Tiomila week

On Tuesday I called to Pipo and told him that I have flu. My throat was aching and my nose was quite blocked. We shared the same opinion that I will run if I don’t have any fever. I had to take few rest days and I made first training not until Friday morning. That time I was quite unsure about myself, but during the Friday jogging I noticed that my muscles are working great and even if my breathing was little bit difficult I knew that I could cope with my leg. Also that Night-O boosted my self-confidence.

4th leg - 03.57.45 - 04.39.52 (Kartta)

Although I felt quite calm I couldn’t get any sleep before my leg. It was exciting to watch how everybody did their share before me. J. Situation was chancing quite much during Hannus leg but I got instructions to observe what KOKs runner is doing.

It was really nice surprise that first leg was familiar beforehand. I got the feeling that I have done this already several times in my mind so I was eager to do it also in practice. No Problems. Neither with second or third control.

To the 4^th my plan was just to go over the valley pick the control,but I forgot to handle the control circle! I just ran from wrong side of the control knoll, didn’t see the flag and made that 30 secs mistake. Fortunately Jostein was following me. Then I was too eager to leave from the control after the mistake, didn’t do the basic job and check compass. The result can be read from the map. When I found my way to control the group of Halden, TP and some other teams came towards me. I think that we (with Jostein) were there like 15 secs behind. Next leg we were quite aggressive and it paid off and we caught the group.

Then the game called cat and mouse started. I think no one wanted to do any solution to a way or another. We still made I mistake to control 160 as a group. Speed was quite slow and at least me, Jostein and Vincent were watching what others are doing. I was convinced about our 4 last legs so I didn’t wanted to solve anything in negative way, I just needed to come together with KOK and HSK.  Maybe the funniest moment was to control 137 when some of the teams went straight and I thought that it might be little bit faster but when Vincent chose the path route along Jostein so I knew where my place wasJ.  In the end I just tried to play Adam place as close the leader as possible. The end of relay went like I imagined during the leg!

Afterwards I can say that it was my poorest personal performance this spring but fortunately it was good enough for the big goal. For the future I know that you don’t have do any magic tricks legs like this, just the basic work is enough.

- Jere