Jukola! Once again I was running the first leg for Lidingö. This time the forest was a bit rougher though, and we watched the girls make mistake after mistake. Everybody went off hard as usual, and I hit the first control fine. Then I made my biggest mistake - instead of taking the nice track route round to the left with an easy way into the control, I ran straight with Peter Öberg through the green area. This was a bad idea, and we compounded it by missing the control quite badly. Luckily I relocated pretty quickly, and within a few controls running really fast, I was back at the front. I ran in the front pack for the next few kilometers, and slowly people dropped away until I was only aware of 3 other people. At 19, 2 of them forked off to a different gaffle, and then it was just me and Peter. We had some different gaffles, but I ran well and at the TV control with 800m to go I was just in the lead. He was seriously motivated to win the leg, though, and the came sprinting past me - I was too tired to respond, and so he took the leg victory and I was 2nd, but almost 2 minutes in front of 3rd. A good start. The rest of the team was a bit up and down, some guys ran really good, others lost a bit and we finished 11th. It is disappointing to be outside the top 10 in both Jukola and Tiomila this year when we showed so much promise.
First leg results here
Relay results here
You can see my full map with tracking here (select 1st leg and Lidingö)
Forssa Games
Thursday was the Forssa Games, a high quality short distance race in Finland which many runners use as preparation or just some fun before Jukola. I made a bad start when I didn't pick up control descriptions and got to the start wondering where they were - not on the map either so I was slightly cautious. Didn't get a great line to number 1, but ran well to number 2. Number 3 I missed maybe 30-40 seconds, and then Jörgen Wickholm caught me at number 4 running really fast. We took different routes to 6 and 8, but we came together at the controls, and we had a really good speed. He missed number 9, so I took that first. I was a bit confused at the last control (actually there were 3) - especially without codes. Really pleased with 8th place, 1.10 behind Pasi Ikonen. I won a gas barbecue!
Results here
