PB this year on the Rocket X, a stripped down carbon plated shoe, which is perfect for road races up to half marathons.

In the media

Find out what others are saying about our challenge: